So, you’ve just clicked on my column and your wondering what the frak a commentary of Sex and the City 2 is doing on the epitome of all things geek, also known as The Flickcast? Well, Sex and the City 2 is the epitome of geek sheik… for women. Before continuing, I would ask all guys to scroll down as there are helpful hints on how to survive the Sex and the City 2 experience with your girlfriend.

There are some movies I will wait in line with my fired-up guy friends to experience the madness of a 12:01 screening, such as The Dark Knight. With $3 million in box office cash coming from midnight screenings, it seems some women are yearning for similar evening excitement. I thought about planning the typical midnight screening party and then smarted up. Many a lady enjoy a relaxed, less-crowded Saturday afternoon flick, so I thought I‘d give it a shot.

Since SATC 2 worships luxury brands, what better way to experience this film than with luxury accommodations? I skipped the lines, the sticky seats, and booming sound and opted instead for a screening reminiscent of a 60’s era Pan Am first class flight. Arriving at Gold Class Cinemas in Pasadena, I walked into a modern lounge where I chillaxed for a bit. I was then escorted by the cute wait staff into a private-like screening room that sat around 40.

My first piece of advice to those good guys who willingly accompany their gals is to drink and sit in very comfy chairs. My chair just so happened to be a red suede recliner that featured a happy green button that when pressed brought servers to our seats with stiff Flirtinis, pillows, blankets, and duck tacos in hand.

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Last week, a new site came to the attention of the video game world. Game Crush launched with the promise of giving gamers something they have searched their lives for… a girl to game with. Unfortunately, this isn’t a social networking site to help gamer guys and gamer girls connect with an interest of mutual friendship. Instead, Game Crush more closely resembles a service you’d see advertised on late night cable that comes with a 900 number. For just $6.60, a gamer can play over XBox Live or a browser based game against a hot girl.

Yes, “connecting” to a hot girl has been reduced to 66 cents a minute for gamers (although that rate is better than the $2.99 for phone sex lines). With either voice chat over Live or video and voice chat through browser games, these girls will actually play certain games with their customers.

After each interaction, users are encouraged to rate each girl which, according to the site, will decide which girls get a stronger spotlight on the site. Without a doubt, the most “enterprising” of these gamer girls will quickly figure out what these guys are actually paying to hear.

What’s even more sad at a service like this coming into existence is the fact that it is already becoming an internet sensation. Logging on to Game Crush today, potential “dates” were greeted with the following message:

“The GameCrush Public Beta is temporarily unavailable due to the incredible user response (more than 10,000 inquiries in five minutes). We are adding new servers to provide players with the best PlayDate experience possible. Games with GameCrush PlayDates start at $6.60 for ten minutes.”

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When you go to as many film festivals and see as many movies as I do, it is refreshing to find a film from out of virtually nowhere that gives you renewed faith in the filmmaking process. During SXSW I was lucky enough to discover such a film: Gareth Edwards’ Monsters.

As I said in my review, Monsters takes several elements and blends them together well to create a director’s singular vision. It was one of my favorite movies from SXSW. I had a chance to sit down with the talented Mr. Edwards during the fest and over a couple of beers discovered the man behind the Monsters.

The Flickcast: First off, let’s talk a bit about your background.

Gareth Edwards: Sure, well, like a lot of people it all began when I saw Star Wars. I basically decided I wanted to join the Rebel Alliance and blow up the Death Star. But then I learned that it was all made up by someone called a filmmaker so I decided I wanted to be one of those instead.

TFC: A lot of directors like to plan out shots, do storyboards, etc. You didn’t even really have a completed script for Monsters, right?

GE: I had a scene by scene outline but I didn’t want to write dialog. Although, it’s funny when you say to an actor “I don’t want to write the dialog” then they say “Well I have to write it then.” But that’s not what I wanted.

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Continuing our recent previews of upcoming SXSW films brings us to our latest, Leaves of Grass. The film, written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring Edward Norton, Kerri Russell, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss and Edward Norton, is being released by First Look Studios and we’ve got a trailer and info about the film for you today.

The film concerns Ivy League professor Bill Kincaid who receives news of the murder of his estranged identical twin brother, Brady (both played by Norton), in a pot deal gone bad. He leaves the world of academia to travel back to his home state of Oklahoma. But once he arrives he finds things are not what they seem and reports of his brother’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Soon Bill is caught up in the dangerous and unpredictable world of drug commerce in the Southwest. In the process, he reconnects with his eccentric mother (Sarandon), meets a wise and educated woman who’s chosen the simple life (Russell), and unwittingly helps his brother settle a score with a drug lord (Dreyfuss) who uses Tulsa, Oklahoma’s small Jewish community for cover.

With a cast such as this and under the direction of Nelson, who’s previous films The Grey Zone and Kansas proved his directing talents, Leaves of Grass manages to be at times dangerous, compelling and poignant. It follows a somewhat simple narrative but still provides some potential answers to a complex question: What does it mean to live a happy and constructive life?

Leaves of Grass will be released in New York and LA on April 2nd. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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What can we say, there’s a brand new preview of the trailer for the upcoming third chapter in The Twilight saga, which is better known as Eclipse, and we’ve got it for you today. Courtesy of the fine folks at Extra, the teaser doesn’t really give us all that much to go on because, basically, it’s just a preview.

Still, what it does do is provide yet another reason to show shots of the cast of the film, which includes all your favorites such as Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, and have them walking, standing, talking and otherwise looking as good as possible. The preview also clues us in just a bit on some plot points of the film, which, if you’ve read the book, you probably already know by heart.

Still, seeing even this short preview reminds us in some way why these movies are just so damn popular. They feature attractive people going through emotional times and doing it with a certain sense of urgency.

While I’m not much of a fan of these books or movies, I can certainly understand the appeal to their target audience. People love them and these characters and in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Check out the new teaser after the jump. The full trailer will debut on Friday at 9AM ET. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse hits theaters June 30th.

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I liked this movie quite a bit  when I first saw it in 2003, and it was called Love, Actually.  This is nothing but a watered down and americanized version of the British movie, and it is mired in mediocrity.  Just think of this as the ugly stepsister of Love, Actually.

Despite a massive ensemble cast (Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacClaine, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Emma Roberts, and George Lopez) the film lacks any real zip, and for a film about Valentine’s Day, it lacks heart. Don’t let all that star power fool you.

There are a myriad of storylines woven throughout the movie, which takes place on Valentine’s Day, in Los Angeles.  Most of the principals are connected to one another in one way or another, and their connections are slowly revealed throughout the movie.  Some of the stories work quite well, and others just don’t work at all.

Ashton Kutcher plays Reed, a florist who proposes to his less than thrilled girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba.)  His best friend Julia (Jennifer Garner) is giddy over her new boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey), who is actually a two timing married man. Her best friend Kara (Jessica Biel) is the desperate and lonely career girl with no one to spend Valentine’s Day with.

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Let’s face the facts: if you’ve already jumped off the Michael Cera bandwagon, this movie will probably not prompt you to jump back on. However, if you’re still straddling the fence, you might be pleased to see that his character in Youth in Revolt is a natural progression for Cera. It is not a full disengagement from the characteristics that made him so endearing to begin with, but it adds a welcome new layer.

Youth in Revolt is based on the first book in a series by C.D. Payne, published in 1993. Touted as a relatable new voice for teenagers, the book’s protagonist Nick Twisp became a popular “Holden Caulfield” type for their generation.

Nick is an old soul in a teenager’s body, preferring French cinema and the crooning of Frank Sinatra to typical high school shenanigans. Consequently, he has few friends, and in lieu of any actual relationships with girls, he studies a well-worn sex manual, bracing himself for the fateful day when sex might become a reality.

As is typical of most teenage comedies, the adults in Nick’s life are a bunch of buffoons. His trashy but well meaning mother (Jean Smart) has a loser boyfriend, Jerry (Zach Galifianakis), who lives with them. She spends her days in bathrobes and negligees, sporting a different fake hairpiece every day, while Jerry wears a “three-wolf moon t-shirt” without a trace of irony, making them a trailer park couple of dazzling mediocrity.

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In the utterly enjoyable Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate down-sizer.  Like a gun for hire, Ryan is kept on retainer to deliver pink slips instead of bullets; though some might argue there is little difference. Ryan has no personal relationships, rarely sleeps in the same city two days in a row, can fit everything important to him into a carry-on and he could not be happier.

Midway through the movie, Ryan explains that he is on the road traveling over 322 days of the year. That may sound awful to most of us, but to him “that means 43 miserable days at home.” That statement is perfectly indicative of how Ryan sees the world.

He doesn’t like attachments of any sort, human or material. He has a better relationship with the airline ticket agent than his own sisters, and prefers the tidiness and order he finds in all the rituals of traveling to anything authentic. He has the perfect job that by nature requires a skilled detachment.

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A Single Man is the single biggest surprise I have had at the movies all year. It is brilliant, beautiful, superbly acted, and emotionally devastating. It is one of those movies that will haunt you for days and weeks to come after viewing it.

*Minor spoilers in this review* The opening credits are set to an underwater scene depicting a man gently lolling about in the waves in slow motion.  A voice-over by George (Colin Firth) states that it has been 8 months since he lost his male partner in a car crash, and yet everyday “Waking up hurts.”

George is starting to believe that life will never really return to normal, and the day we witness in the film  is actually the day that George has decided to kill himself.  Fastidious to a fault, he meticulously lays out the outfit he wishes to be buried in, going so far as to leave instructions on how he wants his necktie to be knotted (Windsor-style.)

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Over at one of our favorite sites, Trailer Addict, they’ve got the new trailer for the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of The Time Travelers Wife. The film, which stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, is based on the best selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger. The film was written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Robert Schwentke.

In case you’re not familier with the story, it concerns a man (Bana) with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably. It’s also about his wife (McAdams), an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. Through these experiences, this sci-fi romance examines issues of love, loss, and free will.

Of course, I’ve heard of the novel but have never read it. It didn’t seem like my kind of story. Seeing this trailer, however, makes me interested in the story and these characters. Maybe its time to give the novel a read? Or, I guess I could just wait for the movie.

The Time Travelers Wife opens later this year. Check out the full trailer after the break.

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