Fortunately, each week brings a new chance to see a great movie or TV show that you’ve never seen before. Or, you can go back and watch something you’ve seen a hundred times and still enjoy it. Both of these things are possible because new moves and TV programs come out on Blu-ray and DVD each and every week.

This week brings some titles, new and old, that we’re excited about including The Warlords, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, season one of Warehouse 13 and the Blu-ray releases of The Crazies remake and Hot Tub Time Machine (pictured above with Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry and John Cusack).

Movies

Brotherhood VI: Initiation (2009) ~ Tyson Breech, Burke Carter (Blu-ray and DVD)

Creation ~ Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly (Blu-ray and DVD)

Don McKay ~ Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue (Blu-ray and DVD)

Hot Tub Time Machine ~ John Cusack, Clark Duke (Blu-ray and DVD)

New York Confidential ~ Broderick Crawford, Anne Bancroft (DVD)

Night Train to Munich (Criterion Collection) ~ Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison (DVD)

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief ~ Logan Lerman (Blu-ray and DVD)

Continue Reading →

In anticipation of the DVD release of The Crazies , I got to speak with director Breck Eisner about that movie and some upcoming projects he has planned. While I was doing my research on Eisner, I saw that he directed an episode of Fear Itself, an anthology that played on NBC in the summer of 2008.  As luck would have it, I just happened to have seen the episode Eisner directed (“The Sacrifice”) , so we began by talking about it.

THE FLICKCAST:  I was looking at your IMDB, and I saw that you did an episode of Fear Itself, and it just happened to be one I saw.

BRECK EISNER: Oh really, you’re one of the few. Fear Itself, I think it was miscast putting it on NBC in the summer.

FC: I know, I really pull for anything horror related on TV, and none of it makes it.

BE: No, it just doesn’t, unfortunately.

FC: Well, there are definitely horror fans out there, but I think that they just don’t bother with television.

BE: Certainly not network television.

FC: You previously directed Sahara. How do you get from Sahara to this movie? They are so radically different. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got drawn to The Crazies?

BE: Sahara was my first movie, and it is a very long story about how I came to be directing it. The short version of the story is that I initially was involved with optioning the material with a producer many years before with no intention of making it, it was a much bigger movie than I could make.

Continue Reading →

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are back at it again with a lot of new things to talk about. On this week’s show they go pretty much all TV all the time and discuss, debate and otherwise dissect all the new programs coming to your favorite networks this Fall.

What shows are coming back, what shows got canceled and what are the networks going to replace them with? Find out in this week’s episode.

Chris and Matt also made more picks this week including Matt’s pick of the Paul Verhoven sci-fi classic Robocop and Chris’ pick of the soon to be released on Blu-ray film The Crazies, featuring Timothy Olyphant.

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.

Wow, I don’t think anybody predicted the massive opening weekend that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland just had. Audiences scooped up an amazing $116 Million worth of tickets to the film. This is the biggest opening weekend in Tim Burton’s entire career, and despite a critical consensus that this was a very average movie, word of mouth appears to be good.

This also appears to indicate that audiences are embracing the 3D trend. I am very curious if there will be a large drop-off next weekend, because the 3D in Alice was in no way comparable to  the 3D in Avatar. If  Avatar is what people are expecting, they are going to be disappointed.

It is interesting to note that Avatar only opened to $77 Million, but has now grossed over $720 Million. I will be pretty shocked if Alice has any real legs at the the box office, but the totals this morning show me that this movie may be full of surprises.

Brooklyn’s Finest, starring Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, and Ethan Hawke, came in second over the weekend with $13.5 Million.  It played in just under 2,000 theaters, and has a fairly modest budget of $25 Million, so it will likely end up profitable.

Shutter Island made about $13 Million in its 3rd week in release.  It now has exceeded its budget of $80 Million (with $95 Million total), and looks certain to hit $100 Million next weekend.

Continue Reading →

There was no runaway hit this weekend at the box office, as the top three movies were only separated by a few million dollars. When it was all said and done, Shutter Island managed to hold on to the top spot with $22.2 Million. The movie has managed to gross $75 Million to date.

The Kevin Smith directed Cop Out did not seem to be hindered by horrific reviews. It still came in at the number two spot, and made $18.5 Million. This is the largest opening weekend for a Kevin Smith film. With a $30 Million budget, this movie should be profitable.

Overture films scared up $16.5 Million with the horror flick The Crazies, and it should easily recoup its $20 Million budget.  I was hoping to see a little higher total, but good word of mouth should help this in the next few weeks.

Avatar stuck around yet again, and made $14 Million.  It has now exceeded $700 Million domestically. Next weekend Alice in Wonderland will be taking over a lot of the screens, so there is certain to be a drop in its box office totals.

Holdovers Percy Jackson and Valentine’s Day both brought in about $9M.

It is getting more and more difficult for filmmakers to breathe new life into the tired zombie genre as of late. The most successful zombie movies in recent memory are infused with humor (Zombieland) or introduce a new spin on the classic tale (Pontypool.) The Crazies is a cool little horror film that works because its zombies are not quite typical zombies, which I found more believable and thus more scary than a true zombie movie.

Time for me to fess up. I haven’t seen George Romero’s 1973 film that was the original source material for this film, so this was all a new concept to me.

The Crazies opens with a nifty juxtaposition of small town tranquility and calm (the whole town is watching a local baseball game) with modern day horrors, as a man pointedly walks across the baseball field with a shotgun. He doesn’t look like a zombie.

Instead, he appears to be channeling Michael Douglas’ character from Falling Down. As the horrified crowd looks on, the local sheriff  David (Timothy Olyphant) shoots the man before he can harm anyone.

Continue Reading →

While more than half of the people gearing up for this weekend’s Super Bowl XLIV will be more excited for the commercials, we unfortunately won’t be getting as many movie trailers as we are hoping to see. It’s been reported that Paramount, Disney, and Universal are the only studios buying time to promote their upcoming films during Sunday’s broadcast.

During the last two Super Bowl games, studios amped up their marketing and promoted 9 films over the course of the game, while we’ll only be seeing ads for 7 films this Sunday. Paramount will be buying ads to promote Shutter Island, and The Last Airbender, leaving Iron Man 2 out in the cold.

Disney, who promoted films like Up and Race to Witch Mountain last year will be focusing more on Toy Story 3, Alice In Wonderland, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Meanwhile, Universal will be setting up promotion for The Wolfman, Robin Hood, and their 3D animated pic Despicable Me.

While it’s still mostly speculation that these films will get Super Bowl spots, it’s been confirmed that Overture bought time to promote The Crazies and Sony bought time for Bounty Hunter. Warner Bros and Fox will sit this one out, as they have since 2008.

Though we may be getting less movie trailers than previous games, this will be a big year for commercials. There are more than 60 spots that have been slotted for this year’s game, where last year’s telecast fell just short. This Sunday will be an entertaining show, for sports fans and entertainment fans alike.

The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero film of the same name, has gotten it’s second theatrical trailer and it ups the creepy factor. The first trailer set up a great mood of unsettling psychosis that pervades a town; even if it might have given a little too much of the movie away.

The story is, “a small town in Iowa, starts seeing it’s inhabitants go crazy, after a mysterious toxin infiltrates their water supply.” The new film stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, written by Scott Kosar (The Machinist) and Ray Wright (Pulse), and directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara).

The second trailer, lives up to the name of “crazy” as there’s psycho laughter; crazed, zombie-looking people, and the always great black and white fade out freeze frame. One of the best parts of the trailer is towards the end, when I actually jumped out of my own seat – if you’re a guy, you’ll probably know which moment I’m referring to.

Overall, though, I’m pretty interested in seeing this when it comes out in February of 2010. All I can say is, this is why I only drink Diet Coke.

Continue Reading →