At The Flickcast, we have a special appreciation for anyone who has been able to harness the power of the Internet and use it as a tool to make their way into the spotlight. One such example of this in the world of wrestling is John Morrison. After a stint on ECW, John Morrison was relegated to mid-card matches on SmackDown until he was paired up with the Miz and won the WWE Tag Team titles.

There, the two came up with the Dirt Sheet, a weekly internet short on WWE.com which quickly skyrocketed the pair’s popularity. After that, Morrison and Miz have both been on the top of the card for both TV and Pay-Per-View.

At Comic-Con, we got the chance to sit down with John Morrison who is currently preparing for his upcoming SummerSlam match against the Nexus. He won’t be alone though as he is joining John Cena, R-Truth, Chris Jericho, Edge, The Great Khali and the legendary Bret “The Hitman” Hart in the ring.

John talks about his Muscle and Fitness cover and his workout ethic. John also gives us an in-depth analysis of his mindset and that of the rest of “Team Morrison” for his upcoming SummerSlam match. He discusses his new action figure and we even ask John about the future of a possible Dirt Sheet reunion.

Check out the full interview below and check back often for more upcoming interviews with some fan favorites at WWE.

Continue Reading →

There’s a lot of cool tech on the horizon, but there wasn’t much I’ve wanted to try more than Sony’s motion controlled software, Playstation Move. Luckily, Move was in full force at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, and I got my hands on that lolly pop-looking controller and gave it a go. My first experience with Playstation Move came in the form of a game called Beat Sketchers, which was just as good a game as any to give me a feel for this new technology.

Beat Sketchers is essentially Microsoft Paint, except for your television. Using the Playstation Move’s camera and the Playstation Move controller, players can draw, splash, and doodle all over themselves and everything around them on screen, using the Move as a paintbrush and their surroundings as a canvas.

I had a lot of fun using this game to test out the Playstation Move, which was more responsive than I expected. Since it does use the Playstation Eye instead of a sensor bar to sense your movements, gameplay never felt interrupted by a connection problem between the controller and the system.

Continue Reading →

During preview night at San Diego Comic Con, the Flickcast got a few minutes to catch up with TNA wrestler Mr. Anderson. After being suddenly released from his WWE contract, the former Mr. Kennedy began a series of viral videos that would eventually lead to a contract with his new employers, Total Nonstop Action.

Anderson, an avid video game fan, was making his second trip down to SDCC to see all the new games being shown for the first time on the show floor before heading off this weekend for a house show tour with TNA.

Check out the video after the jump where Ken talks about the differences working in TNA compared to his time with WWE. Ken also talks about how his career has gone since joining TNA as well as having his first television program with former Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle.

You can follow Ken on his Twitter account to keep abreast of the rest of his adventures at Comic Con.

Stick to The Flickcast for all your San Diego Comic-Con coverage including how the world of professional wrestling crosses paths with comics and all things geek.

Continue Reading →

Going as far back as 1982′s Rocky III, Vince McMahon and his WWE (then WWF) have been trying to integrate with Hollywood by blending their top performers into mainstream films. The result has been as infamous as Mr. Nanny and as famous as The Marine, with most falling somewhere in between. It seems that their newest venture could be closer to the former, as they delve back into comedy.

In the newest film, titled The Chaperone, the studios are tapping one of the main headliners of the past decade, Triple H, for the leading role. To amp up interest, they have also snagged veteran 80′s comedy director Steven Herek (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) to take on the film. Given the premise from a WWE press release, it may not turn out as bad as Mr. Nanny.

Ray Bradstone (Paul “Triple H” Levesque ) is the best “wheel man in the business,” but he is determined to go straight and be the best parent he can be to his daughter, Sally (Ariel Winter), and make amends with his ex-wife, Lynne (Annabeth Gish). As Ray struggles to find honest work, his old bank-robbing crew, led by Phillip Larue (Kevin Corrigan), offers him one last job. He agrees at first, but changes his mind at the last second leaving the crew without a driver.

Continue Reading →

This Sunday at 8PM EST on ABC, Brie Bella, along with her sister Nikki, WWE Superstars R-Truth and the Big Show, and Nascar legend Jeff Gordon will be appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On the episode, these five stars teamed up to help out Amanda and Derrick Suggs, a couple with two children of their own who also adopted Amanda’s younger siblings to prevent them from being placed into foster care.

We recently got to chat with Brie, one half of the WWE’s hottest twins (no offense, Earl and Dave Hebner). Take a look below at what Brie has to tell us about this unique experience as well as her time in WWE and being the local girl at this year’s WrestleMania 26.

The Flickcast: For those who aren’t familiar with you and your sister can you just give a quick little intro on how you got on TV?

Brie Bella: Well we are the Bella twins, Nikki and Brie Bella and I actually debuted on SmackDown first. I started wrestling against Victoria and Nikki and I had our little tricks up our sleeve with some twin switches and then in November (of 2008), the twins debuted together. So since then we’ve been a strong tag team and been on SmackDown, ECW and Raw. Now we are the guest host assistants on Monday Night Raw.

TFC: Well speaking of tag teams, the reason we are talking with you today are because you and your sister are appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and you had some interesting partners pairing up with you. You had R-Truth and the Big Show, both WWE Superstars, as well as Jeff Gordon. Would you like to tell us about working with them?

Continue Reading →

One week after WWE’s headline Pay-Per-View WrestleMania 26, Ring of Honor will put on a pro-wrestling first. On Saturday April 3rd, ROH (as it is affectionately referred to as) will put on the first ever internet only Pay-Per-View  event.  Entitled “The Big Bang”, the event will emanate live from the Grady Cole Center in Charlotte, NC for a live audience and be streamed live over  ROH’s partners at Gofightlive.TV.

It is actually a surprise that ROH is the first company to try this. WWE has been streaming Pay-Per-View events simultaneously with on-air broadcasts for years and had internet interactivity for years but has never dedicated itself to an online only Pay-Per-View.

Total Nonstop Action tried a Pay-Per-View only format for the company in its infancy but eventually made their way to Spike TV where their show Impact competes weekly now against WWE’s Monday Night Raw. Ring of Honor has experimented with various Pay-Per-View models in the past to varying success and now resides alongside its big brothers on Monday nights. ROH doesn’t directly compete with WWE and TNA though as they have an hour broadcast from 8 to 9 PM on HDNet which ends safely before Raw or Impact.

Continue Reading →

For the first time in nearly nine years, WWE’s Monday Night Raw went head to head with opposing wrestling programming. TNA, who’s normal timeslot runs on Thursday night from 9 to 11, has made the jump to Monday nights in hopes of going head to head with Monday Night Raw much like WCW Nitro did for the first time back on September 4th, 1995. This rivalry lead to some of the greatest programming in wrestling history in the eyes of its fans.

TNA Impact’s first weekly Monday night episode drew a 0.98 cable rating and drew 1.4 million viewers. This rating was down 12% and it’s viewership down 6.1% compared to the preview week’s Thursday edition of Impact. Surprisingly headlined by some of the very same performers from Nitro like Sting, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, it is likely that TNA and Spike TV officials were not thrilled with only a 1.0 rating.

On the other hand, WWE’s Monday Night Raw counted in a 3.4 cable rating and 5.1 million viewers based on the overnight reporting. Raw saw a 7.4% drop in ratings and a 4.2% drop in viewership showing that TNA’s move may have affected Vince McMahon and USA Network’s Monday night programming staple.

Continue Reading →

It may not be as obvious as our love for movies, TV or comics, but we do love video games around here as well. One of the companies we frequently seems to purchase games from is Activision. Their titles, including the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero franchises, are among the most fun and most successful out there. Another one of their games that looks to be pretty great as wels is the upcoming Blur racing game.

We’ve had trailers and screenshots from the game previously and now we’ve got another trailer for the game to share with you today. In this one, Activision takes you under the hood and features the Bizarre Creations development team, who created the game for publisher Activision, discussing Blur’s storyline, unique driving styles, impressive stunts and more.

In case you haven’t been following our coverage of the game before, Blur is, according to Activision: “the ultimate powered-up racing experience, dropping players into heart-pumping, electrified action with multiple cars trading paint as they charge towards the finish line.” Does that sound like fun, or what?

Blur will be available this spring for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Until then, check out this latest trailer after, you guessed it, the jump.

Continue Reading →

Clint Eastwood follows up his racially charged Gran Torrino (2008)  with a movie that is based on historical events that occurred shortly after Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa in 1994.  Post apartheid South Africa was still deeply racially divided and Mandela had the idea that getting the entire country behind their Rugby team  (The Springboks) would help unify it.

Problem is, for a movie that is supposed to be an inspiring story about an underdog sports team that overcomes enormous obstacles to win the World Cup, the movie feels very….uninspired.  I can’t really point to anything that is inherently wrong with the film, but I never felt emotionally invested in the team, and that makes for one long, dull movie.

The acting in the movie is quite good. A buffed up, blond Matt Damon plays the captain of the rugby team, Francois Pienaar.  He’s honorable and likable, and when he is summoned by Mandela to have tea, he shows the proper respect toward the man.

His light skin and light hair represent the white minority (Afrikaners) that has held most of the power in South Africa. Damon aptly handles the South African accent and seems well suited to the role.

Continue Reading →

There’s a lot of great writers in Hollywood and Aaron Sorkin is definitely one of them. Responsible for such great shows as Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Sorkin has brought us some incredible television. While his last series, Studio 60 was unfortunately canceled in its first season it thankfully hasn’t deterred Sorkin from returning to television.

So what is Sorkin’s new series going to be about? Well, television seems like a natural choice, “It’s going to be what turns out to be the third in the trilogy of TV shows that take place behind the scenes of a TV show, but this will be a different kind of TV show. That’s all I can let out of the bag right now.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m fully on board for anything Sorkin is doing but do we need another behind the scenes television show? I say this only because I think part of the reason Studio 60 didn’t get any traction is because many TV viewers had a hard time relating to those involved in the entertainment industry. Even I, a Sorkin fanboy, found it difficult to care for actors who, while living a very indulgent lifestyle, waxed poetic about how hard their respective lives were. Furthermore, is Sorkin ready to go head-to-head against 30 Rock again, the show that ultimately beat out Studio 60 in the long run?

Alright, my little rant aside, there’s still some promise here. Sorkin himself states the show “will be different” so maybe he recognizes what went wrong with Studio 60 and will avoid those mistakes in the new show. Only time will tell given he didn’t provide any other details.

Continue Reading →

I don’t particularly like Sandra Bullock, and I really dislike sports movies, so logic dictates that I would not care for The Blind Side. I saw the trailer, and like everyone else I wrote this film off as a heaping pile of Hallmark Channel goo.

I gritted my teeth and vowed to trudge through the movie, and instead I got one of the biggest surprises (to me) of the year. The Blind Side is good. Really good. Sandra Bullock gives her best performance to date. The story is touching, inspirational and timely.

In the tradition of Rudy, The Rookie, Remember the Titans, and Hoosiers, The Blind Side is based on a true story. Michael Oher is wandering the streets in Memphis in the bitter cold clad only in shorts and a t-shirt, when the wealthy Tuohy family sees him. After the daughter recognizes him from her school, Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) demands that her husband pull over the car.

She offers him a couch to sleep on that night, but after she discovers he has nowhere to go and no clothing, she buys him a wardrobe and eventually offers him a room in their palatial mansion. The Tuohys eventually adopt Michael, who went  on to play football at Ole Miss, and currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens as a rookie tackle.

Continue Reading →

To me, riding a skateboard is up there with other sports like surfing. I’ve tried it but I am in no way ever going to be as good at it as someone like Tony Hawk. He has the tools, the talent and the drive to become one of the greatest skateboarders the world has ever known. He’s also become a pretty huge gaming mogul in his spare time with a whole slew of games bearing his name.

His latest, called Tony Hawk: RIDE, is another in a series of what looks to be hugely successful games bearing the Hawk moniker. In this one, you actually ride the game controller version of a skateboard and try your best to shred like Mr. Hawk. The game also has a story to it as well and in this new trailer, graciously provided by our good friends at Activision, that part is showcased. Well, sorta.

To understand, just click through and watch the trailer for yourself. Its funny and it has a heart. . . in the right place. Tony Hawk: RIDE, from Activision and Robomodo, hits store shelves for XBox 360 and PS3 on November 17th.

Continue Reading →