The Flickcast – Page 421 of 1030 – Stuff Nerds Love

Biopic of ‘Twilight Zone’ Creator Rod Serling On the Way

According to Deadline, a biopic of writer and  Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling is in development by Andrew Meieran and his Bureau of Moving Pictures company. About time, I say.

“Rod Serling was one of the true visionaries in television history,” Meieran said. “He single-handedly broke the mold and established television as a powerful artistic medium capable of changing the world when used wisely.”

To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long to get a movie about Rod Serling off the ground. The man is a genius and true visionary with a story that’s sure to be highly interesting and entertaining.

To prove that point, here’s but a sample of that life (as summarized by the Deadline article):

Serling spent his youth as an Army paratrooper and member of a demolition squad during WWII. He was stationed in the Philippines and his experiences would help shape much of what he wrote about in later life.

He worked his way into radio and then became a TV writer who found his niche with the CBS series Twilight Zone, a series that elevated scripted television with thought-provoking science fiction tales, each with a great and unexpected plot twist. The segments have influenced a legion of TV and feature writers to this day.

Influential to say the least. Now that this is going, the real question is who should play Serling? Any votes for your favorite actor?

Check Out the New Trailer for ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’

A lot of movies these days manage to have one or two interesting actors in them with the rest of the cast being so-so. However, once in a while a movie comes along that had way more than that.

In the case of the upcoming adaptation of the John Le Carre espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy each and every actor in the film is not only interesting, but a major talent who brings a great deal to every role they play. The cast of this film includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Ciaran Hinds — so you can see what I mean.

We’ve got a trailer for the film to sharer with you today. In it you get a good idea of the story and the amazing ensamble that’s been assembled for the film. Apparently, a clip of the movie and the screenplay were shared with audiences at the Berlin Film Festival in early February where Gary Oldman’s performance as George Smiley was particularly praised.

Who knows, perhaps it’s time for Oldman to finally be recognized for his body of work? Perhaps an Oscar is in his future? We’ll see.

Focus Features releases the film in the US on November 18th. Check out the trailer after the break.

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Blizzard Makes ‘World of Warcraft’ Free to Play Until Level 20

Once the initial rush of new players began to slow down, Blizzard in their infinite wisdom allowed new players the chance to experience World of Warcraft for 14 days, free of charge. Though Blizzard hadn’t released the actual number of players who ended up becoming full subscribers, they stuck to this method for a number of years.

Now, with players at the 11,000,000 range, Blizzard has decided to switch things up a bit in a further effort to bring new players in to the World of Warcraft machine. Under this new structure, players will be given an unlimited amount of free play time on their account until their character reaches level 20.

Part of the reason behind this new strategy may lie in the fact that things come up out of no where in people’s lives unexpectedly and such a freak occurrence happening during a limited 14 day time frame may completely shut out the chance for this new player to experience what World of Warcraft has to offer. Instead, players are given the chance to experience Azeroth at their leisure, much like they are allowed to in a full version of the game.

There is no pressure to try and experience as much as you can in a short time span with this new system. There are, as expected, some restrictions to this Free-to-Play system though.

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New Trailer for ‘Apollo 18’ Arrives

We’ve been following this one for quite some time, mostly because it looks pretty darn cool. With that, we bought you the new poster for the upcoming Sci-Fi film Apollo 18 as well as the first teaser trailer.

Now, there’s a new trailer to get you even more interested in this film. Once you watch it, I’m sure you will agree it does look cool.

In case you’re not familiar with Apollo 18, it deals with two American astronauts who travel to the moon on a secret government mission one year after the last “official” moon landing. Why they went and what happened to them once they arrived has been a secret. . . until now. The film, which is made up of “actual footage shot by the astronauts while on their mission,” shows what happened.

Take a look at the new trailer after the jump. Apollo 18, produced by Timur Bekmambetov and directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego, comes to theaters on April 22nd from Dimension Films.

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CBS Announces Fall TV Premiere Dates

As with ABC yesterday, CBS is next out of the gate with the announcement of its Fall TV premiere dates. As with other networks, CBS has some shows we’re looking forward to seeing again as well as some new ones we might check out.

Some of the ones we’re glad to see back include NCIS, The Good Wife and, of course, The Big Bang Theory. And, as Lost‘s Terry O’Quinn is joining the cast, we’re going to have to give Hawaii Five-O another look as well.

New shows that look interesting include 2 Broke Girls and Person of Interest, although we don’t hold out all that much hope for either. Here’s all the premiere dates (all times are Eastern/Pacific):

Wednesday, Sept. 14

8:00-9:00 PM SURVIVOR: SOUTH PACIFIC (23rd edition premiere)

Monday, Sept. 19

8:00-8:30 PM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (7th season premiere)

8:30-9:00 PM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (S)

9:00-9:30 PM TWO AND A HALF MEN (9th season premiere)

9:30-10:00 PM 2 BROKE GIRLS (series debut)

10:00-11:00 PM HAWAII FIVE-0 (2nd season premiere)

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MySpace Sold to Specific Media for $35 Million

How the once mighty have fallen. Remember when MySpace was the place to go for everything “social”? Well, those days are long over and now the site has been sold for quite a bargain price.

According to AllThingsD, Specific Media has acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million. Which, as I said, is a real bargain considering NewsCorp paid $580 Million for it in 2005. I would call that a pretty big loss for NewsCorp. Myspace’s CEO, Mike Jones, will remain for “an interim period,” and the social network will lay off about 50% of its staff, which is around 200 people. Sorry to hear that.

MySpace’s decline in recent years is not really all that surprising considering how horrible the site is to navigate and, of course, due to the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. By comparison, Facebook looks like the most clean and easy to use UI ever invented, which we know isn’t really the case as it still has its share of problems as well.

Who knows, maybe MySpace will rebound and climb back out of the pit it finds itself in? Anything is possible and people do love an underdog. However, first order of business: a complete re-design. Then, we can talk.

Doc Review: ‘The Last Mountain’

The Last Mountain of the title refers to Coal River Mountain, an area in West Virginia being mined by the Massey Energy company. Massey has a long history of violations, as the villagers below are quick to point out—creating lakes of toxic goo that threaten to pollute the waterways of West Virginia and other states; unsafe mining practices that likely caused brain cancer in several residents, union busting, profiteering, global warming and so on.

Director Bill Haney (The Price of Sugar) provides an informative summary of the dangers of Massey Energy’s practices with first-hand accounts from Coal Mountain locals as well as experts. It’s well-researched and articulate, and yes, it’s a problem. But that’s where The Last Mountain stops being informative and Haney’s contempt for Massey takes over.

It gets points for criticizing democrats and republicans alike, but it ultimately lets politicians like West Virginia governor Joe Manchin and Obama off the hook while taking aim at Massey CEO Don Blankenship. Sure, Blankenship may be a crook, but I doubt the filmmakers believe that the next guy in line will act any differently, so what’s the point in vilifying him?

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Latest ‘Three Musketeers’ Trailer Released

The Summer movie season is in full swing and as such we should expect to see lots of trailers and other publicity materials for all sorts of movies coming out over the next few months. This time around Summit Entertainment has released a new trailer for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers.

This one is a new take on the classic Alexandre Dumas story that also happens to be in 3D. Not sure why the director and producers felt like it needed to be in 3D but heck, what do I know?

With audiences seemingly less interested in 3D these days and unwilling to pay premium prices for it, it seems like a bad idea to make this kind of movie in 3D — especially if something like Transformers 3 doesn’t help revive the 3D slump.

Although, according to the trailer, this movie was filmed in 3D and not converted after the fact. At least that’s something and doesn’t completely look like such a blatant grab for extra case from audiences. Plus, the movie has the underrated Ray Stevenson, Christoph Waltz and Milla Jovovich, so at least that’s something.

Click through for the trailer. The Three Musketeers hits theaters on October 14th.

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