Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Joel McHale, proving to us once again that he’s the man, stopped by The Today Show to pimp Community and mock Kathy Lee and Hoda.

• Halloween may be over, but here are some awesome costumes you may have missed.

• People and their damned streaming. Internets everywhere have been clogged up by the massive use of Netflix over the past week.

• A laptop desk that you can attach to your steering wheel? Not since the first porn film played on a portable in-car DVD player has another device potentially caused so many accidents.

• Miss last Sunday’s pilot of AMC’s The Walking Dead? Well lucky for you, the episode is currently online in its entirety.

• Getting your list on, as usual, here are 10 of the best lessons taught to us by comics.

• A group of die hard Harry Potter fans gathered in the center of Grand Central to reenact one of their favorite scenes. New Yorkers were not phased.

• It looks like he may not have found another Alias after all, as J.J. Abrams’ Undercovers has officially gotten the boot from NBC.

As summer dies down with explosive fire power and spiritual journeys to other lands, I recall the glorious action fest that was The Expendables. In turns out Julia Roberts has nothing on protein packed men with a mission on their minds. My female counterparts have voiced their love of meaty men in droves and unexpectedly taken away business from Julia’s love fest. Nearly 40 percent of The Expendables‘ audience was women. X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s audience raked them in as nearly 50 percent of the audience was female. It seems women have tired of the boys akin to Michael Cera and instead jones for something with a little more muscle. Stallone should have learned the key to Hugh Jackman’s success to driving women in throngs- taking off his shirt.

I hear Hugh gave up his lead in Avon Man to start his insane work-out to become the ferocious mutant once again. If you take months upon months to beef up like these 80‘s action legends did, you’d think they’d want to show it off. Plus, wasn’t it super hot in Louisiana and Brazil where The Expendables shot? It was like 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. Stallone couldn’t have been the only one who was feeling the heat.  Take off those shirts and up your female movie-going audience to 51 percent.

Continue Reading →

Friday has sorta turned into “Clip Friday” around The Flickcast offices seeing as how we tend to bring you previews of shows quite a bit at the end of the week. However, even though we do it frequently, that doesn’t make it any less fun — especially when the show being previewed today comes from none other than J.J. Abrams.

The show is Undercovers and we’ve brought you some info on it previously including a bit on the plot and a couple previews. Now, we’ve got even more to show you: Interviews with some of the cast and Abrams himself as well as a never-before-seen clips from the new show.

Pay close attention to the interview with Abrams because he talks about his love of the spy genre and also mentions another of our favorite shows that we’ve discussed arond here recently.

Click through for all the clips. Be sure to check out Undercovers when it premieres on NBC in the Fall and follow the show via Facebook and Twitter.

Continue Reading →

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by nobody and instead go it alone with a bunch of new topics. Some of these topics include Guillermo del Toro stepping down as director of The Hobbit, the upcoming films Splice and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World,  Donald Glover as Spider-Man, J.J. Abrams potential reboot of Alias and who the real protagonist of the Star Wars saga is.

The boys also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of  the talk show Shatner’s Raw Nerve and Chris’ pick of Rockstar Games’ hit Red Dead Redemption.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

I guess one show about spies isn’t enough for J.J. Abrams. With Undercovers currently going ahead at NBC, the writer-director-producer is now discussing the possibility of bringing back his earlier spy series Alias to ABC.

According to “insider” sources, the rebooted series would have some elements of the original that featured a then-unknown Jennifer Garner. However, it would be a more straightforward action/spy show and wouldn’t contain the mythology involving the Rimbaldi prophecy and subsequent other developments.

While discussion are only in the very preliminary stages, ABC would reportedly make this move in an effort to hold onto the audience they will be losing now that Lost has ended and FlashForward was cancelled. Plus, spies seem like a hot commodity on TV right now with the return next season of Chuck, USA’s Burn Notice still going strong and the upcoming debuts of the CW’s Nikita and the aforementioned Undercovers.

Given all that, it would seem the decision by ABC to reboot the show might be a good one. Still, you have to wonder about TV executives. They lose a show like Lost and the best idea they can come up with to “replace” it as to reboot a series that only lasted five years and towards the end got incredibly convoluted and lost a great deal of its audience?

Well, if a new Alias really does come to pass then my vote for the new Sydney Bristow is Kerri Russell. She was great as a spy (briefly) in Mission Impossible III so I think she would make a great choice. What do you guys think?

According to Variety, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the prolific writer-producers involved with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek and Fox’s series Fringe, have signed an exclusive three-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV. As part of the deal, which officially starts March 1, the duo will bring in show ideas, recruit writers to work with them and also create their own projects, either by themselves or with others.

According to the article, 20th Century Fox TV chairman Dana Walden couldn’t be happier with the deal. “We’ve been pursuing this deal for quite some time,” said Walden. “They would elevate any type of development. But they were very thoughtful about the kind of commitment they were making. They didn’t want to overpromise.”

As for the writer/producers themselves, they are equally as excited. “We’ve been excited about going back into TV, but wanted to wait until the feature side of our company was on its feet,” Kurtzman said.

“One of the things that drew us back to TV was the idea that we could do the kind of stories that we’re not known for in features,” said Orci. “From sci-fi to procedurals to medical genres, those are all the kind of shows that we love.”

For TV, the prolific pair are already overseeing CBS’ reboot of Hawaii Five-O, which recently got a pilot order. They are also producing a new animated version of Transformers for the Hub, the new Discovery/Hasbro joint venture that is set to replace Discovery Kids later this year. Even though they are still involved with Transformers, let’s hope their TV projects during this new deal are more like Fringe and less like Transformers.

Welcome to another edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews! This week we have a shorter list, but as you know, it’s about quality, not quantity. Besides, all of your favorites are here, including a couple of surprises. As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Wolverine: Under The Boardwalk one-shot
Marvel Comics – $3.99 US
Writer: Stuart Morre
Artist: Tomm Coker
Score: 8.5

About to board a plane for Alaska, Wolverine receives a mysterious text message asking him to go to Atlantic City instead. Stranger still is the reference to a man Logan hasn’t seen in 40 years, Phil De Blasio, a mafia underboss who tried to kill him last time they met. What transpired on that boardwalk all those years ago has found a way to catch up to him, much to Logan’s chagrin.

In this latest one-shot focusing on Wolverine, writer Stuart Moore crafts a mystery that takes the character from Atlantic City to Coney Island, searching for answers while being reminded that most of his memories contain violence for a reason. Where Moore differed from other recent writers of Wolverine-centric one-shots, however, is what made this issue work, and that is the fact that the writer never lost sight of how a haunted character like Wolverine really shouldn’t experience peace and closure.

Complimenting this wonderful story is the art by Tomm Coker. The artist, hands down, drew the nicest issue I’ve seen this week. A noir vibe that pulsates throughout, the art is every bit as scratchy and slashy as the character’s past has shown, and while the story centers more on inner reflections and whatnot, there’s still the occasional action shot that mirrors Wolverine’s famous savagery. Beautiful in every way, the art within this issue should not be passed up.

Continue Reading →