The Flickcast

On the Radar: Attack Of The Show’s New Host, ‘Star Wars’ Sneakers, ‘X-Men: First Class’ Set Pics and More

Posted on December 10, 2010

Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Let’s get started!

• You know the world of technology is getting out of hand when we see the first ever bluetooth enabled Smart Wallets.

• Can you remember how many films have used a character saying “blah, blah, blah”? You don’t have to, this sneaky editor combined all of them into one video.

• Bye Bye, Olivia. G4’s Attack of the Show has a brand new cohost, and she’s….somebody.

• Feel like your childhood was missing too many Cylons and Daleks? That problem is fixed by the fictional “Five Sci-Fi Children’s Books”

• Comedy Central has a brand new logo, but we can’t help shake the feeling it’s infringing a copyright somewhere.

• We can’t get enough of Daft Punk’s score for Tron: Legacy. To that point, here’s the official video for their title song, Derezzed.

• Some douche felt it was necessary to get the cast of Avatar tattooed on his back. We wonder if Cameron gets royalties every time this guy hits the beach.

• Some potentially spoilery set photos from Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class have surfaced. This is what happens when you let teens drive a stealth jet.

• Adidas has really kicked it this time. Take a look at the official C-3PO/R2D2 mash up sneakers.

• Because you love links and we love popular topics: Five Reasons Why It’s Ok to like Wikileaks.

• That does it for this week. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

Film Review: ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’

Posted on December 10, 2010

Literary adaptations are always a tricky thing, especially for those of us who love the source material. Beloved books can be ruined forever by a film version gone wrong. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy wasn’t even all that bad of a movie in and of itself, but it was obviously nothing as good as the book, and ever since, my warm memories of the book (which I read several times as a teen and listened to in the BBC radio version many times more) have been discolored by the movie.

And that’s hardly the worst literary adaptation there has been. When things look especially unpromising, I make it a point not to see even the trailer.

But when everything goes perfectly, from casting to art direction to all the important details of story and theme—very rarely, in other words—a film version can equal and even in some ways exceed the book. Such is the case with this third in the Chronicles of Narnia series, a breathtakingly beautiful and thrilling envisioning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley return as Edmund and Lucy, and Keynes in particular has grown into his own as the courageous and clear-eyed warrior king. Ben Barnes is even hunkier than before, as Prince-turned-King Caspian should be. He makes a puffy shirt look desirable, and that isn’t easy.

Liam Neeson voices an Aslan whose CGI being is incredibly convincing and impressive, down to the mane rustling in the wind and the mysterious, majestic eyes. Tilda Swinton must have put in all of four hours on set, as she appears for a total of 45 seconds, and that only as a misty green vision in the green mist. Simon Pegg takes over from Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep, the valiant little mouse who will be a clear favorite for the under-13 crowd.

Apple Hiring Engineers to Work on Verizon iPhone?

Posted on December 10, 2010

I don’t know about you but I never get tired of Verizon iPhone rumors. Maybe because I wish for it to happen almost more than anything. Don’t get me wrong, I do like my Android powered HTC Incredible. I just miss the iPhone but I won’t go back to it as long as it’s only on AT&T’s network.

So, if I could have something that combines the amazingness of the iPhone with the awesomeness of the Verizon network, I would be a happy person and could then go about my life in blissful contentment . . . until then next version comes out of course.

The rumor this week is about Apple’s search for engineers to work on some new projects. The info, dug up by the gang at Fortune, is about a job for a full-time Cellular Systems Performance Engineers who will deal with protocol issues and field test hardware. They are also looking for people with experience in GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and more to the point, CDMA technologies.

In case you don’t know that last one, CDMA, is the kind of network Verizon uses. That bit of info is made all the more significant by the fact that no currently shipping hardware from Apple — including the iPhone 4 — uses that technology. So, just another piece of the puzzle that when finished will hopefully reveal a shiny new iPhone for Verizon users.

I’d wait in line for that if. . . and I bet some of you would too.

‘The Other Guys’ Explodes Onto DVD & Blu-ray Next Week

Posted on December 10, 2010

There were a few competitors for this year’s biggest movie comedy but hands down one of the ones in the top 3 is Adam McKay’s The Other Guys starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. The film was a great satirical take on some of the top buddy cop films of the 90’s and had an all-star cast. Starting December 14th, you can relive the laughs from the film unrated on DVD and Blu-ray.

If Ferrell and Wahlberg aren’t enough to keep you entertained, how about Michael Keaton, Rob Riggle, Eva Mendes, Daman Wayans Jr., Dwayne Johnson, Steve Coogan, and Samuel L. Jackson? Here are the official features and bonus material from the releases.

Blu-ray Exclusive Bonus Material

The “Mom”-mentary- Unrated Version
Additional Deleted & Extended Scenes
Line-O-Rama
Gag reel
“Pimps Don’t Cry” music video
Alternate Action
Bonus Featurettes:
Extreme Close Up
Everyone Hates The DVD Guy
Wasn’t That
Why Are There Brits On This Movie?
Rob Riggle Like To Party
We Shouldn’t Kiss a Chicken
Mark Walberg’s Eating Contest Entourage
Lendl Global Commercial
movieIQ®+sync and BD-Live connect you to real-time information on the cast, music, trivia and more while watching the movie

Be sure to catch The Other Guys on Blu-ray and DVD next Tuesday from Sony Entertainment.

TV Recap: ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Dee Gives Birth’

Posted on December 10, 2010

A staple of the classic sitcom is that, by the end of the episode, everything has to return to normal. Within the 20-or-so minutes of each week’s installment, the characters are free to travel to Beijing, adopt a koala, or make a big sandwich so long as that somewhere around the 18-minute mark, the status quo is maintained. From the ‘50s and on up to the ‘80s there wasn’t anything wrong with having normal, decent people thrown into far-fetched situations and coming out relatively unaffected—or, if they did learn some life-altering lesson, they’d forget it by next week.

Then, along came Seinfeld in the ‘90s, which broke ground by calling BS on the idea that any normal person would function like that—that’s the behavior of a sociopath, and hence Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer, and Larry David’s “no learning, no hugging” rule. More than any other contemporary sitcom, Sunny lives by Seinfeld’s example.

It even goes a step further with its characters’ depravity (cheerfully paraded in ‘Dee Gives Birth’s opening when Dennis and Mac learn of Frank and Charlie’s naked, sewer-scouring hi-jinx), which is why this season’s running joke of everyone’s lack of concern regarding Dee’s pregnancy has worked so well—it threatens The Gang’s self-centered complacency. So, instead of facing the fact that Dee’s baby will force them to take responsibility for someone other than themselves, they chose to ignore it…maybe then it’d go away.

Google Updates Gmail for Android

Posted on December 10, 2010

Late yesterday Google released an update to its Gmail Android application for smartphones. The update brings with it several bug fixes, improvements, and feature additions.

The biggest improvements/changes include enhanced priority inbox support, an improved compose email feature, and in-line rely responses. With priority inbox support, users can now see importance markers in the main message list and rank messages right from their device. That is if you actually use priority inbox.

The new compose feature will allows users to switch between reply, reply all, and forward while in the compose screen as well as set the outgoing account on the fly if they have more than one Gmail account on their devices. In-line message replies work similarly to how they work in the traditional Gmail interface.

The new Gmail application, which carries the designation of version 2.3.2, is available in the Android Market now. So far the update seems to be working fine on our test HTC Incredible. We’ll let you know if something breaks.

Film Review: ‘The Tourist’

Posted on December 10, 2010

The Tourist really wants to be the perfect Saturday night date movie. It is the kind of film that could be described entirely in clichéd one-liners, but that’s okay because it embraces this and wants to be entertaining nonetheless. Full of intrigue, romance, espionage and glamour, what it is lacking is nothing on the surface.

The problem is that there is nothing more to the film than its exterior. It is stylish, chic and not difficult to watch, but there really isn’t any more substance to it than an unsigned “Wish You Were Here” postcard of Venice.

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose film The Lives of Others won the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Tourist should be in good hands. It was written by Donnersmarck, as well as two other very capable writers: Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park).

These are people that know how to make a good movie. Add stars like Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and something delicious should be boiling at the surface, instead it felt more like a bowl of microwaved condensed soup.

A loose remake of the 2005 French film Anthony Zimmer directed by Jérôme Salle, the film is a giant nod to the great romantic crime capers of the 50s and 60s, most obviously Charade and To Catch a Thief. It is about a tourist, Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), a math teacher from Wisconsin who meets a striking, mysterious woman called Elise, played by Angelina Jolie.

Check Out A Ton Of New Pictures From ‘Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III’

Posted on December 10, 2010

You know we’re getting towards the end of the year because of two main reasons: There’s an upcoming Family Guy Star Wars special and an upcoming Robot Chicken Star Wars special. Seth McFarlane’s Family Guy special is making its way to DVD and digital download on the 21st. But before that, we’re getting Seth Green’s third installment of the Robot Chicken: Star Wars specials.

Here’s the official release:

In the hour-long special, four very different characters–Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and Gary the Stormtrooper–reveal untold stories that weave and interconnect throughout all six Star Wars films. Robot Chicken: Star wars Episode III also features Zac Efron as Anakin Skywalker, Anthony Daniels (from the original Star Wars films) as C3PO, Mike Henry (The Cleveland Show) and Donald Glover (Community), all making their first appearance in RCSW.

Also returning from the previous specials are Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian and Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks along with returning favorites Green, Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Seth MacFarlane, Dan Milano, Abe Benrubi, Donald Faison, Rachael Leigh Cook, Adrianne Pallicki, Eden Espinosa, Hugh Davidson, Bob Bergen, Keith Ferguson, Tom Kane and Zeb Wells.

We’ve got some great new pictures from the special that you can check out after the jump. Be sure to catch Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III on Adult Swim Sunday, December 19th at 11:30 PM E/P.

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