The Flickcast

Book Review: ‘Sorry Please Thank You’ By Charles Yu

Posted on January 15, 2013

How do you follow a debut novel that was named one of Time magazine’s best books of the year? For Charles Yu the answer is Sorry Please Thank You, a breezy but fascinating collection of short stories.

In an interview during San Diego Comic-Con 2012, Yu revealed that the transition from writing his popular and widely praised book, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, to the short story format of Sorry Please Thank You was challenging. The author also admitted that not all of the stories turned out the way he had planned.

“Sometimes you write something and it’s just not what you thought it was going to be,” he said. Even so, Yu is pleased with the final product and readers will be too.

The collection of stories transports readers from futuristic earth to virtual reality and even into space. In every time and location the characters are searching for the same things: happiness and love. The fundamental nature of these desires helps keep Yu’s stories grounded even as some of them veer off into the more obscure and strange (an alien’s guide to Earth families, for example).

‘Assassin’s Creed’ Feature Film Gets Unknown Writer

Posted on January 15, 2013

Assassin’s Creed became a major player once Ubisoft put a huge marketing and development budget behind it to help create one of their AAA titles. It was no surprise that they would attempt to bring it to the big screen like they did with Prince of Persia and plan to with Splinter Cell. But while Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell have had and will have seasoned writers feature film writers at the helm, a virtual unknown to Hollywood is being given the reigns of Assassin’s Creed.

According to Heat Vision, Michael Lesslie will be taking on writing duties for the Assassin’s Creed film. British, there isn’t much else known about Lesslie aside from a few short films. While some may see it as a risky endeavor for Ubisoft to give a multimillion dollar franchise to a virtual unknown, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time proved that even with a more veteran writer the success of a movie based on a gaming franchise wasn’t a guarantee.

Gaming Editorial: Give Me More Living Worlds

Posted on January 14, 2013

Most people who consider themselves “Real” gamers and are over the age of 20 have probably played Super Mario Bros. more times than they can count and can most likely play through the first level blindfolded and know where every Goomba and Koopa Troopa is. But those Goombas and those Koopas are going to be there every time and noting is going to change, in this game or any other. Or is it?

In fact, the rules of gaming changed and a random element was introduced. While there were still some static NPCs and scripted events that were required for the progress of a game’s story, an open world based on behavioral patterns and the sandbox was born.

One of the greatest early sandbox games was Grand Theft Auto which put players in a city that reacted to their actions. But when it made the shift to a 3D environment the world and the interactions changed along with it. But it still didn’t feel like the world was truly alive.

For the most part, passersby would go without noticing the player or each other with the exception of pathing themselves out of the way of each other or reacting to the actions of the player. There was no fully random aspect to their interactions with each other or the world itself. But then things changed again.

Movie Review: ‘Gangster Squad’

Posted on January 14, 2013

Gangster Squad! doesn’t actually include an exclamation point in its title, but it should. It really, really should. When you open your film with a guy being gorily drawn and quartered and then savaged by wolves, you’ve earned some punctuation. And since the rest of the film is as messy as that poor sap’s goify innards why not let that silly excess spill out onto the poster?

Yes, it is a mess, but a pretty fun one that gets more enjoyable with its bouts of seriousness than its more frequent inanities. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Josh Brolin is Sergeant John O’Mara, a good cop in post-WWII Los Angeles. Sean Penn is Mickey Cohen, the bloodthirsty Jewish gangster who controls the LA underworld. Ryan Gosling is Sergeant Jerry Wooters, who flings his Wooters at every dame in sight, and Nick Nolte is a dead ringer for Mark Wahlberg in 30 or so years.

Less importantly, he’s the LAPD police chief who wants Cohen’s empire brought down and recruits O’Mara to do it. O’Mara is a war vet with experience fighting in occupied territory. He has to work undercover and basically has the authority to kill indiscriminately, which I imagine is pretty useful in situations like this.

‘Y: The Last Man’ Finds a Director at Last

Posted on January 14, 2013

It has been a long road for the film adaptation of the critically acclaimed comic series Y: The Last Man, but it finally looks like things are starting to progress. Dan Trachtenberg has been announced as the director of New Line Cinema’s feature film version of the award winning series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.

A commercial director, Trachtenberg was the co-host of The Totally Rad Show alongside Jeff Cannata and the Nerdist Channel’s Alex Albrecht. He also gained viral fame for his fan-made trailer for Portal: No Escape, which has more than 11.6 million hits on YouTube. You can check that out after the break.

For anyone who hasn’t experienced this fantastic comic, Y: The Last Man takes place in a not too distant future where a mysterious plague has killed every male mammal on Earth except for a snarky amateur magician, Yorick, and his pet monkey, Ampersand. The series won five Eisner awards and has been become beloved among the comic and literature communities alike.

In addition to Trachtenberg behind the camera, the movie adaptation has a script by Matthew Federman & Stephen Scaia. We can only hope everyone involved can do this epic story justice on the big screen.

Movie Review: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

Posted on January 12, 2013

On May 2, 2011, special forces from the United States stormed Osama bin Laden’s compound at Abbottabad, Pakistan. That I had to look up the precise dates and location and confirm that they were our own special forces (and not, say, some coalition) testifies to my ignorance. However, I don’t think I’m alone in not knowing the full details of Operation Neptune Spear (yeah, looked that one up, too), and Kathryn Bigelow’s (The Hurt Locker) Zero Dark Thirty offers a glimpse into the operation and an overview of what’s been called “The Greatest Manhunt in History.”

We know the details of 9/11 – what happened, where it happened, and who was responsible – the how and why are still debated, but they’re fairly established – and Bigelow begins with this common ground, opening the film with some of the calls made on that day. There’s no image – no footage of the planes crashing or anchormen reporting or families weeping or rescue workers toiling or world leaders speaking or terrorists threatening. Just the calls.

TV Recap: ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’ Season 2, Episode 11 – ‘Spilt Milk’

Posted on January 11, 2013

This episode starts the mad dash to the season finale. It focuses mainly on Lana, Kit, and Grace finding their way out of Briarcliff, as well as a closer look at Lana’s now grown son Johnny.

We jump back and forth a few times between Briarcliff and current times. In the “now” timeline, the son of Bloody Face (Johnny) is in a hotel room smoking marijuana. He has ordered a prostitute that has just had a baby. He wants to breastfeed. Johnny tells the prostitute that his mother never loved him or his father.

A few times throughout the episode they cut back to Johnny and the prostitute as things progress. He confesses to having major mommy issues, and eventually starts choking the prostitute. We are led to believe that he has killed her.

The ‘LEGO Marvel Super Heroes’ Game is Coming

Posted on January 11, 2013

Like much of the news in the gaming world, this bit was broken to everyone through Game Informer. Despite the fact that a print magazine is getting exclusives still amazes us, it is still exciting news none the less. It looks like Traveller’s Tales is already well underway to make the LEGO Marvel franchise a reality with the official announcement of a LEGO Marvel Super Heroes game.

Spider-Man. Hawkeye. Wolverine. Hulk. Magneto. Iron Man. Thor. Loki. Deadpool. Magneto. Captain America. From the looks of the early footage from Game Informer behind the scenes at Traveller’s Tales, it looks like this full list will be getting the LEGO treatment. It is worth noting that all these guys have already had LEGO figures made and there is potential for hundreds more Marvel characters to be brought into this brick world.

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