The Hunger Games. What can you say about it? Well, it was a decent book that spawned a decent movie.

It also features the very cute Jennifer Lawrence, which doesn’t hurt. Of course, there’s a sequel, and it’s called Cathing Fire.

Of course again, a new trailer for the movie dropped during last night’s MTV Movie Awards. Don’t get us started on how useless the awards are, just enjoy the new trailer.

Or, don’t. No pressure. We won’t judge you either way. Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, and Josh Hutcherson are back for the Francis Lawrence (no relation)-directed November 22 sequel.

Check out the teaser after the break.

Continue Reading →

I feel like I’ve been writing the sentence, “I’m not sure whether the world was clamoring for a x remake…” and that’s probably more due to my utter lack of creativity than anything else. I’m sure most people in my generation, who have seen the original Red Dawn, already dislike the movie, so I feel the need to defend it somewhat, or at least point out some good things it does well. Though I’m more interested in whether John Milius, the writer/director of the original film, will hunt down and kill the makers of this film, not because it doesn’t do the original justice, but because his keen, feral senses no doubt have recognized them as competition, and to protect his domain, he must slaughter and eat any trespassers. And that would be an awesome movie. I already know who would play John Milius.

Anyway, Red Dawn. I’m not sure whether the world was clamoring for a Red Dawn remake, but this one is pretty entertaining. The Red Scare is all but over, and with Albania being the only place left to get furious communist thought, the baddies are transformed from the Russians into the North Koreans, which strangely works, as the higher-ups in North Korea seem like just the right kind of nuts to try something like invading the US.

Continue Reading →

The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises were not the only box office behemoths in the last year. The Hunger Games took the world by storm back in March raking in over $650 Million globally. That’s number that might seem quaint compared to Joss Whedon’s big budget nerd-gasem, but contextually it’s a massive hit on a surprising scale.

So all eyes are now on its sequel which is about to begin filming, and one of the major new characters has just be cast. Most people probably do not know the name Sam Claflin, but he has been in a few big budget blockbusters and now is primed to take the next step into wide-spread recognition, by taking on the role of Finnick Odair.

Claflin was a bit of an afterthought in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, but he actually turned in an impressive performance in Snow White and the Huntsman, so much so that some people actually liked his character more than Hemsworth’s Huntsman. Now he has a chance to turn heads in a film that will no doubt be a cultural event when it is released.

Hopefully this casting is another in the long line of impressive casting decisions so far in the series, managing to get good actors not just pretty faces like another sparkly franchise that has been popular lately.

Keep an eye on The Flickcast for any new Hunger Games news bits as the anticipated sequel heads towards production.

Some of you, if you’re old enough, may remember an 80′s action movie called Red Dawn, which was directed by John Milius and written by Milius and Kevin Reynolds. It featured a pretty good cast including Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey, Harry Dean Stanton and Powers Booth.

The film told the story of a band of High School students who fight against a Russian invasion of middle America and when it came out in 1984, it wasn’t exactly a blockbuster hit. Still, it did well enough and over the years it’s developed a pretty large cult following and many of us here at The Flickcast have a soft spot for it.

And now there’s a reboot. This time around the cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Dan Bradley is directing this time around and we’ve got the first poster for the film to share with you today.

Check out the full version after the break. Look for Red Dawn to hit theaters in November. Wolverines!

Continue Reading →

First off, I love animated films. That’s not the problem here. The problem is that if you go to the trouble to call your animated film Epic, it better be in no uncertain terms.

And don’t get me started on those ads for movies promising the film will “take your breath away.” That never happens. Anyway, I digress.

There’s a new animated film from the creators of Ice Age and Rio and a new trailer. We’ve got that second one for you today. But first, a bit of story:

EPIC tells the story of an ongoing battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and the forces of evil. When a teen age girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world . . . and ours.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Epic to hit theaters on May 24, 2013.

Continue Reading →

Lionsgate has released its first trailer for The Hunger Games, the Gary Ross-directed adaptation of the first of a trilogy of Suzanne Collins novels. In case you’re not familiar with the books and/or the upcoming film, here’s a bit of info directly from Lionsgate:

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the evil Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains.

Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Will this be good? Who knows. At least they don’t seem to be taking the Twilight approach and making it incredibly cheesy, so at least that’s something.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for The Hunger Game, which stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, to arrive in theaters on March 23rd.

Continue Reading →

There’s an old saying that goes something like “don’t fix something if it isn’t broken”. The people that manage Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s career obviously know this saying very well. When he broke the bank in Disney’s The Game Plan, they thought it may be a good idea to use him in a reboot of the classic Escape from Witch Mountain film.

That movie raked in millions as well, so what’s next? How about a sequel to a film from only a few years ago that was so bad, it forced Brendan Fraser out of the acting game completely. That’s where Journey 2: The Mysterious Island comes into play. Here’s the Rock-centered premise.

Young adventurer Sean (Josh Hutcherson) receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist–a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. Unable to stop him from going, Sean’s new stepfather (Johnson) joins the quest. Together with a helicopter pilot (Guzman( and his beautiful, strong-willed daughter (Vanessa Hudgens), they set out to find the island, rescue its lone inhabitant (Caine) and escape before seismic shock waves force the island under the sea and bury its treasures forever.

Can this franchise be saved by Dwayne’s comedic charm? Or will this fall under the umbrella of “bad ideas” that New Line has masterminded over the past years? Decide for yourself after the jump with the first trailer. Journey 2 hits theaters February 10th.

Continue Reading →

Even though I’m not all that enthusiastic about the upcoming big screen adaptation of The Hunger Games, I know some of you are. And because I love and respect all our diligent readers, we’ve got brand new character posters from the film to share with you today.

The poster collection includes some of your favorite citizens of Panem: Rue (Amandla Stenberg), Cato (Alexander Ludwig), Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), Effie (Elizabeth Banks), Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth).

In case you never read the book, here’s some info on the story:

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games.  Part twisted entertainment, part government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains.

Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy.  If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The Hunger Games opens in theaters everywhere March 23rd, 2012. Click through for some larger versions of the posters after the break.

Continue Reading →

Big book franchises are all the rage these days, obviously. Harry Potter is now out of theaters, Twilight only has another year left in it, and now it’s time for a brand new franchise to take over Hollywood, in the shape of kids fighting to eat in a post-apocalyptic world.

For those who aren’t aware, here’s the film’s synopsis, based on the first book in the trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. Part twisted entertainment, part government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains.

Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The first teaser trailer doesn’t give us much (just a “tease”, if you will), but it’s certainly enough to get us excited for the film’s release on March 23rd, 2012.

Continue Reading →

The Kids Are All Right opens with shots of 18-year-old Joni (a wonderful Mia Wasikowska) playing scrabble with friends and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) sniffing a crushed Sudafed with his skateboarding buddy Clay, all to Vampire Weekend’s “Cousins.” Joni and Laser are gorgeous, smart and nice. Despite the minor drug use and usual teenager angsts, they are, for the most part, very much all right.

But this movie is really about their parents—their mother Nic, a perfectionist, workaholic OB-Gyn (played by Annette Bening, who has made a career specialty out of wound-tight women), and their other mother, easy-going, nurturing earth girl Jules (a very fine Julianne Moore), who has maybe let her life slide past her. A long-married couple, Nic and Jules have, as parents do, put their kids first for so long that they have lost touch with themselves and each other.

And yet they remain very self-aware and caring people. When they question Clay’s rightness as a friend, it comes couched in a language of earnest self-actualization and higher consciousness that is both insightful and ridiculous: “It’s just that he seems… untended.” And “Is he the kind of friend who will help you grow?”

Untended Joni and Laser certainly are not. Nic and Jules are extremely conscientious parents, and a great deal of the humor in the early part of this film comes from the overmothering Joni and Laser endure. Nevertheless, Laser feels the lack of a male role model and it is at his urging that Joni, having recently turned eighteen, the age at which she can legally request contact, learns the identity of their sperm donor and gets in touch with him.

The sperm donor is Paul, played by the miraculous Mark Ruffalo, who can shade a dozen layers of feeling and thought into a single moment. I’ve sometimes found that his extraordinary openness can come off as ambivalence, but his characterization of Paul is founded on a bedrock of emotion. Paul is not only open to contact with Joni and Laser, he welcomes it.

Continue Reading →

The Vampire’s Assistant is based on the first three books in a series of twelve by Darren Shan. Like the Twilight series, The Vampire’s Assistant books are targeted towards young adults, and naturally this movie is as well. If you are not a tweener, or a fan of the book series, it is best to steer clear of this painfully bland adaptation.  The movie seems entirely too self-aware of its target audience, and consequently it takes the safe route at every turn throughout the film.  This results in a rather boring final product, despite some bright spots.

Darren  (Chris Massoglia) and his friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson) sneak out one night to attend a freak show in their area.  Ringmaster Mr. Tall (Ken Watanabe) introduces a plethora of captivating creatures, including a snake boy (Patrick Fugit of Almost Famous), a woman capable of spontaneously regenerating lobbed off  limbs (30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski), a bearded lady/psychic (Salma Hayek), and a girl with freakishly large teeth (Kristen Schaal), amongst others.

The opening scene featuring the freak show was my favorite part of the movie.  It aptly portrays the shock, excitement and disgust that two young boys would feel the first time viewing such an event.  It also had some very cool makeup/CGI effects.  Having been a fan of the original Freaks (1932) I tend to delight in this subject matter, and I was not disappointed.

Continue Reading →

Cirque du Freak: the Vampire’s Assistant, directed by About A Boy’s Paul Weitz and based on the series of young-adult novels by Darren Shan, is a surprisingly good movie with all the requisite scares, humor, characters and excellent performances (at least by most of the cast) you could want. Its a good time at the movies unencumbered by many of the things which handicapped something with similar subject matter like Twilight. The real trick here is that the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and in so doing, manages to be fun and entertaining as well as, at points, quite scary.

Going in to this film I was pretty ignorant of the subject matter and its origins, never better illustrated by my wondering why so many teenagers were in the screening of this film during Fantastic Fest. Also, having not read any of the 12 books of the Cirque Du Freak saga, I can’t say how faithful an adaptation it is of the book. But having any prior knowledge of these characters or reading the books is not really a prerequisite for enjoyment of this film. The world created by director Weitz and the rest of his team is fully populated and realized and envelopes you from the first moments. Its a world that anyone, child or adult, should have no trouble understanding and becoming enthralled by.

Fortunately, the filmmakers accomplish this without the need for lots of gore or real violence (the film carries a PG-13 rating) so this film, because of these reasons and due to its origins in the young adult series of novels, is suitable for most teenagers and adults alike. Although, adults may not appreciate one or two of the jokes that fall flat and may wish the film spent more time with the intriguing supporting characters rather than with the film’s two teenage leads, they will still find this a charming and entertaining good time.

Continue Reading →