The Flickcast – Page 224 of 1030 – Stuff Nerds Love

HBO Greenlights Season 2 Of Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Newsroom’

Last week HBO debuted their newest show, The Newsroom from Aaron Sorkin. The pilot sets a tone that hearkens back to the prime eras of The West Wing and the criminally underrated Sports Night. We hoped that being on a channel like HBO gives this show a better chance than Studio 60 got.

Well HBO is quick to deliver a season two verdict as Deadline is reporting a green-light has happened:

The renewal of Newsroom comes just over a week after the debut of the series starring Jeff Daniels — the June 24 premiere drew 2.1 million viewers at 10 PM. That result actually put Newsroom ahead of the 1.4 million viewers True Blood drew for its 2008 series premiere.

Exciting stuff for fans of dialogue heavy, walking through corridors, intellectual drama with a pinch of comedy. You will also notice that True Blood also got another season too, but that is as much of a no brainer as you can possibly get.

So HBO adds another hit to an already strong stable of current hour-long dramas that include Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and the previously mentioned True Blood. It also gives HBO a smaller scale hit series to go along side the other big productions that should help enable the channel to keep making all of these great shows forever.

An Avenger Is Set To Guest Star Next Season On ‘Doctor Who’

Next season Doctor Who is going to feature the passing of the guard to a new companion, set the stage for the 50th anniversary year and now, play host to an Avenger. Which Avenger you might ponder? You know, the sexy one who has a penchant for wearing skin-tight jumpsuits and can kick your ass… Emma Peel!

The famed female lead of the classic British TV series The Avengers has just been announced by the BBC to be taking on a role in the second half of series 7:

Mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling are set to star side by side in the BBC Wales drama Doctor Who, the first time the pair have ever worked together on screen. Character details remain under wraps, but the episode penned by Mark Gatiss will see Dame Diana and Rachael recreate their off-screen relationship on-screen, as they play a mother and daughter with a dark secret.

This guest casting is just another intriguing notch to an upcoming season that is shaping up to be an interesting one. The Matt Smith era has been as much the Matt/Karen/Arthur era as anything else, it will be interesting to finally see Smith play his variation of the Doctor with some one new helping him on his adventures.

Doctor Who is set to return in the fall, and be sure to follow The Flickcast in the coming weeks as The Doctor will have a presence at Comic-Con again this year and will likely bring news and a new trailer with him.

Game Review: ‘LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes’ for PlayStation 3

The name itself is somewhat deceptive. LEGO Batman combined with the DC Super Heroes. Is it another entrant into the LEGO Batman franchise or the start of a new series focusing on more of the greater DC universe? And with trailers featuring members of the Justice League, why didn’t they go with LEGO Justice League or at least LEGO Batman 2: Justice League? LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes gives a lot of what is expected as well as some interesting gameplay and story design choices as well.

Gameplay:

At its core, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a puzzle solving game with light combat elements. Players must figure out how to traverse from point A to point B in a room using the special techniques and powers of the game’s heroes. Both Batman and Robin have multiple suits, each with different power sets, to aid in this and are aided by Superman’s unique abilities later on. Superman can’t walk through electric fields, but Batman has a suit that can. Robin can’t melt gold beams but Superman can shoot his heat vision to accomplish the task. And for some reason, Robin has both a hazard suit to clean up toxic waste and a snow suit which lets him freeze stuff.

Interspersed between puzzles is light combat. Enemies can often be taken out in a single hit and multiple targets can go down quickly with a quick shot from the batarang. Combat is also one of the fundamentals that hurts the gameplay. During the levels where players can be both Superman and Batman or in a later level where players can be Wonder Woman, both characters are essentially invincible. There is no threat as they have steel health hearts and cannot take damage. And because both can fly as well, there is no fear of them falling during platforming sections. The second players realize this, the excitement of the combat sections is lost.

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Monday Picks: ‘Jaws’

Jaws (1975) is the first summer blockbuster and is considered by critics and fans alike as one of the greatest films ever made. After success with the TV thriller Duel (1972) and his first theatrical release of The Sugarland Express (1974), director Steven Spielberg set out to adapt Peter Benchley’s novel about a Great White shark which terrorizes a small New England beach community. The screenplay was co-written by Benchley, actor-writer Carl Gottlieb (M*A*S*H*), and an un-credited John Milius who helped with some of the film’s most memorable dialogue like “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” and the legendary U.S.S. Indianapolis speech.

The film opens with one of the greatest sequences ever shot. A young woman leaves a bonfire beach gathering to go skinny-dipping in the ocean while being chased by an inebriated young man. The young man ends up passing out in the surf while the woman swims out to the middle of the channel. An underwater low angle shot represents the point of view of the shark as it begins to stalk its prey. John William’s haunting score builds as the young woman is thrashed around and is pulled under by the shark. This scene did to ocean night swimming, what Psycho (1960) did for women’s showering.

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Check This Out: ‘The Star Wars That I Used To Know’ Parody Video

You can’t go anywhere without hearing “Somebody That I Used to Know.” TV. Radio. Facebook. It’s everywhere. But there haven’t been that many people who have been able to successfully go out and parody it (and at least it isn’t a parody of “Call Me Maybe” which has been stuck in your head since Nintendo’s E3 press conference).

As with many viral successes, this parody is of the geek kind since whether or not the “cool kids” want to admit it, we geeks run the internet. The Star Wars That I Used to Know takes two perspectives, one comes from everyone’s favorite Sith Lord who feels his legacy has been destroyed and then the other from George Lucas who feels he has the right to change what people have come to know.

The Star Wars That I Used to Know is a great parody from the guys over at TeddieFilms.com, Eddie King and Tyler Marshall. Check out the full video after the jump!

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Box Office Report: ‘Ted’ Breaks R-Rated Records In The Lead Of A Huge Box Office Weekend

Ted has set the new standard for original R-Rated comedies, bringing in just over $54 Million dollars during the weekend. The Seth McFarlane directorial debut has established a record for comedies not based on an existing franchise, and led the pack of a very big box office weekend.

In addition to the big Ted weekend, Magic Mike came out strong for an R-Rated male stripper opus. The duel R-Rated comedies actually both over performed estimates to combine for an incredibly strong June weekend.

Magic Mike was able to capitalize on the fervent female movie going audience that was more than ready to swarm to the theater to see Channing Tatum swing his groove thing. Even though the film brought in a very respectable weekend number, it was very top-heavy, with more than half of its opening weekend coming from Friday alone.

Disney/PIXAR’s Brave rounds out the top three with another $34+ Million. The solid third place finish places the PIXAR film well on the path for another $200+ Million domestic total for the venerable animation studio. That said, the 48.7% drop represents a higher than normal number for PIXAR.

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Check Out Previews for This Sunday’s New ‘True Blood’

With the new season of True Blood in full swing, things have really started to get interesting. All sorts of cool things are happening to our favorite vampires, and vampire lovers, and this season looks to just keep getting better.

We’ve got some previews for this Sunday’s new episode to share with you today. In them you get a taste of what’s in store for Sookie, Eric, Bil, Pam, Jason and the rest of the gang. Looks like a great episode. And yes, we realize the pic above is from last week’s episode. We just like it, so there.

Check out all the videos after the break. A new True Blood episode hits HBO on Sunday at 9/8C.

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Adobe Not Supporting Flash In Next Version of Android

As Steve Jobs predicted over five years ago, Adobe’s Flash is on the way out. How do we know for sure? Well, the company that makes it has taken a radical step and announced it won’t support Flash in Android 4.1 (aka Jelly Bean) and no longer provide new installs for any Android devices after August 15th.

“We will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed,” the company wrote on its website. “Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.”

How’s that for predictions coming true? What does this mean for those of you not running the latest Android OS or who already have Flash installed? Not much at this point. However, it is a very interesting development.

It means that even Adobe knows Flash’s time, at least on mobile devices, is coming to an end. Flash has been banned from iOS devices from the begining and now Android is next, although at Adobe’s own hand.

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