With NBC leaving us in shock after their midseason schedule change up, TV fans are a bit weary to hear about news of their favorite shows. Good news comes to those with cable, however, as FX announces their plans for Archer and Justified.

Not only will both shows be returning to prominent spots in the primetime lineup, Archer on Thursday, January 19th at 10pm and Justified on Tuesday, January 17th at 10pm, but they’ve got a brand new show to add to their ever-rising chunk of original content with the animated series Unsupervised.

“Unsupervised” is a comedy about optimistic best friends Gary and Joel, who navigate the harsh landscape of teenage life and trying to do what’s right without any parental guidance.

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Just when you thought it was safe to answer the phone again, Wes Craven and Kevin Williams (sort of) reunite to bring a whole new generation of teen victims some classic murders and rules to live by with Scream 4.

Just about everyone is back for this final scare, including Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette. Along with the legacy survivors, there are some great new additions this time, including Kristen Bell, Hayden Panettiere, Alison Brie, and Anna Paquin.

This time around you can expect more gore, more deaths, and more “teenage” girls running for their lives. We’ve got a taste of what you can expect in the film this weekend with four brand new clips.

Check out those clips after the jump, and be sure to race to theaters and support horror with Scream 4 in theaters this Friday.

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In addition to HBO, Showtime has also usually been a home for good original drama and comedy programming. From Weeds to The Tudors, Californication, Dexter and the recent The Borgias, the network has been pulling out all the proverbial stops to up the ante for pay cable entertainment.

Following that line, Showtime has given series commitments to two new show: the drama Homeland and the comedy House of Lies. Both have received 12-episode orders.

Homeland, which comes from 24 showrunner Howard Gordon, stars Claire Danes, Damien Lewis and Emmy-winner Mandy Patinkin. House of Lies stars Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell.

Here’s more info on each show:

Homeland, produced by Fox 21, is based on Gideon Raff’s Israeli series Prisoners of War. written by Gordon, Raff and Alex Gansa, it tells the story of Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes), a CIA officer battling her own demons, who becomes convinced that the intelligence that led to the rescue of Scott Brody (Damian Lewis), a U.S. soldier who had been missing and presumed deal for nine years, was a setup and may be connected to an Al Qaeda plot to be carried out on American soil. Mandy Patinkin plays Saul, a veteran CIA Division Chief who is Carrie’s (Danes) boss and mentor.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt are back and ready to talk about a whole bunch of new and sorta new topics. Yes, they sometimes repeat themselves. But with 70 shows in the can, it’s bound to happen sometimes.

This week sees the boys talking about some of the new TV premieres this week including HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, Hawaii Five-O, season four of Chuck, The Event and more. They also discuss the merit of Disney movies, the return of other shows including The Big Bang Theory, Ryan Reynolds next projects, Jon Hamm as Superman, the awesomeness and success of Halo Reach and more.

Chris and Matt also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of the awesome Veronica Mars and and Chris’ pick of the upcoming David Fincher film The Social Network.

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.

There aren’t very many comedies that we’re looking forward to this year at The Flickcast offices. We already got our hopes up with Will Forte’s MacGruber, so all bets are off on what will turn out to be genuinely funny or not. We’re hoping that this Friday’s Get Him To The Greek may be one of those that sneak under the radar.

The film is essentially a spin off of 2008′s Forgetting Sarah Marshall in which Russell Brand returns to his outlandish rock star character Aldous Snow. Jonah Hill returns, but this time as a new neurotic character, who has to get the doped up Snow to The Greek Theater in Los Angeles.

There are a few lame moments (most of which are unfortunately when Sean “Puffy” Combs are on the screen), but on the flip side of that, there are some genuinely funny moments between both Hill and Brand.

Check out the clips after the jump, and be sure to catch Get Him To The Greek when it hits theaters this Friday.

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Just because I am a chick, it doesn’t mean I am a champion of the romantic comedy. It’s quite the opposite as you’d be hard pressed to find many I care to crow about. I prefer horror and gore to a rom-com romp. There is so much drivel that tries to pass itself off as entertainment (I’m looking at YOU, Leap Year, and YOU, The Proposal), but I found this movie to be a real breath of fresh air in a genre that has long since gone stagnant.

Kristen Bell plays Beth, an art curator, who is in the middle of planning a large benefit gala. After she experiences a humiliating evening at the hands of her ex, Beth’s little sister shows up, squealing that she is engaged to be married to a man from Italy whom she has only known for two weeks. They are getting married immediately, and Beth must fly to Italy to be the maid of honor. She manages to clear a few days to attend, no thanks to her over-bearing boss played by Anjelica Huston.

During the dress rehearsal, a dashing groomsman (Nick, played by Josh Duhamel) catches her eye. The two flirt the night away, and Beth is obviously being swept off her feet. However, a misunderstanding about another woman derails her magical night, and she ends up having an impromptu pity party in a fountain with a bottle of champagne. Before she leaves, she snags a few coins from the “fountain of love,” just for spite.

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In the first installment of TV Digest: Canceled, I talked about shows such as Moonlight, Jerico and Studio 60 that were gone too soon. This time I’ve got more shows that were canceled way before their time, and are a testament to both how amazing television can be but also how nearsighted executives can be when making the decision to cancel a show.

While these shows may no longer grace our television sets with shiny, fresh new episodes, they live on in our hearts and on our DVD shelves. These are what I consider to be the most beloved canceled TV shows of our time.

Arrested Development

Produced by brilliant filmmaker Ron Howard and starring a slew of incredible actors, Arrested Development ran for three seasons from 2003-2006. Shot in a documentary style fashion, like The Office, the show is about the wealthy but seriously crazy Bluth family after their father gets arrested and their company faces bankruptcy.

Oldest son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is the glue that holds everyone together while siblings Gob (Will Arnett), Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and her husband Tobias (David Cross), and Buster (Tony Hale) do their best to make a mess of things. I really can’t say enough about how good this show was.

Other than the incredible casting, this show has some of the best writing and comedic timing I’ve ever seen on television. I have watched all three seasons multiple times and I can watch an episode now and still find something brand new to laugh about, because of how well the writers reference old jokes and spin new ones in their wake.

But the show also can have these incredibly heartfelt moments, in between the insanity, that remind us how important it is to be a family despite how much money you have in the bank. And as the economy continues its slump, this crazy family in the midst of financial turmoil is looking far less eccentric and just plain average. As this show ages it becomes more and more relevant, and it becomes clearer and clearer just how great it is.

Despite all that, as well as numerous Emmy nominations and wins, the show was canceled. Luckily we’ll see more of the Bluth family soon, in a feature length movie that begins shooting this year.

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Even though it seems like there’s quite a few awards shows these days, this one could end up being pretty cool — especially if you happen to be a fan of video games and celebrities from TV, sports and movies. Spike TV’s Video Game Awards, which premiere on Saturday, December 12 at 8PM Eastern, has announced some of its big time celebrity guests and presenters, and we’ve got the “who’s who” scoop right here, direct from the event’s official press release.

BIG NAMES IN GAMES COME OUT FOR
SPIKE TV’S “VIDEO GAME AWARDS 2009”

Academy Award™-Nominated Actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Green Day, Snoop Dogg,
Olivia Wilde And Zachary Quinto Kick-Off All-Star Line Up

Spike TV’s 7th Annual “Video Game Awards 2009” Premiere LIVE On
Saturday, December 12 At 8:00 PM ET

New York, NY, December 7, 2009 – Megastars from the worlds of video games, Hollywood, music, sports and more will gather to pay tribute to the outstanding achievements within the video game industry during the past year at Spike TV’s 7th Annual “Video Game Awards 2009.” Broadcasting in over 180 territories and countries, the VGAs will be a global celebration of all things gaming as it premieres LIVE on Spike TV Saturday, December 12 at 8:00 PM, ET (tape delay west coast).

Academy Award™ nominated Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will be on hand to dole out the night’s most prestigious honor, Game of the Year, as well as to present a special look at his upcoming Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, future blockbuster “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”

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Here’s your weekly Box Office report. Studio estimates are from Box Office Mojo. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau should be feeling pretty good about themselves this Monday morning.  Their film Couples Retreat received a critical drumming, but still made $35M over the weekend.  The likability of the two stars helped the film overcome negative buzz, and with no new competition, it easily won the weekend.

Zombieland looks like it will be sticking around for a while.  It only dropped 39% from its opening weekend and made$15M, which is impressive for a horror movie. A month after its release, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is still in the top five, and made $12M. Toy Story and Toy Story 2 continue to pull in audiences, dropping just 38% from last week for $7.6.

The real story of the weekend is the phenomenal performance of Paranormal Activity.  The film only played on 160 theaters in the entire country, and made over $7M! To put that in perspective, Surrogates came in at #6 this weekend. It played on 2,992 screens and made $4.1 million for a per screen average of $1,375.  The per screen average for Paranormal Activity was $44, 163. That’s unheard of.

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If you were anxiously awaiting a movie featuring Kristen Bell and Christina Aguilera fighting it out to see who becomes queen of the neo-burlesque stage (undoubtedly while wearing skimpy outfits), then this is your lucky day. Why? Well, it seems Bell has signed to take a role in Screen Gems upcoming musical drama Burlesque, which features that exact scenario.

Just in case you’ve never hard of this movie or needed a minute because you were picturing Kristen Bell in lingerie, Burlesque tells the story of “an ambitious small-town girl (Aguilera) with a big-town voice who finds love and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club, reminiscent of the nightclub in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret.”

Bell will play Nikki, the “loose-cannon lead dancer and main attraction” at the club who, to say the least, is not so pleased when Aguilera’s character suddenly gets the spotlight. Of course, an intense rivalry is formed which probably can only be resolved with song, dance and hopefully a good cat fight. Cher has already been cast as the nightclub owner in the film along with Stanley Tucci as the guy who helps turn Aguilera from bumpkin to bombshell — much like he did with Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada.

Shooting on Burlesque begins Nov. 9 for a Thanksgiving 2010 release.

Looking for some highbrow comedy? Keep on looking. If you loved the trailer for this movie, go watch it again. There, now you know the entire plot and you have seen all the funny parts of the film. I  just saved you an hour and 47 minutes and at least ten bucks. You’re welcome.

It’s not that this is a terrible film, it just doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Couple’s Retreat tries to be the rom-com version of  The Hangover, and fails. The laughs are there, but they are anemic at best and spread too thin over a far too long running time.

Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are a tightly wound yuppie couple who pull their friends aside at a child’s birthday party and ask them to attend a quick presentation. Believing that they are going to see another power point presentation about testicular cancer prevention, the friends are stupefied when the couple announces that they are considering a divorce. Seems a year of fertility issues has taken a toll on the couple, and they are ready to part ways.

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My former colleagues over at Cinematical have an exclusive look at the reported final poster for the CGI-animated adaptation of Astro Boy. You can head over there for a better look at the poster. In the meantime, in case you’re not familiar, Astro Boy, based on the manga and anime franchise of the same name, takes place in the futuristic Metro City. Dr. Tenma, a brilliant scientist, creates a young robot boy in his deceased son’s image.

The robot is, of course, the super powerful Astro Boy. Once alive and kicking, he has to contend with other much more dangerous robots and unfortunately, some not so trustworthy humans as well. The film features the voices of Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy, Kristen Bell as Cora, Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma, Bill Nighy as Dr. Elefun and Donald Sutherland as the President.

It should come as no surprise that Freddie Highmore’s Astro Boy is front and center on the poster, closely followed by Kristen Bell’s Cora. Also included in the poster are Dr. Tenma and Dr. Elefun. In addition to the poster, which looks really cool and fun, I also had a chance to see the trailer for the film while watching a movie last weekend. It also made the film look really fun and also made it seem suitable for kids (of all ages) as well.

Astro Boy hits theaters on October 23rd.