The Flickcast

Every Sci-Fi and Fantasy Show to Watch This Summer

Posted on June 4, 2009

trueblood_paquin_moyer You know the old joke about what kinds of music they play at a certain bar? It goes something like this: “We play both kinds of music . . . Country and Western.” See, that’s funny because those are the same thing . . . never mind. Still, the intent of the joke applies to the worlds of Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

As in, we like ’em both here at The Flickcast. We also tend to watch a lot of TV. So, how do we combine those two things together and, more importantly, figure out which shows are worth watching and which aren’t? Fortunately, over at Sci-Fi Wire, they’ve done the hard work for us and compiled a list of every Sci-Fi and Fantasy show we could possibly watch this Summer.

Some of the shows they highlight in the article that we’re looking forward to are listed below. For the complete list, be sure to head over to Sci-Fi Wire.

New Posters Revealed for ‘Iron Man 2’, ‘Captain America’, & ‘Thor’

Posted on June 4, 2009

On the heels of the poster and release date released for Spider-Man 4 earlier this week, more pictures have come from the Marvel booth at the Licensing Expo 2009 in Las Vegas. This time, the spotlight is on the rest of the Marvel universe, with a quad poster revealed for Iron Man 2, The First Avenger: Captain America, Thor, and all of them together in The Avengers.

The best part of the posters being released is the projected release dates that come along with them. The first, which wasn’t a huge surprise is that Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 will be released May 7 of 2010. According to director Favreau’s tweets, they are about halfway through principle photography, and yes, Sam Jackson will be back.

Ridley Scott Producing Web Series With Ties to ‘Blade Runner’

Posted on June 4, 2009

blade_runner_xlg This could either be really cool or really lame. Either way, here’s the info about Ridley’s Scott’s new web series with, apparently, some connection to his 1982 sci-fi classic film Blade Runner. According to the New York Times:

On Thursday the film’s director, Ridley Scott, announced that a new division of his commercials company, RSA Films, was working on a video series called “Purefold.” The series of linked 5- to 10-minute shorts, aimed first at the Web and then perhaps television, will be set at a point in time before 2019, when the Harrison Ford movie takes place in a dystopian Los Angeles.

Mr. Scott, his brother Tony and his son Luke are developing the project in conjunction with the independent studio Ag8, which is run by one of the creators of “Where are the Joneses?” a British Web sitcom that solicited storyline suggestions from the audience. Similarly, “Purefold” will harvest story input from its viewers, in conjunction with the social media site FriendFeed.

But the series won’t be hewing too closely to the specific characters or situations in “Blade Runner.” Some of that material stemmed from the Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which the “Purefold” creators do not have rights to.

“We don’t take any of the canon or copyrighted assets from the movie,” said David Bausola, founding partner of Ag8, who said he hoped the series would debut later this summer and that the first episodes would depict events about two years into the future. “It’s actually based on the same themes as ‘Blade Runner.’ It’s the search for what it means to be human and understanding the notion of empathy. We are inspired by ‘Blade Runner.’”

So, the show will have some elements of “dystopian Los Angeles” and be based on the same themes as Blade Runner. Interesting. Really, if they want to do a show about dystopian Los Angeles, they could set it in modern times and just drive around certain neighboorhodds looking for stories. There’s enough “dystopian” out there for ten web series.

E3 2009: Activision Sues to Keep Jack Black Video Game Off Shelves

Posted on June 4, 2009

brutal_legend It wouldn’t be America without lawsuits so here’s another one to bring you today. According to The Hollywood Reporter, video game giant Activision is suing to stop the release of the Jack Black video game Brutal Legend.

THR got the news from The AP, which says: “Activision Entertainment Holdings sued game developer Double Fine Productions in Santa Monica, Calif., on Wednesday. The lawsuit claims that Double Fine transferred rights owned by Activision to Electronic Arts, which plans to release the game later this year. Activision claims it still has a valid contract to release the game and has invested roughly $15 million in it.”

Brutal Legend features Black as a heavy-metal roadie transported to a mythical world to fight evil. The game looks pretty cool and seeing footage of it at E3 made me want to check it out more when it finally gets released. Although, with this lawsuit, that may never happen now so perhaps I should have played it a bit more when I had the chance. Can’t we all just get along? I guess not when there’s $15 Million involved.

To see more about the game, watch the trailer from E3 after the jump. Enjoy it because if this lawsuit goes very far, It may be all you ever get to see.

Another Promo for NBC’s ‘The Philanthropist’ Now Online

Posted on June 4, 2009

james-purefoy-philanthropist Previously here at The Flickcast, we brought you the first promo for the new show The Philanthropist, which premieres June 24th on NBC. The show is an interesting mix of action, drams, suspense and seems to have great production value, an interesting and talented cast and all of the other ingredients that usually go into a hit show. Its one that will undoubtedly make its way onto our Tivos so we can check it out.

To further illustrate this point, we’ve got another promo for the show to, well, show. In this one, billionaire Teddy Rist who, according to NBC’s info, “loves women, money and power but after the tragic death of his only child, has an awakening and becomes the world’s first vigilante philanthropist”, saves a boy from drowning, hand carries a vaccine across mountains to villagers, gets shot at and is told he’s “not a superhero.” Tough job.

The show stars James Purefoy (Rome), Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) and Neve Campbell (Scream). Check out the new promo for The Philanthropist after the break.

The Pull List Comic Reviews: ‘Dark Avengers’, ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampires’, and More

Posted on June 4, 2009

Despite the epic amount of press behind it (sarcasm), my local comic shop did not order any of Dark Horse’s miniseries Werewolves on the Moon versus Vampires. Just the name alone filled me with shock and terror as to what might be on the comic page should I one day be able to find this issue somewhere. As soon as I do get my hands on it though, you better believe it will make its way into a future back issue edition of The Pull List.

Until then, here’s this week’s The Pull List.

Pull of the Week:

Dark Avengers #5 – Marvel – $3.99

Score: 9.0

The first book to receive a second “Pull of the Week” accolade, Dark Avengers #5 focuses on just how cool it is to be a bad guy. Told through flashbacks taking place hours before a news interview, this issue does its best to introduce pieces of personality to almost all the members of the Osborn backed Avengers team. At the same time, Norman Osborn publicly responds to Clint Barton calling him out publicly as the former murder, the Green Goblin.

The final pages of the issue reveal that all might not be going as planned for the members of the Cabal as Norman must assemble his team of Avengers again for the next issue. Sadly, as it seems with many books that Bendis writes, if he doesn’t care about a character they don’t get much representation in his book. Daken, though seen gets a very limited role in the issue much like Mockingbird has since her return in the pages of the New Avengers.

Actor David Carradine Found Dead

Posted on June 4, 2009

According to the Associated Press, actor David Carradine, most known for his role of Caine in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, was found in his Bangkok hotel room, hanged, and was believed to have committed suicide.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room. It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.

It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room’s curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

A police officer at Bangkok’s Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man to The Associated Press, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.

Carradine had been in and out of the spotlight for decades with the Kung Fu franchise and then when Quintin Tarantino approached him for the titular role in the Kill Bill films. Carradine also comes from a family of actors, son of legendary actor John Carradine, brother to Robert and Keith Carradine, and uncle to Martha Plimpton. He can be seen most recently in Crank 2: High Voltage.

Han Solo Vs. Thomas Magnum

Posted on June 4, 2009

Our team here at The Flickcast has worked in online media, the film and tv industry, the comics industry and radio and has quite a bit of experience in those areas. So, it’s sometimes difficult for us to see a film, video, comic or other piece of entertainment and say “Wow, that’s really fun and original.” These days, it just doesn’t happen all that much.

But then, fortunately for our collective sanity, it actually does happen. Case in point is CBVee’s this spot-on and often hilarious comparison video between the title sequences of two television shows. Both shows are, of course, about fictional characters. However, one was real, in the case of Magnum, PI starring Tom Selleck, and one is completely made up, in the case of the other show known as Han Solo, PI.

Even if you’ve never seen Magnum, PI, the video is still funny and even caused several people here at The Flickcast HQ to laugh out loud. Its videos like this that make us happy to live in a time where the means of production are in the hands of so many different people. Sure, lots of the time you get crap. But sometimes you get gold.

Check out the video after the jump. You’ll be glad you did.

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