The Flickcast – Page 491 of 1030 – Stuff Nerds Love

Box Office: ‘Limitless’ Pulls Off a Surprise

Posted on March 21, 2011

Bradley Cooper’s mind twisting thriller Limitless outperformed box office predictions and handily won the weekend box office with $19M. It also was a hit with audiences, earning a B+ cinemascore.

This is Cooper’s first true starring vehicle, and with a budget of around $27M, it should easily prove profitable. With The Hangover 2 right around the corner, Cooper will surely confirm his status as an A-list talent.

Johnny Depp helped propel Rango to number two with $15.2M.  It dropped a respectable 32% from last weekend, bringing its three week total to $92.6M.

Battle: Los Angeles took quite a tumble; dropping off 59% from its opening weekend. It managed to make $14.6M over the weekend.

Matthew McConaughey scored fourth place with his Lincoln Lawyer debut. The film made $13.4m and was well received by audiences.  Entertainment Weekly reports that this is the first film to join forces with Groupon.  The popular daily coupon site sold discounted tickets to the movie for $6.  They sold almost 200,000 tickets.  It will be interesting to see if this model will be adapted by future films.

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SXSW Film Review: ‘Kill List’

Posted on March 18, 2011

Kill List suffers from a case of schizophrenia. It tries to be a jack of all trades, but masters none of those said trades during the course of the film. Though I personally found the film gratifying, I was sorely disappointed in the disjointed quality of the final product.

The film starts out a fairly interesting character study of a semi-retired hit-man (Neil Maskell)  and his oddly complacent wife (Myanna Buring). Turns out she is quite capable, having been a member of the Swedish army. She understands the demands of his unconventional job, and encourages him to return to the lifestyle in order to keep their family afloat.

I liked the aspect of her not only knowing about, but encouraging, his amoral lifestyle. An old acquaintance shows up for dinner with his mysterious girlfriend, and just like that, he is thrust back into the hitman lifestyle.

After a heated domestic argument ruins the evening, he takes an assignment to off a few pesky people, hence the title, “Kill List”. Even though he’s been out of the biz for a while, it takes precious little time to jump back in the saddle, offing his victims so sadistically that his partner finds it disturbing.

There are hints of a pedophilia/snuff/pornography ring. When Jay watches a video featuring one of the people on the list, his reaction to what he sees upsets and enrages him to the point that he offs those responsible in horrible ways.

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Kevin Costner Is Jonathan Kent In ‘Superman: Man of Steel’

Posted on March 18, 2011

With news coming previously that Diana Lane would take on the role of Superman’s adoptive mom, Martha Kent, in Zack Snyder’s upcoming reboot of the franchise, a lingering question of who would be his father remained. Of course, there’s been speculation and rumors that Kevin Costner was in negotiations for the role, but those were just rumors.

That is, until now. According to reports, Costner is definitely being cast in the part of Superman’s adoptive father Jonathan Kent. The actor will join Henry Cavill, who is playing the title role.

The casting of Costner is quite a big deal as Snyder has seemingly gone for lesser-known actors for most of his films. However, the cast of this one seems to be featuring quite a few names, at least so far. Granted, Henry Cavill isn’t exactly a household name, but obviously Costner and Lane are.

With these roles done we can now turn to speculation on who will play other characters in the film including Lex Luthor, General Zod and Lois Lane. Although, as we don’t know the exact story of the film yet, it may be premature to even speculate on those roles because they may not be in the film at all. Still, it is kinda fun.

Let the speculation continue!

Huzzah! NBC Renews ‘Community, ‘The Office’, & ‘Parks & Rec’

Posted on March 18, 2011

Who says good news doesn’t come at the end of the week? On the heels of their Q&A at PaleyFest this week, NBC’s newest hit show, Community, has been given more life as the network has renewed the show for another season. Also to get another season are Parks and Recreation and the new Steve Carell-less Office.

It seems that though the shows weren’t performing up to expectations, they managed to get a stay of execution. THR spells it out with math. We hate math.

Veteran comedy The Office is delivering a 4.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and averaging 7.7 million viewers for its current seventh season. Steve Carell‘s farewell episode is scheduled to air at the end of April, with Will Ferrell coming on for a multi-episode guest arc.

In the ratings, Amy Poehler‘s Parks and Rec, currently in its third season, is averaging a 2.8 in the key demo and 5.5 million viewers. With its move to the 9:30 p.m. time slot, the series is up 17 percent in the 18-49 demo (2.8 vs. 2.4) and up 9 percent in total viewers (5.5 million vs. 5.1 million).

Critical favorite Community, which has anchored the competitive 8 p.m. time slot on Thursdays for NBC and is led by The Soup host Joel McHale, has averaged a 2.1 in the 18-49 demo and 4.7 million viewers so far in its sophomore season.

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Following the ‘Sharktopus’ Trend, Roger Corman Talks ‘Piranhaconda’

Posted on March 18, 2011

Just in case you thought things couldn’t get more ridiculous than Sharktopus, a film about a half-shark, half-octopus that terrorizes Eric Roberts and a bunch of D-list actors, we’ve got one more for you.

In a recent interview on This Week in Horror, master of the B-movie Roger Corman announced that as a followup to his underground smash-hit Sharktopus, he’s playing monster maker once again with his newest film, Piranhaconda.

Aside from creating new species, Corman is also pitting them against one another. His recent films are also Dinocroc vs. Supergator and has expressed his plans on battling even more of his Darwin-hating concoctions.

Check out what Corman has to say about PiranhaConda after the break.

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SXSW Film Review: ‘Becoming Santa’

Posted on March 18, 2011

In the interest of full disclosure, I had the good fortune to meet Becoming Santa’s star, Jack, on the shuttle ferrying us from the horrendous labyrinthine beast of the Austin Convention Center to the heavenly outpost that is the Alamo Drafthouse. Yes, I know I’m mixing mythologies there, so bite me.

Anyway, I met and chatted with Jack before knowing whom he was or even that he had a documentary in the festival, and for those fifteen minutes we conversed, he was just as charming and articulate fellow as he comes across in Jeff Myers’ sweet little documentary.

So I met and liked the guy and ended up watching and liking his film, too. But the two likes are separate from each other; rest assured I’d tear it apart like an eel on a horse head if it were bad (as I well some other films whose directors I likewise met).

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PAX East 2011: Boston Indie Showcase- Blinding Science

Posted on March 18, 2011

I returned to the show floor bright and early today to check out the second of three independent games featured at this year’s PAX East. Each of these three are puzzle games with clever mechanics, but all stand out individually as awesome testaments to what independent gaming in the Boston area has to offer.

Blinding Science is a sound-based puzzle game, where you play as a blind man who can see through sound. Using a cane to hit objects in the level, players send sound waves out that allow them to observe the game level.

The objects also control workers in each level, who chop wood or smash stones, responding to the sounds you make as a player. The object of every level is to break a crystal guarded at the end, and players use the workers to open up barriers and reach the end goal.

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Darren Aronofsky Leaves Fox’s ‘The Wolverine’

Posted on March 18, 2011

This was just too good to be true. A few months ago, it was announced that Darren Aronofsky had made his Sophie’s Choice between directing the upcoming Robocop reboot or working on the sequel for 20th Century’s X-Men spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine, titled simply, The Wolverine.

As amazing of an idea as it was to have an Oscar nominated director taking on one of Marvel’s most beloved characters, it was definitely too good to be true. It seems that Aronofsky has parted from 20th Century Fox and stepped down as director of The Wolverine. From EW.

In a statement issued by the studio, Aronofsky said, “It became clear that the production of The Wolverine would keep me out of the country for almost a year. I was not comfortable being away from my family for that length of time.” (The film was reportedly going to be set in Japan.) “I am sad that I won’t be able to see the project through,” continued Aronofsky, “as it is a terrific script and I was very much looking forward to working with my friend, Hugh Jackman, again.”

It looks as if this was a mutual break, however, as Fox is also pretty bummed.

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