When you’re a successful actor looking for the next challenge, that next challenge is often to direct a movie. Add Keanu Reeves to that list of actors.
His first time in the big chair is a martial arts film called Man of Tai Chi. In it Reeves plays the owner of a Beijing underground fight club who recruits a skilled tai chi practitioner (Tiger Hu Chen) to battle on his deadly martial arts circuit.
There’s a new international trailer for Man of Tai Chi out today and in it you can get a look at Reeves, Tiger and all the action. As the star fighter of the movie was also Reeves’ martial arts trainer and stunt double from The Matrix series, we expect some pretty great fights from this one.
We hope Keanu’s direction will rise to the occasion too. Look for Man of Tai Chi to arrive in theaters later this year.
Today, Warner Bros dropped the first trailer for the sequel to 300 called 300: Rise of an Empire. Because this is so new, we won’t waste a lot of time on analysis and just say this looks pretty cool to us. Plus, Eva Green. Just sayin’.
It also has that guy from the Cinemax show Strike Back, which we like and think is one of the best action shows on TV. Other than that, hope you enjoy it too.
As I’ve said before, one of my favorite parts of working with The Flickcast is the ability to check out some awesome trade shows like E3, Wondercon and Comi- Con and then have the chance to share them with our readers. On of best ways to do that has always been photo galleries. Now, I want to apologize a little (even though it isn’t my fault) that E3 has reduced the amount of booth babes at the show so there isn’t a plethora of photos from the show floor with half naked women.
But you have to remember, E3 is a trade show with industry professionals. It can’t be all T & A like Comic-Con.
This year was actually my first E3 and unfortunately I was only able to go to the show for one day. But I did get hands on with some stuff on the floor. I had the opportunity to play Diablo III on the PlayStation 3 and it actually felt like a very different experience than the PC version. Aside from it working properly, it also felt more like a button masher in the same vein as Gauntlet Legends. Also got to try out the new LEGO Marvel Super Heroes which was pretty awesome too.
While some arguments still rage after the E3 Press Conference backlash between the PlayStation 4 and the XBox One, what one can’t argue is the power of Activision/Blizzard in 2013. Whether or not you like their games, there is no denying that Activision/Blizzard is set to make a mint this year with the multiplatform releases for Diablo III, Destiny, Call of Duty: Ghostsand, of course, SkylandersSWAP Force.
In spite of Disney’s attempt to make its way into the collectible interactive figure game market with Disney Infinity, the legacy of the current Skylander player bases’ collections is going to continue to drive sales of both the game and the record setting release of new figures along with this iteration of the franchise.
In addition to the 256 combinations of new characters made by the 18 two part new SWAP force characters, there will be a horde of other figures both new and remodeled from previous series for players to collect as well leading to the largest expansion of the franchise to date.
Just when you thought we couldn’t get any more cool trailers for today, along comes this new one for Peter Jackson’s second installment of The Hobbit trilogy. Sorry, having to type ‘The Hobbit Trilogy” reminds us we were angry about this one book having to be split into three movies.
However, we’ll try to get over it, at least for today. That way, we can take a look at this trailer objectively and enjoy the fact that, at long last, we get a glimpse of the dragon Smaug.
From the looks of things, Jackson at least knows his way around a dragon. Plus, it’s nice to see Orlando Bloom show up again in what looks like two different roles. Guess he was jealous of John Rhys-Davies during the last trilogy.
Anyway, take a look at the trailer after the break. Look for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to arrive in theaters on December 13.
Let’s face it, sometimes it’s fun to check your brain at the door and watch people blow stuff up on the big screen. Well, it you do like that, we’ve got a movie for you.
It’s called White House Down and it features Channing Tatum protecting Jamie Foxx as the President of the United States after terrorist attack the White House and, well, blow a lot of stuff up. There’s a new trailer out for the movie today and we’ve got it for you.
At almost four minutes, the trailer is chock full of explosions, shootouts and all the buddy cop-ish male bonding you would expect from a movie like this. And did we mention stuff explodes? Well, it does. A lot.
White House Down hits theaters on June 28. Check out the trailer after the break.
Even though Google is pretty much the king of maps and traffic avoidance these days, it would seem the company wants to do it even better. So, with that in mind, today Google announced they are buying Waze, the GPS social traffic app that updates routes and drive information in real-time as users post updates.
The app has voice navigation, shows community-contributed road alerts, learns from your frequently traveled routes, and can even find the cheapest gas station near you, all based on community interaction with other users. With over 10 million downloads via the Google Play store and at least as many in iTunes, Waze has quite a large user base. With this, Google is hoping to further improve the ability for its Maps app to help drivers avoid those pesky long commute times.
According to the company, they are “excited” about the prospect of “enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features” already used by Waze. They are hoping to “outsmart traffic together.”
Let’s hope they can. We, like everyone else in the world, hates traffic.
Looking back at the events of the previous day, I believe two things happened. First, Microsoft went in with the plan of throwing caution to the wind and hoping for the best. Second, Sony had two conferences ready to roll out. And here is why.
After letting details out before E3 about what the XBox One would do to handle used games and DRM, Microsoft went out hoping their exclusives for the system like Dead Rising 3, Halo 5 and KillerInstinct would be enough to turn the tide on their perception and then announced the $499 price point. And then Sony went…
During a keynote presentation Monday morning in San Francisco, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to bring a whole host of new and shiny Apple stuff to a massive crowd of cheering fans/developers. Since this was a developer conference, the most important thing was, of course, the announcement of the next gen of iOS called iOS 7.
But that wasn’t all. Also announced was an update to Mac OS X called Mavericks, Apple’s new streaming service called iTunes Radio and new hardware including revamped MacBook Air laptops as well as a completely reimagined Mac Pro.
Here’s a list of all the announcements:
• New version of Mac OS X called Mavericks. That’s right, no more cat names. Now, cool surf spots in California instead.
• New version of iOS called iOS 7. No cute nickname but lots of innovative features and a new, fancy UI design.
• Updated MacBook Air laptops. Longer battery life and better WiFi speed with 802.11AC
• Completely reimagined Mac Pro desktop. For those who need to do some heavy lifting. It looks like a round version of the tower in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
We’re big Aaron Sorkin fans around here. His TV shows and movies are among the best written of all time. In short, he’s a master wordsmith.
We’ve been watching his HBO series The Newsroom since day one and are very excited to see the next season when it arrives next month. To help get you as excited as we are, there’s a new trailer for the season out and we’ve got it for you.
This season looks to be even more intense and this trailer goes a long way to prove that. Look for The Newsroom to arrive on July 14th.
With several successful shows under its virtual belt, including Spartacus: War of the Dammed, Magic City and Da Vinci’s Demons, Starz has become another great destination for new, original content. They’ve got a new show coming soon, called The White Queen, that hopes to add to their already excellent reputation.
We’ve got a trailer for the new show to share with you today. But first, here’s some info about the show from the official press release:
In the STARZ original drama, the year is 1464, before the Tudor dynasty ruled England, and war has been ravaging throughout the country over who is the rightful king. It is a blood feud between two sides of the same family; The House of York and The House of Lancaster. The House of York’s young heir Edward IV is crowned King of England with the help of his mentor and advisor, the master manipulator Lord Warwick, known at court as “The Kingmaker.”
When Edward falls in love with a beautiful Lancastrian commoner, Elizabeth Woodville, Warwick’s plan to control the throne comes crashing down. A violent, high-stakes struggle for the crown ensues between Elizabeth, her fiercest adversary, Lancastrian Margaret Beaufort and Anne Neville, a pawn in her father’s power game.
In just a few short hours, the E3 conferences begin and as we’ve all seen these can be the biggest moments of the expo and often influence the nature of the industry for the coming year and even further. In the past, these conferences have also made significant impact on who lost in the coming year as a lack of hype for certain companies made others look even greater by comparison.
The one given for this E3 above all else is that Nintendo doesn’t have anything big to reveal. While they will probably be making announcements from the show floor and through Nintendo Direct and shoving off various new games, potentially including new details on the upcoming Wii U SmashBrothers, they actually are not going to have a Nintendo Press Conference. After two years of lackluster results pushing the Wii U to the mainstream media through E3 press, Nintendo is backing off hopefully to reevaluate where the console stands in the market and figure out a way to focus back on their core audience they lost with the Wii.
Okay, we’ll admit it. At first, when he showed up in director Timur Bekmembetov’s Wanted as the young assassin in training, we didn’t care all that much for James McAvoy. But over the years, he’s really grown on us.
In fact, his take on a young profesor Xavier in X-Men: Fist Class is one of our favorites. Now, McAvoy is in a new movie called Filth, based on the Irvine Welsh novel.
The movie features McAvoy as a bigoted and corrupt cop who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Sounds good. We expect nothing less from the guy who wrote the novel Trainspotting.
Also in the movie are Imogen Poots, Jamie Bell, Joanne Froggatt, Eddie Marsan and Jim Broadbent. Filth is set to hit the UK in Septmenber with a US release to follow.
If you read that headline, you may be confused. What exactly is Amazon Storyteller? Well, it’s a new service from Amazon Studios that allows writers to turn their scripts into storyboards, complete with characters and dialog.
This new storyboard can then be shared with others for feedback. The new service launched today, but is currently in beta. The best part, it’s free.
“We’ve found that many writers want to see their story up on its feet in visual form but find it harder than it should be to create a storyboard,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “Storyteller provides a digital backlot, acting troupe, prop department and assistant editor—everything you need to bring your story to life. We want to see great stories turned into movies and television shows and we’ll continue to develop new features and tools that help people develop great stories.”
Want to know more? Here’s how it works:
Storyteller begins by scanning a movie script that has been uploaded to Amazon Studios. It identifies the scenes, locations and characters from scene descriptions, and “casts” them from a library of thousands of characters, props and backgrounds. Filmmakers can recast or change locations, or they can upload their own images.
With E3 just around the corner, the news cycle doesn’t start a few days early as publishers and developers look to get their smaller bytes out just before the flood gates open. It starts a week out. And with that first wave comes a look at LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. In the horde of stories coming out in the E3 before the next generation of console launches, Traveller’s Tales and WB Games were smart to get us these screens early.
The latest shots from LEGO Marvel Super Heroes shows some characters we already knew were coming to the game like Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man and Thor in the staple of Marvel locales New York City and the newly announced Asgard. The crazy thing is Asgard and especially its rainbow bridge look pretty darn beautiful in LEGO. But with all the new visual glory coming soon from the PS4 and XBox One, it’s probably for the best we see these graphics now rather than after the Microsoft and Sony press conferences.
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