It looks like two horror icons will be working together on a television adaptation of The Knife Man. The exciting part is the harshly grim nature of the subject matter fits right into what David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Drag Me To Hell) are both best known for.

The Knife Man follows John Hunter, a man from humble Scottish origins,  who rose to become the most famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age when operations were crude, extremely painful and often fatal, Hunter rejected medieval traditions based on ancient Greek Orthodoxy to forge a revolution in surgery founded on pioneering scientific experiments.

Hunter’s scientific genius led him to become a central figure of the Enlightenment, which led him to be revered by fellow scientists and to become friendly with high society. Unfortunately, Hunter’s experiments required human corpses, and most were not donated. His tireless quest for human corpses immersed him deep in the sinister world of body-snatching.

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While the Summer might be ending, great television for the year is just beginning. That’s why Cortney’s TV Digest returns to The Flickcast this month, where we’ll be bringing you some great shows from our favorite networks, including Showtime and MTV.

Mad Men

AMC might not have a lot of television shows, but what they lack in quantity they certainly make up for in quality. Breaking Bad just finished up a fabulous third season over the Summer, and that means it’s time for Mad Men. Season 4 started last month but continues on this month, as Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce begin to establish their new, but struggling, ad firm.

Mad Men is on every Sunday at 10/9C on AMC.

Weeds

Our favorite pot-dealing, crime-scheming Nancy Botwin is back, as Weeds enters its sixth season. It’s so hard to write about this show without absolutely spoiling everything, but to be discrete, this episode picks up right after the last one left off, and looks like this season is going to be a doozy as everyone in the Botwin pack deals with the implications of Shane’s actions.

If you’re a new-comer to Weeds, you’ve got about two weeks to catch up on all five of the previous seasons, but the episodes are so good (and, luckily, short) that it won’t take you much time at all to see what all the fuss is about. Weeds begins its new season on August 17th on Showtime.

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Oh Nancy Botwin, what have you gotten yourself into now? Oh wait, I already know. First, your husband dies and you have to turn to selling pot to make ends meet.

Then, you risk everything for a relationship with a known drug dealer and also have his illegitimate child. Oh, your youngest son also manages to bump off your baby daddy’s chief handler so she won’t be in the way. Too much to imagine? Nope, just another day for the folks over at Weeds.

With last season’s great cliff hanger ending still fresh in our memories this new season of the show, its sixth, promises to be even more fun. In this new trailer for it we see that although Nancy and the gang are in different surroundings, they are still the same awesome band of lovable misfits we’ve come to know and watch every week.

Click through for the trailer. Weeds begins its new season on August 16th only on Showtime.

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The list of TV networks, studios and comic book companies attending San Diego Comic-Con keeps on growing. This time around it’s premiere cable network Showtime and their announcement of all they will be bringing to the show this year. The networks panels this year will include Dexter by itself as well as a special Anti-Hero panel featuring series star Michael C. Hall, Californication’s David Duchovny and Weeds’ Mary-Louise Parker.

Both panels will be on the first day of the con, Thursday, July 22.  In addition to the cast mentioned previously, the panels will feature producers and writers from Dexter, Weeds, Californication and Nurse Jackie. Okay, I like most of these shows and also are fans of their stars. However, I’m not really sure what these particular shows have to do with Comic-Con.

Granted, the con has become way more about movies, TV and such and less about comics, but I think the panels should have at least something to do with comics or the geek community in order to be included in the con. I can see what a show like The Big Bang Theory or Fringe, for example, are doing coming to San Diego but Weeds and Nurse Jackie? Not sure. At least Californiacation’s David Duchovny used to be in The X-Files so that, at least, makes a little sense.

Oh well, if you like these shows (and I do like most of them) and are going to Comic-Con, I guess you’re probably pretty happy now so I’ll just be quiet. Click through for a full description of all the panels and be sure to check back right here for more info than you can handle on this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

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We’re about 3 months away from the August 16th premiere of Weeds Season 6, yet Showtime is already ramping up their marketing for the newest season with a brand new teaser showing Mary-Louise Parker rocking out to an indie track by April Smith & The Great Picture Show.

Last we left the family Botwin, things got pretty heavy when Shane (Alexander Gould) committed the unthinkable. There hasn’t been much speculation on where the series is headed this season, aside from the fact that Linda Hamilton will be joining the cast in the short-term.

From what we can gather in the cryptic teaser, Nancy seems to be burying everything that has to do with Esteban (Demian Bichir) including a gun, cell phone, and the infamous croquet bat.

Check out the teaser after the jump, and join Weeds on Showtime as “The plot deepens” on August 16th.

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Now that this season of primetime TV is coming to a close, we have a few bright spots on the horizon. We’ve been bringing you some of the newest Fall schedules, along with a few previews of upcoming shows we think look cool. Keeping up with that theme we bring you a sneak peak at ABC’s new superhero comedy No Ordinary Family.

From a distance, the story plays out like a live-action version of The Incredibles, but upon closer inspection it actually has a bit more depth. Michael Chiklis plays Jim Powell, a regular husband and father who, alongside his wife and two children, are in an accident that give each of them unique powers. His wife, Stephanie (played by Dexter’s Julie Benz) develops super speed, while his children develop telepathy and other extraordinary mind powers. Jim, however, leads the family with the gift of invulnerability and super strength.

There are some obvious and great connections to former Chiklis projects in the pilot, such as his work as Ben Grimm/The Thing in Fantastic Four, and the fact that he plays a cop again, much like The Shield or The Commish.

The pilot has the potential to be exactly what NBC’s Heroes wasn’t for a lot of fans, and could be a fun, quirky family comedy with a comic book backdrop. Check out the trailer after the jump and be sure to keep an eye (and a DVR) out for No Ordinary Family this Fall on ABC.

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We’re all pretty big fans of the original Showtime series Weeds around The Flickcast offices. The show has managed to stay strong and innovative since it’s launch back in 2005, with plenty of plot twists and fan favorite cameos. One of the main reasons we love the show so much is the use of the ensemble cast, especially any major story arcs with Andy Botwin, played by Justin Kirk.

We recently got a chance to sit down with Justin about the show, his work on the recently released season five DVD, and where he sees the upcoming season going. One cool feature on the DVD is a collection of the University of Andy web shorts. We asked Justin where the idea came from, and he knew that it was already going to be a success.

The writers had done various web-based content over the years. I don’t know if you remember ‘Good Morning, Agrestic’, which was a faux public access channel, but it was all meant to be for the web and DVD’s, which inevitably turned into a big hit. There’s also a new round out right now. We are only 3 episodes deep into round 2, which is going on right now.

One of the biggest events of this past season was the jump ahead six months and the story progressed. Justin was more than excited about that idea when he first heard about it.

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Last week, we got the fortunate opportunity to visit the set of NBC’s newest medical drama, Mercy. There, we got an official Q & A with the cast of the show, including stars Taylor Schilling, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jaime Lee Kirchner, James Tupper, Diego Klattenhoff, James Legros, Guillermo Diaz, and newly added cast member James Van Der Beek.

One of the stars we got to speak with in particular, Guillermo Diaz, stuck us as interesting. Diaz is best known for playing the bad guy in many roles, from Weeds to The Shield, to guest starring as the drug dealer in plenty of Law & Order or The Closer episodes.

Guillermo is now stepping out of his “bad guy” suit and into the role of the charitable male nurse, Angel. When we asked Diaz about his role change, he was even a bit surprised to be playing the good guy for once.

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2010 is in full swing and some really great movies are hitting store shelves this week for the first time and for the first time on Blu-ray. This week’s releases include Gamer, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Che, Damages, the complete run of ABC’s canceled too soon Defying Gravity and the Blu-ray release of Whiteout with Kate Beckinsale (pictured above).

Check out this week’s releases:

Movies

According to Greta ~ Hilary Duff, Ellen Burstyn (DVD)

Boogie Nights ~ Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore (Blu-ray)

Bourne Supremacy (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) ~ Matt Damon, Brian Cox, Karl Urban (Blu-ray)

Bourne Ultimatum (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) ~ Matt Damon, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn (Blu-ray)

Che (Criterion Collection) ~ Benicio del Toro (Blu-ray)

Gamer ~ Gerard Butler, Amber Valetta, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick (DVD and Blu-ray)

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