The Flickcast

‘Star Trek’ Turns 45 Today and Celebrates with New Documentary

Posted on September 8, 2011

For me and many of my friends, one of our endless debates will always be: Star Trek or Star Wars? Like Coke vs. Pepsi, Ginger vs. Mary Ann or Mac vs. Windows, geeks always have a fun time debating the merits of their favorite things.

One of those favorite things celebrating a milestone today is Gene Roddenberry’s venerable franchise Star Trek. 45 years ago today the show first aired on NBC and from that moment on it spawned generations of devoted fans and turned into a worldwide phenomenon beloved by millions of people all over the world.

To help celebrate that milestone, the Science Channel is working with Gene Roddenberry’s only son, Rod Roddenberry, to produce the world premiere documentary, Trek Nation.

According to the Science Channel, the film “shadows Gene Roddenberry’s son, Rod, as he explores his family legacy and the crusade his father’s passion and curiosity for exploration. Through interviews with his most devoted fans, including George Lucas and J.J. Abrams, Trek Nation follows a son searching for the wisdom of his father.”

Sounds pretty interesting. Think I’ll give it a look.

Trek Nation is set to air on Wednesday, November 30 only on Science Channel. Check out a new clip from the doc after the break.

ESPN to Carry ‘Monday Night Football’ Until 2021

Posted on September 8, 2011

When I was growing up it was always ABC’s Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell, “Dandy” Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. Meredith would often sing ‘Turn out the Lights, the partys over” as one team or another dominated the proceedings and Cosell would often clash with Meredith or insult one or more players. It was fun and it seemed like anything could happen at any moment.

That was then, this is now. Monday Night Football has a home on ESPN and has been there since 2006. Now, it seems, ESPN is determined to hold on to the venerable franchise and has announced a new agreement to keep it until 2021. The cost? A reported $15 Billion.

The new agreement will cost ESPN 73% more than its previous NFL deal which likely means the Disney-owned sports channel will ask cable and satellite companies to pay more. Some other terms of the new deal kick off immediately.

Today ESPN’s NFL Live expands to an hour from a half hour. A discussion show based on fan-submitted questions, Audibles, also joins the Thursday night line up. This weekend Sunday NFL Countdown will run three hours, up from two.

On Tuesday ESPN2 will introduce a weekly, hour-long show NFL 32, followed on Friday by another weekly hour long show NFL Kickoff. Click through for all the details from the official ESPN press release.

Film Review: Kevin Smith’s ‘Red State’

Posted on September 8, 2011

Red State is a movie filmed straight from the first draft of the shooting script.

Right from the opening shot of a small town, the cuts of scenery are so quick the audience doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be looking at. Eventually the camera settles on a mother driving her son to school. On the way they pass a group protesting the funeral of a recently murdered homosexual student. Director Kevin Smith finally lingers on a shot of one of the protest signs featuring the phrase “Anal Penetration” in big, bold letters. We see the sign a few times more before the boy gets to school.

When he does, he explains to his teacher (who doesn’t even seem to mind his tardiness) why he’s late, and she launches into some unbelievably clumsy exposition about the group’s leader, Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a nut of a fundamentalist who’s universally despised around these parts and runs his own private Wacoville just outside of town. It’s also brought up at the murdered boy went to that very high school! Two things should immediately pop out: 1) If the kid went to that school, and was murdered two weeks ago, how on earth is it possible that none of his classmates knew him? And 2) If everyone already knows Abin Cooper, then why spend so much time explaining who he is, what he does, where he does it, why he does it…? The answer, of course, is to fill in the audience, but it’s done in such an amateurish way that you can’t believe it came from writer/director Kevin Smith, who’s not only made eight feature films, not only been writing professionally for nearly 20 years, but who’s also a man who prides himself on the quality of his writing.

And this is in the first three minutes.

Arnold, Willis, Norris, & Van Damme Announced for ‘Expendables 2’

Posted on September 8, 2011

For those of you going through action movie withdrawal, fear not, as Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables are coming back for a second round with an even more star-studded cast.

After the announcement yesterday that Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme would be joining the film, we have received awe- worthy news that both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis will have significantly expanded roles in the sequel.

Millennium Films has finally begun confirming which rumored stars will actually be showing up in the action-packed blockbuster, which will be directed by Simon (Con Air) West. An official cast list for The Expendables has made its way online, with the obvious returning stars Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke, who are all returning as part of Stallone’s mercenary crew.

Along with Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins was also confirmed for the film. It is rumored that these are not the only names that will pop up in the coming months.

Take a Look Inside the Garage of ‘The Car Show’s Adam Carolla

Posted on September 7, 2011

You can say what you will about Adam Carolla. Call him a loudmouth or some other less flattering names. Why not, he sometimes says things that make people angry and is in the public eye, so he’s pretty much fair game.

Whatever your opinion of Carolla, you can’t fault the man on at least one thing: his cars. In case you hadn’t heard, Carolla is a very enthusiastic car guy and collector. In fact, his obsession with cars led him to start a podcast about them and eventually to a TV show on Speed TV called The Car Show.

But what cars does Carolla have in his own garage? Well, the folks over at Autoblog got a chance to tour Carolla’s garage and found quite a few interesting and exotic surprises there. You may be surprised at his love of all-things Datsun as well as his fondness for classic Lamborghinis.

Like Carolla or not, his selection of cars is pretty interesting, and pretty damn cool. We’ve included a couple pics of some of the cars after the break. Head over to Autoblog for the rest.

Verizon’s DROID Bionic Launches September 8th

Posted on September 7, 2011

With the iPhone being so popular and all the speculation about the next gen iPhone 5 reaching fever pitch, it’s sometimes hard to keep in mind the other fine smartphones on the market or coming soon. One of these is the upcoming Motorola DROID Bionic from Verizon Wireless.

Even for fans of HTC devices (which many of us are), it’s easy to be impressed with Moto’s latest offering. With specs such as a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP processor, 1GB of RAM a 4.3-inch qHD display, the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread OS and, of course, compatibility with Verizon’s lightning fast 4G LTE network, this device looks poised to dominate Verizon’s 4G offerings.

And now, Verizon Wireless on Wednesday finally made the Motorola DROID BIONIC official and has released pricing and availability details. The new Android smartphone launches Thursday, September 8th, for $299.99 with a 2 year contract.

Check out all the info in the official press release after the break.

Prepare to Get Freaked Out With the Trailer for ‘Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

Posted on September 7, 2011

Last year, the world was rocked when a man named Tom Six directed some of the most gruesome and horrific scenes in the history of film, let alone the horror genre. Now he’s planning to up the ante even higher with his sequel, the alleged Full Sequence.

The film, which is shrouded in a fair amount of mystery, has got some reportedly ridiculous things to show us, and Six even has the balls to make the film meta in explaining how it ties with the original Sequence. Here’s the synopsis.

The film centers on an antagonist called Martin (Laurence Harvey), who becomes sexually obsessed with a DVD recording of the film within the film, The Human Centipede (First Sequence). In the DVD, a surgeon kidnaps three people and surgically connects them mouth-to-anus. Martin masturbates as he watches the film, with sandpaper wrapped around his penis.

He subsequently creates his own twelve-person “human centipede” and gains sexual gratification from the pain, humiliation and suffering of his victims. He is shown to become sexually aroused whenever a member of his centipede is forced to defecate into the mouth of the victim behind them. Martin rapes the woman at the rear of the centipede with barbed wire wrapped around his penis.^[2] A teaser trailer also revealed that a baby will be in some-way involved with the plot. The penises of two of the victims will be attached to the top of the head of the lead segment.

That rundown alone is enough to make you cringe, but don’t take our word for it. Take a look at the reactions of real-life folks after the jump when they watched the uncensored version of the film in Australia. Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence may just hit theaters here in the US sometime in the next decade.

SEGA Unleashes New Trailers for ‘Aliens: Colonial Marines’ & ‘Aliens: Infestation’

Posted on September 7, 2011

When looking back at the most truly terrifying moments in film in the last thirty years, some can be found in both Alien and its sequel Aliens. Though the series started to focus more on action than horror in its later iterations, no one can say the first time they saw Sigorney Weaver face to face with a xenomorph that it wasn’t a horrifying experience.

The Alien franchise has always had a home in video games with everything from side scrolling adventures on the NES to the much acclaimed first person shooter Aliens vs. Predator titles on PC in 1999. SEGA is now bringing out two new Aliens titles over the coming months. The most prominent of the two comes in the form of Aliens: Colonial Marines for PC, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Aliens: Colonial Marines has been a subject of much discussion in the video game world. At one point, there was a game set to release in 2002 entitled Aliens: Colonial Marines which ended up being canceled. Later, SEGA revived the name with a new development team and concept, slating it for a 2009 release. It would end up being delayed for about three years in favor of development of the updated Aliens vs. Predators title which came out to mixed reviews.

Now, Aliens: Colonial Marines looks like it is finally set to come out in 2012 from Gearbox Software. Gearbox is the team that put together the Opposing Force and Blue Shift expansions for the original Half-Life and most recently released the now infamous Duke Nukem Forever.

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