This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt work alone and without a net covering all kinds of new topics including Toy Fair 2010, the box office success of Valentine’s Day and The Wolfman and new adaptation announcements such as Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein and Dracula (aka Vlad the Impaler). They also discuss the oddness and length of recent movie titles, the Avatar prequel novel, the potential endings for ABC’s Lost and who rules Bartertown.

They both also made some good picks again this week incuding Matt’s pick of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant and Chris’ pick of the Martin Scorsese gangster classic Goodfellas, featuring Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro.

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.

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With President’s Day weekend behind us it’s now time to think about some late Valentine’s Day presents. In case you want to pick up something extra for your valentine or you completely forgot to get something at all, a great movie on Blu-ray or DVD makes a perfect gift. Fortunately, there’s some new ones coming out this week just in time.

Among this week’s selection we’re interested in are new to Blu-ray movies such as Law Abiding Citizen, Halo Legends, the Dirty Harry Collection, Contempt, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran and debut of TV series Barnaby Jones and the latest installment of Cannon. Also, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (pictured above with Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro) gets the 20th Anniversary treatment with a new Blu-ray release.

Movies

Black Dynamite ~ Michael Jai White (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever ~ Michael Bowen, Rider Strong (Blu-ray and DVD)

Contempt ~ Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang (Blu-ray)

Dirty Harry Collection (Dirty Harry / Magnum Force / The Enforcer / Sudden Impact / The Dead Pool) ~ Clint Eastwood (Blu-ray and DVD)

Goodfellas (20th Anniversary Edition) ~ Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci (Blu-ray)

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Everybody who has been fretting over Robert De Niro’s career of late can collectively exhale a sigh of relief. After carpet bombing the cinematic landscape with stinkers like The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hide and Seek, Godsend, and Righteous Kill, De Niro finally settles into a nice little film devoid of gimmicks and action. Playing the widowed patriarch of four grown children, De Niro gives a quietly nuanced performance that grounds the film, and makes you remember why you liked him to begin with.

Everybody’s Fine tells the story of a very ordinary family and the events surrounding a holiday gathering. Frank Goode (Robert De Niro) is recently widowed, and has made plans to have all four of his grown children visit him for Christmas. He prepares the house, buys the groceries, purchases a new grill, and awaits their arrival. One by one each child calls and cancels with generic excuses-”something’s come up”, etc.

This is where De Niro first starts to reel you in. His face drops with each phone call, and you just want to go give him a hug, and go give his kids a good tongue-lashing for abandoning their poor, lonely dad on Christmas.  After contemplating the circumstances, he decides to travel to each one of them, against his doctor’s orders (he takes medication for fibrosis of the lung.)

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as Michael Mann’s awesome film Heat (shown above with Robert De Nero and Val Kilmer), Logan’s Run, Up, Monsters, Inc. and the Watchmen “Ultimate” Cut. Plus, there’s the second volume of Batman: The Brave and the Bold coming out this week as well.

Check them out:

Movies

The Accidental Husband ~ Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Sam Shepard (DVD and Blu-ray)

The General (1926) (Silent) ~ Buster Keaton (Blu-ray)

Heat ~ Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer (Blu-ray)

Logan’s Run ~ Michael York (Blu-ray)

Love Finds a Home ~ Patty Duke, Jordan Bridges, Haylie Duff (DVD and Blu-ray)

Monsters, Inc. (4-Disc Edition) ~ Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Bonnie Hunt (DVD and Blu-ray)

Near Dark ~ Lance Henriksen, Adrian Pasdar, Bill Paxton, Jenny Wright (Blu-ray)

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It’s interesting how much money is made that stemmed from jokes. 2006’s Snakes on a Plane generated $62 million dollars in the theater, not to mention merchandising and DVD sales, and the film all started with spoofed Photoshop image. It looks like the next Snakes will be Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, starring his cousin Danny Trejo.

The film started off as a mock trailer (which you can check out after the jump) for Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse film back in 2007. There was talk about doing an entire film of spoof trailers, among many other pipe dreams. Rodriguez then mentioned that he wanted to turn the 2-minute trailer into a feature-length film, and here we are.

News just came in yesterday that the film has gotten it’s cast, and it looks to be pretty impressive, given that the film all started with a joke. Now signed on to do next year’s Machete alongside star Danny Trejo is Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jonah Hill, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.

This almost seems like a joke itself, pulling in names like De Niro, Seagal, and Lohan in the same picture, but the story seems to be legit. Some of those name’s aren’t foreign to a Rodriguez pictures but Nash Bridges? The Lawnmower Man? Jonah Hill??

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