by Stephanie Coats, Aug 5 2013 // 10:30 AM

Attention The Lizzie Bennet Diaries fans. Emma Approved is coming your way this Fall.
The team of showrunner Bernie Su, producer Hank Green, and Pemberly Digital announced their newest Jane Austen web video adaptation at VidCon 2013. Heroine Emma Woodhouse will be modernized as a confident entrepreneur who, of course, places a bit too much faith in her matchmaking prowess.
Su and Green’s first Austen outing, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, was a resounding success. Over 216,000 subscribers watched the 100 episode series. The program won two Streamys and was nominated for five more. A Kickstarter to fund the DVD raised over $462,000, nearly 800% of the $60,000 goal. The series was followed by Welcome to Sanditon, based on one of Austen’s short stories and starring some of the Lizzie Bennet characters.
There’s no word yet on any casting decisions for Emma Approved. However, with the show hitting YouTube in the Fall, fans should know soon enough who is playing the iconic Emma, Mr. Knightly, Frank Churchill and the rest of Highbury.
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Posted in: Adaptation · Announcements · Drama · Geek · New Media · News · Romance · TV · YouTube
Tagged: Adaptation, Bernie Su, emma, Emma Approved, Hank Green, Jane Austen, LBD, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, VidCon, vidcon 2013, Web Series, YouTube
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by Stephanie Coats, Jun 20 2013 // 12:00 PM

After opening in select theaters in LA, NY, and San Francisco, director Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing will open nationwide on Friday, June 21. We have already reviewed the film but just in case that wasn’t enough to convince you to seek out this delightful adaptation, here are five reasons Much Ado is worth your time and money.
1. You’ll understand Shakespeare (finally). If you are hesitating about Much Ado because you are concerned you will not keep up with the Bard’s prose, you are not alone. Dogberry himself (Nathan Fillion) at first refused the project and then tried to back out of it for this very reason. But then Fillion, like all of the other players, immersed himself in the language, the setting, and the character.
The cast did the hard work of studying the text and translating it so you don’t have to. They do an excellent job of adding movement and clarity to Shakespeare’s prose so even if you don’t know what someone is saying, you know what they mean.
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Posted in: Drama · Editorial · Editorial and Opinion · Movies · Reviews · Romance · Whedon
Tagged: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Clark Gregg, Joss Whedon, Much Ado About Nothing, Nathan Fillion, Opinion, roadhouse pictures, tom lenk
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by Stephanie Coats, Jun 6 2013 // 4:00 PM

Much Ado About Nothing is Joss Whedon and William Shakespeare at their finest, and is certainly one of the most delightful films I have seen this year. Evoking the very best of a 40s screwball comedy, the entirely black-and-white picture has a superb mix of elegance and entertainment that will please all moviegoers, not just Elizabethan (and Whedon) fans. The film crackles with a palpable energy that draws you in to its hijinks and effortlessly makes you feel a part of the romance and drama.
From the start it is clear that this is not a typical modernization of Shakespeare. Whedon uses silence and body language to great effect so that we know the disappointing and hurtful past that lingers over the sharp-tongued Beatrice (Amy Acker) and smug Benedict (Alexis Denisof) before either even speaks. In truth the pair is too stubborn and snarky to admit any fondness for each other and so their friends conspire to bring them into “a mountain of affection.”
This witty, simmering love is contrasted by the young, innocent love shared by Hero (Jillian Morgese) and Claudio (Fran Kranz). Their impending nuptials are threatened by the villainous Don John (Sean Maher), who is played with the perfect blend of treachery and sexiness by Maher. Don John wants to wound the lovers but also destroy Hero’s father Leonato (Clark Gregg), who is hosting everyone at his manor home.
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Posted in: Movies · Reviews · Romance · Whedon
Tagged: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz, Jillian Morgese, Joss Whedon, Movie Review, Much Ado About Nothing, Nathan Fillion, Reed Diamond, Sean Maher
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by Kelly Smith, May 31 2013 // 10:30 AM

Welcome back boys and girls! Make sure to write me at kelly@theflickcast.com with your questions so we can use them on a future edition of For the Love of the Game. Here’s today’s question:
My girlfriend and I have been together for about nine months and things have gotten pretty serious for us. We are talking about moving in with each other after her apartment lease ends in July. The only thing I am worried about is she isn’t going to let me bring all of my stuff into the apartment. Even though it is going to be “ours”, I know she’s going to decorate it like it’s “hers”. So that means stuff like my XBox or the awesome Spider-Man statue I have or the Walking Dead hardcovers I have aren’t going to have a place to go. Any advice would be appreciated – Don’tWantToGiveUpMyStuff
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Posted in: For the Love of the Game · News · Romance
Tagged: Advice, For the Love of the Game, Geek, Romance
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by Kelly Smith, May 24 2013 // 1:30 PM

So I think my boyfriend and I are a bit of a slump. We’ve been together for a year and things just aren’t what they were. We used to go out every weekend or at least stay over each others’ apartments but now I feel like he’d rather hang out with his friends and play Call of Duty than do anything with me. I really care about him and he tells me that he cares about me but I want to solve this but don’t want to come across as all needy, ya know? – 2ndtoCoD
It’s normal for relationships to wax and wane, but empty professions of strong amorous feelings aren’t enough to propel a relationship forward.
It isn‘t needy to want to spend time with your significant other. Right now he’s not being an available partner – physically or emotionally – which is what relationships are all about.
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Posted in: Activision · Call of Duty · For the Love of the Game · Games · News · Romance · Video Games
Tagged: Activision, Advice, Call of Duty, For the Love of the Game, Romance
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by Kelly Smith, Mar 29 2013 // 10:00 AM

For the past few years, I have gone down to Comic Con and there is a girl I have hooked up with the past few years down there. We get along great and keep in touch throughout the year and like clockwork we end up together in San Diego. I could totally see dating her. The problem is I am from Massachusetts and she lives in San Francisco. – LongDistanceTrouble
Long distance is tricky. The end.
How is that for insight and guidance? You’re welcome. Thank me later.
But seriously, there are so many nuances to every long distance romance that it would be tough to find a stock answer that worked for all scenarios.
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Posted in: Comic-Con · Comics · For the Love of the Game · News · Romance · SDCC 11 · SDCC 12
Tagged: Advice, Comic-Con, For the Love of the Game, Hookup, Romance, SDCC
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by Stephanie Coats, Mar 29 2013 // 6:00 AM

Going into The Host I didn’t know what to expect. The trailer looked promising and I had heard that Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s adult book was better than her vampire romance novels. I cannot judge the book, having never read it, but The Host movie was unspectacular and downright weird.
The plot goes like this: Aliens called “Souls” have invaded Earth and taken over nearly every human being (think Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) is captured and a Soul called Wanderer is implanted into her body. Instead of fading away, Melanie’s consciousness holds on and the two fight for control of Melanie’s body.
Eventually Wanderer (now Wanda) helps get Melanie to her loved ones but things get (more) complicated when Wanda starts to have feelings for new guy Ian (Jake Abel) but Melanie is still in love with her boyfriend Jared (Max Irons). In the mean time, main antagonist, the Seeker (an awesomely stone faced/borderline psychotic Diane Kruger) is hunting for the last humans and using Melanie/Wanda to find them.
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Posted in: Movies · News · Reviews · Romance · Sci-Fi
Tagged: Diane Kruger, Jake Abel, Max Irons, review, Reviews, Saoirse Ronan, Stephenie Meyer, The Host, The Twilight Saga, Twilight
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by Nat Almirall, Feb 2 2013 // 11:00 AM

Is this a parody or a ripoff? Warm Bodies is so up front with its copies — copies– of Twilight that, judging from the trailer alone, by the time it hit theatres, I was sure it had to be a straight-up uppercut to tweener romance. I’m not so sure now.
But I am certain that the leads, Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer, were chosen for their resemblances to Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (respectively, I think), both in looks and in their mutual tendency to overact. The story, however, is lifted from Romeo and Juliet and Zombies — and at least anyone who has yet to take freshman literature should be able to make the connection between Juliet and Julie (Palmer) and R (Hoult) and Romeo. That gets a pass though, since Shakespeare probably stole the story from somewhere else.
Anywho, Julie and R live in your standard zombie apocalypse. A big wall separates the humans from the Corpses (as they’re so called). And there’s a special subset of Corpses called “Bonies” (feel free to giggle like a high-school freshman who has yet to read Romeo and Juliet yet) — these are the folks who’ve decomposed to the point of full-on skeletalization. Somehow they’re still able to move and sniff, but there’s more than a few suspensions of disbelief.
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Posted in: Comedy · Drama · Movies · Reviews · Romance · Summit Entertainment
Tagged: Analeigh Tipton, Cory Hardict, Dave Franco, Isaac Marion, John Malkovich, Jonathan Levine, Nicholas Hoult, Rob Corddry, Summit Entertainment, Teresa Palmer, Warm Bodies
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by Nat Almirall, Dec 7 2012 // 9:00 AM

About halfway through Playing for Keeps, I noticed that I hadn’t laughed yet but so far had found it pretty watchable. Having Uma Thurman parade around in her frillies certainly doesn’t hurt, and added to that are the ever-delightful wiles of Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Jessica Biel. The movie treats them as basically eye-candy (as well as Gerard Butler), so why can’t I?
Butler plays George, a former soccer superstar recently relocated to Virginia to reclaim his wife Stacie (Biel) and, on the side, reconnect with his son. He spends his mornings filming demo tapes for a shot as an ESPN sportscaster; his afternoons watching his son’s little-league soccer practices; and, later, his nights bedding the many soccer moms.
One day he decides to take over for the apathetic little-league coach, earning the respect of Stacie and the adoration of his son and the previously mentioned soccer moms. He also makes the acquaintance of Carl (Dennis Quaid), a successful businessman and husband of the lovestruck Patti (Thurman) who has an eerie and obnoxious habit of back-slapping like a yokel who’s just told a joke. Anyway, Carl bribes George to put his son in the goalie spot and get his daughter to screech the national anthem before each game.
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Posted in: Comedy · Movies · Reviews · Romance
Tagged: Abella Wyss, Aidan Potter, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dennis Quaid, Film District, Gabriele Muccino, Gerard Butler, Grant Collins, Grant Goodman, Iqbal Theba, James Tupper, Jessica Biel, Judy Greer, Marlena Lerner, Noah Lomax, Playing for Keeps, Robbie Fox, Sean O'Bryan, Uma Thurman
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by Grace Suh, Mar 9 2012 // 1:45 PM

Friends with Kids is one of those high concept romantic comedies that posits a Big Life Question—in this case: can a couple have a baby together and keep the romance?—and then spends the next 90 minutes trying to answer it. Think of it as the No Strings Attached—can friends sleep together without emotional complications?—of the ticking biological clock set.
Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt, best known for 2002’s Kissing Jessica Stein) and Jason (Adam Scott) are good college friends who live on different floors of the same apartment building on Riverside Drive. They watch in alarm as their coupled friends Leslie and Alex (Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd) and Missy and Ben (Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm, Westerfeldt’s real-life partner) conceive and bear children, and proceed to ruin their lives and relationships. At every point the parents are haggard, distraught and argumentative. Fathers are irresponsible and immature. Mothers depressed and resentful. Their looks are sunk. So are their libidos and marriages.
Julie and Jason vow the same will not happen to them, whenever they should each happen to find the mate of their dreams. Problem is: Julie’s not getting younger. There’s no man in sight and she wants a baby. So Jason, a commitment-phobe who’s known for never sleeping with the same woman for longer than a week, hatches a plan, the kind of conceit they come up with in movies and then build the next two acts on, even though it wouldn’t fly for five seconds in real life: he and Julie will have a baby together, totally without ties. Just as parenting partners. Call it Parents Without Benefits.
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Posted in: Comedy · Movies · News · Reviews · Romance
Tagged: Adam Scott, baby, Chris O'Dowd, Friends with Kids, Jennifer westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Movie Review, review
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by Nat Almirall, Feb 17 2012 // 10:00 AM

The line that got the biggest laugh at my screening of This Means War was not in the film. It was uttered by colleague Pete Sobczynski. The print cut out two minutes in on the line “Remember: This is a covert mission,” immediate cut to black, cue Pete shouting out, “Oh come on! It can’t be that covert!” At which point Chicago Film Critics Association President Dann Gire nominated Pete for the Roger Ebert Award for Best Witticism. He deserves to win.
So what does this moderate digression have to do with This Means War? It was one of two times I laughed – the other was a throwaway gag where one character asks why the love interest (Reese Witherspoon) is talking to that old man (Chelsea Handler).
This Means War tries to mash two genres and succeeds in making both of them boring. The first is the dreaded rom-com. In this case, a love triangle between two men and one woman. The second is action-spy-thriller, as the two men work together for the CIA. That they’re all but suspended from duty in the first five minutes of the movie is not a good sign.
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Posted in: 20th Century Fox · Action · Comedy · Movies · Reviews · Romance
Tagged: 20th Century Fox, Chelsea Handler, Chris Pine, Marcus Gautesen, McG, Reese Witherspoon, This Means War, Til Schweiger, Timothy Dowling, Tom Hardy
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by Matt Raub, Feb 13 2012 // 7:30 AM
With Valentine’s Day hitting on Tuesday, it only makes sense that the box office would reflect that feeling of love we’re smelling in the air. It looks like guys and gals together made sure Valentine’s Day won the weekend, as Screen Gems’ The Vow starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams managed to take the weekend with an estimated $41 Million.
In a very close second, the Denzel Washington vs. Ryan Reynolds flick Safe House brought in an estimated $39 Million, which wouldn’t be bad if the film’s budget wasn’t a total of $85 Million. Right behind that one was another financial conundrum, Dwayne Johnson’s Journey 2, which cost about $80 Million and only only netted $27 Million here in the states.
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Posted in: Action · Box Office · Comedy · Drama · Movies · News · Romance
Tagged: Channing Tatum, Denzel Washington, Dwayne Johnson, George Lucas, Journey 2, Phantom Menace, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds, Safe House, Star Wars, the vow
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