The Flickcast

War Movie Mondays: ‘Battleground’

Posted on December 13, 2010

Seasons greetings to all you loyal War Movie Monday fans out there in The Flickcast universe. In keeping with the theme of war films which happen around the holidays, I am proud to present this week’s pick, the 1949 MGM classic Battleground which salutes the “Battered Bastards” of 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon of Item Company, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne who were cut off and surrounded by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. To ensure that veterans seeing the film would not criticize the accuracy of certain events, the regiment was a composite of units which had fought the offensive in the Ardennes.

The film stars a troop of Hollywood greats which include Van Johnson (Holley), John Hodiak (Jarvess), Ricardo Montalban (Rodriguez), George Murphy (“Pop” Stazak), Marshall Thompson (Jim Layton), Jerome Courtland (Abner Spudler), Don Taylor (Standiferd), Douglas Fowley (“Kipp” Kippton), James Whitmore (Sgt. Kinnie), and Richard Jaeckel (Bettis).

Battleground was one of the first major hits for MGM in over five years since the war had ended. During the war, many films had shown battlefield conditions, but Battleground was the first to show the audience just how painful it truly was. The film is a fantastic display which shows men in combat as extremely vulnerable and succumbing to battle fatigue or what is referred to today as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Spike VGA Recap Part 2: Announcement Trailers for ‘Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ & ‘Thor: God of Thunder’

Posted on December 13, 2010

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was one of the best titles in the early days of the XBox 360, giving players hundreds of hours of gameplay when there was little else in terms of content available for the system. The early concept of a living world filled with characters who would hold conversations amongst themselves and go on their daily routine without interaction from the player coupled with an awesomely fun first person combat roleplaying game earned Oblivion a spot as an early highlight in this generation of console’s lifecycle.

Finally, Bethesda has released official word on the next installment to the Elder Scrolls saga entitled The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Whether or not Patrick Steward will lend his voice to the next iteration of the game remains to be seen but the events of Oblivion look to tie in directly to the release of the denizens of Skyrim on the Elder Scrolls world.

When Sega announced they would be working on the Thor video game, the video game community responded with an astounding, “Please, not another Iron Man 2.” Now, with the full force of the Thor movie marketing to help drive it, the Thor: God of Thunder video game will make its way to consoles on May 3rd.

Interestingly enough following the announcement of both Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston taking on the vocal roles of their on screen counterparts, only Hemsworth’s voice is present in the trailer.

Take a look at the trailers for both games after the jump. Also, be sure to check out our coverage of the Uncharted 3 and Batman: Arkham City trailers from earlier today.

Secret Cameo in ‘Tron: Legacy’ Could Reveal Future Tron Villain

Posted on December 13, 2010

Tron: Legacy‘s immensely anticipated release is only just a brief week away, so what could be more exciting than rumors about a sequel? Up until this week, the news of a secret (but brief) cameo in Tron: Legacy have surfaced, one that might hint towards a villain in a future Tron installment. Don’t keep reading if you don’t want it spoiled!

According to io9, actor Cillian Murphy appears as Edward Dillinger, son of Ed Dillinger, the former baddie in the original Tron. You can spot him in the “real world” during Tron Legacy, at an Encom board meeting.

“That was little tit-bit we didn’t need slipping out early,” said Brigham Taylor, Production Executive on Tron: Legacy. “He’s a character that fits into the mythology of Tron. He’s connected to one of the characters from the past and we’re really excited to have him involved.”

While the cameo is rather short, the fact that this was kept such a secret until now means that this character is going to be big to the Tron universe in the future. After all, they wouldn’t have casted someone as well-known as Murphy in the role, had they not had plans for Edward Dillinger.

In the meantime, charge up your lightcycles and race to the theater next Friday, December 17th, when Tron: Legacy is released in theaters and IMAX 3D.

Activision Reveals ‘Prototype 2′

Posted on December 13, 2010

Our friends at Activision and Radical Entertainment are back with a sequel to their best-selling game of 2009: Prototype. This new game, currently called Prototype 2, is currently in development and to kick things off we’ve got the first reveal trailer of the game for you today.

“When PROTOTYPE surpassed 2MM units we knew gamers would want a sequel to find out what happens next with Alex Mercer,” said Ken Rosman, Studio Head, Radical Entertainment. “The team here at Radical is sincerely grateful to the fans and we are laser focused on delivering an even bigger and better experience with PROTOTYPE 2!”

In case you’re not familiar with the game, it deals with the exploits of Alex Mercer (voiced by Barry Pepper) who wakes up on a morgue slab with no memory. Alex escapes and sets out to recover his memory and find out exactly what occurred. He soon discovers he now possesses powerful shapeshifting abilities that grant him superhuman strength, speed, agility, durability, weaponry and the ability to “consume” people to gain their memories, skills and appearance.

Alex is forced to track down and consume those related to the conspiracy in order to uncover the truth. During his quest, Alex must face and overcome both the military charged with containing the incident and a horde of infected monsters who’s only thought is killing him.

Click through to check out all the awesome action in the reveal trailer. Look for Prototype 2 to hit stores sometime in 2012.

American Film Institute Names Top Films, TV Programs of 2010

Posted on December 13, 2010

As we approach the end of 2010, we will naturally see list start to appear. List of best movies, best TV shows, best video games, best gadgets and tech and a whole lot more. In fact, you’ll see a few lists from us pretty soon too. It’s just how this end-of-the-year thing works these days.

Until we start to roll out our own lists, we have one for you to kick things off. This one comes from the American Film Institute and highlight their picks of the best Movies and TV programs for 2010. When you read over their selections, most of them pretty much make sense.

Most of the films and most of the TV programs listed here are among our favorites as well and all are of a high quality. Of course, on every list there’s always some items that don’t seem to belong. However, we won’t disparage the AFI’s list, we will just counter with a list of our own (or three) soon.

Here are AFI’s picks:

Movies

• BLACK SWAN
• THE FIGHTER
• INCEPTION
• THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
• 127 HOURS
• THE SOCIAL NETWORK
• THE TOWN
• TOY STORY 3
• TRUE GRIT
• WINTER’S BONE

Spike VGA Recap Part 1: ‘Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’ & ‘Batman: Arkham City’ Get Trailers

Posted on December 13, 2010

We’ve got so much to cover from Saturday night’s live Video Game Awards, put on by Spike TV, we had to break it up into a few posts. Starting with two of the biggest geek announcements from the show we get a first glimpse at Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Batman: Arkham City.

Coming November 1st of next year, PlayStation 3’s biggest franchise returns with the just announced, but much expected, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Since its release, there hasn’t been a PlayStation 3 exclusive that has gotten such critical praise as the Uncharted series. While the first Uncharted was not a huge commercial success, the sleeper hit did prove itself worthy of many people’s attention which resulted in fantastic sales and further critical approval for the sequel.

Also, we’ve got the very first full-length trailer for the sequel to last year’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was not only a hit for video gamers, but a huge leap in faith for comic book lovers, as they finally had a decent game featuring the Dark Knight. This next game is going a bit more “open world” as Gotham City is now playable to patrol and take down baddies like Hugo Strange. City is expected to hit shelves late next year.

Check out both full trailers after the jump, and keep it here for more trailers and news from the VGA Awards.

Box Office: ‘Narnia’ and ‘The Tourist’ Get a Cold Reception

Posted on December 13, 2010

It was a pretty bland weekend at the box office considering that two big studio releases opened. Despite the built in audience for Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the mega-watt star power of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in The Tourist, neither of the films managed to make much of a splash. Both came in under the low end of their respective projected estimates.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader won the weekend with a relatively low take of $24.5M. This is far below the other films in the franchise. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe made $65.6M in its opening weekend, and Prince Caspian made $55M in the same time frame.

The film has a reported budget between $140 and $150M, which seems rather daunting to recoup at this point. Fortunately, the film fared better overseas, grossing over $67M, bringing its total to $81M.

The Tourist was troubled by bad reviews, but many still thought the film would benefit from its star power. However, the film made a measly $17M. Disney’s Tangled only dropped around 33%, earning an additional $14.6M for third place. The film has now made $115M to date.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dropped almost 50%, making $8.5M. Its four week total stands at $257M, good enough for placing number six on the highest grossing films of 2010. Unstoppable was the number five movie this weekend. Playing on over 2,900 screens, the film grossed about $3.75M.

First ‘Thor’ Teaser Trailer Arrives

Posted on December 11, 2010

This is what happens when the entire office goes out for happy hour. We miss cool trailers that drop late on a Friday. Case in point is the new teaser trailer for Marvel’s upcoming sure-to-be-epic Thor.

In this new trailer, which is a mix of new bits and footage screened during Comic-Con last July, we get the basic premise of the film which is that Thor is banished from his home planet to earth by his father. Once there he meets up with a human girl and then discovers he will have to fight an evil that followed him to earth. Of course, there’s also going to be some giant battle scenes and several sequences with Chris Hemsworth, sans shirt, to appeal to the ladies.

We’ve gone back and forth on this one as it seemed like less of a sure thing than Iron Man. However, more and more it looks like director Kenneth Branagh, the cast and the rest of the team know what they’re doing. Will Thor be next year’s Iron Man? We’ll see. But as huge fans of what Marvel is trying to do with these films, we sure hope so.

Check out the new teaser after the jump. Thor arrives in theaters on May 6, 2011.

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