The Flickcast

The Flickcast’s ‘On The Radar’

Posted on October 22, 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. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Finally, something good is coming to TV as Patton Oswalt is developing a series for Fox.

• A 23 year old turned their Dodge Caravan into the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles van. The best part? It was a girl.

• Netflix may be making a buttload of money in the next few months, but they still feel like their too good for Trash Humpers, a film about humping trash.

• New TRON inspired wristwatches are on the way. Say goodbye to the ladies, and hello to the confusion you’ll have when trying to figure out when lunch is.

• Len Weisman has announced that Colin Farrell is at the top of the list to star in a remake of Total Recall. We’d like to see him fit inside of an animatronic fat lady…

• Think Zach Galifiniakis gives the best awkward interview? Think again. This Dallas radio host actually out-awkwards him.

• The plot details for Transformers: The Dark of The Moon have popped up online and no there’s no continuity tie-in to The Wall.

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Check Out Previews for Monday’s Return of HBO’s ‘In Treatment’

Posted on October 22, 2010

Although I don’t have much personal experience with psychology or analysis, I can certainly appreciate good acting and stories when I see them. I’m talking, of course, about HBO’s show In Treatment which returns next week for its third season on the network.

In case you’re not familiar with the show, it features Gabriel Byrne as Dr. Paul Weston who treats his patients while also exploring what’s wrong with himself. This season Byrne is joined by new cast members Dane DeHaan, Irrfan Khan, Amy Ryan and Debra Winger who will all be his patients and hopefully get some insight into their own problems while helping Byrne’s character solve his own.

There will be two new half-hour episodes debuting back-to-back on Monday, October 25 at 9/8C and two more new episodes back-to-back on Tuesday, October 26 at the same time. To get you ready for the debut we’ve got two videos to share with you today.

Watch and enjoy after the jump.

Interview: Ed Norton Talks ‘Stone’

Posted on October 22, 2010

Edward Norton’s latest film Stone opens nationwide today. The film was one of the featured Gala screenings at Fantastic Fest last month and you can check out our review of the film right here. We got a chance to sit down with Norton and some other film journalists for a round-table discussion of the film during that time.

In the movie, Edward Norton plays Stone, a man serving a prison term for arson. He is going through a series of interviews with a parole officer (Robert De Niro) who is responsible for determining whether or not Stone should be eligible for parole. Milla Jovovich and Frances Conroy co-star.

Round table: I feel that if a different actor had played the character [of Stone] with the cornrows, and the profane language, that it might have come across as a stunt. Could you articulate how you bring a character to life without falling into any traps like that?

Edward Norton: (laughing) I don’t think I can. John Curran and I were on the fence about many aspects of the character, but then I met a couple of guys in this prison north of Detroit. I was really having a hard time figuring out what I felt the specifics of Stone should be.

I got John’s themes and his sense of these characters crossing each other on their path, in a way, but I didn’t know what we were channeling it through in terms of the character.

Less than a week before we started, I happened to meet a guy I was hypnotized by and I had John come over and meet him. Then we walked out and John was like,”If you can get anything like that, that would be amazing.” I ended up miming a couple of people in particular, but that look and voice were one guy in particular.

The character, the thing about him, is that superficially he doesn’t look or seem like he would be a strong candidate for a spiritual transformation. But the thing I think anchored it for me is that the things he is saying are really at odds with that sort of presentation that you sort of could laugh at or dismiss.

Mainly because his anxiety is so real, and I think the way you can take something so audacious and ground it is if you are not being condescending to the character. His anxiety and desperation are very real, and his conviction that he deserves to be listened to and he deserves to be reconsidered is real. You’re going to have to look at him from different angles and he is going to be hard to reduce.

TV RECAP: ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Mac’s Mom Burns Her House Down’

Posted on October 22, 2010

One of the gags in Sunny that’s always impressed me (mainly for the fact that it seems so obvious, but I’ve never seen anyone else do it) is making a joke out of the title: There’s a cold open, some back-and-forths that set the stage for the episode’s plot, and then WHAM the title screen hits and hints at how this week’s scheme will go horribly, horribly wrong. Kind of a bleak reminder of the Gang’s ongoing spiral into self-destruction (“Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire” comes to mind).

Other times, when there’s an especially bizarre title, it’s satisfied to simply leave it at that (“The Gang Dances Their Asses Off”). And while all your thrown-in-the-towel English teachers told you to never judge a book by its cover, you can often tell whether an episode of Sunny is going to be good by the title alone.

Unfortunately that means that when there’s a kind of “meh” title, there’s usually a “meh” episode to follow (such as last week’s “Mac and Charlie: White Trash”). Fortunately, even a Sunny “meh” is still pretty good by “meh” standards, and that’s what “Mac’s Mom Burns Her House Down” is: not great but still pretty good.

So this week Mac’s Mom indeed burns her house down, which spurs her son’s maternal instincts (instincts that seem far more developed than her own, and I suspect the former were a direct result of the latter), and he takes her and her apparently indestructible dog in to his and Dennis’s apartment, something Dennis is obviously uncomfortable with. In the meantime, Charlie, despite his being the moral center of the Gang (did I just write that?), feels no such duty toward his own mother, who’s become a wreck since his Uncle Jack moved out. And the less said about Dee and Dennis’s paternal loyalty, the better.

So Mac and Charlie come up with the brilliant and inevitable idea to have Mac’s Mom move in with Charlie’s. Meanwhile, Frank, worried that his kids won’t take care of him when he turns into a drooling mongoloid, tries to cement his relationship with Dee, who’s nursing a cold and trying to get well for the upcoming Josh Groban concert.

Go Behind The Scenes Of Next Week’s ‘Rocky Horror GLEE Show’

Posted on October 22, 2010

Next week, Fox is getting spooky, as they bring us an entire week’s worth of Halloween themed shows. New comedy Raising Hope will get it’s haunt on with a special Halloween episode on Wednesday, but before that, Glee is doing the Time Warp with a very special episode dedicated to the classic rock musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The episode revolves around the cast putting together their own performance of Rocky Horror for the school, and getting plenty of dirty looks and judging faces that most fans of the transvestite-dancing, underwear-donning, homoerotic musical have put up with for years.

It’s impossible for them to fit the entire musical into the 40 minutes or so that they have to tell the story, but we do know that the album consists of Science Fiction Double Feature, Damn it, Janet, Whatever Happened Tto Saturday Night, Sweet Transvestite, Touch a Touch a Touch a Touch Me, There’s a Light, and Time Warp, so we’ll get to see those songs during the episode.

Check out an exclusive look at the show after the jump, and be sure to catch The Rocky Horror Glee Show next Tuesday at 8pm ET/PT on Fox.

Netflix Announces Inexpensive New Stream-Only Subscription Plan

Posted on October 22, 2010

With Instant Netflix making itself readily available on both the Playstation 3 and Wii without the use of a disc this week, there have already been some major leaps made in the world of streaming. Netflix has already projected that the last quarter of their yer will see more streaming customers than disc users.

With projections like that, action is required.

Until now, Netflix users who want to stream have been tethered to a disc-subscription plan, which means that the only way to get Instant Netflix is by subscribing to at least their lowest disc-subscription plan of one disc at a time, for a limited time. The company plans to change that by the end of the year. From the LA Times.

The company last month started offering a streaming-only service in Canada for $7.99 per month. Hastings said success there has led Netflix to test an identical offering in the U.S. If the test fares well, all consumers will be able to sign up for streaming-only service. Chief Executive Reed Hastings did not identify a price, but it is likely to be the same as it is in Canada.

It’s also noted that this won’t effect their current subscription plans, only annex a new plan at the bottom of the scale to accommodate those users who only plan to watch movies and TV shows via their computer or streaming device.

Review: ‘Hereafter’

Posted on October 22, 2010

If there is one truth that is universal to every human being, it is that we are all going to die someday. For some people that is a terrifying prospect, for others it is just another stop on life’s journey. Whatever your beliefs are, I think that all people have innate curiosity about what happens when we die. After all, no one knows for sure.

I’m sure it is no coincidence that Clint Eastwood has turned to this subject matter at this point in his life. The man is 80 years old. He’s likely had more than a fleeting thought about his own mortality.

Hereafter juggles three distinct storylines throughout the movie until they converge in a neat and tidy package at the end of the movie. The film doesn’t even give you a moment to get settled in your seat before you are subjected to a gut-churning Tsunami action sequence.

It’s one of the most amazing set pieces I’ve ever seen. It is terrifying and fantastically realistic, and it will leave you a slack-jawed mess.

Marie (Cécile De France from High Tension) is a successful French news reporter with her own show. She is on vacation with her boyfriend (who happens to be the producer of her show) when the Tsunami hits. She has been buying souvenirs for her boyfriend’s children in the marketplace. As the giant wave starts bearing down upon the market, everyone starts running for their lives.

Peter Jackson Rattles Off Practically the Entire Cast Of ‘The Hobbit’

Posted on October 22, 2010

Now that the dust has settled, and we’ve adjusted to the fact that Guillermo Del Toro is not taking the director’s chair, as Middle Earth native Peter Jackson is taking the reins back, it’s time to look to the film as, well…a film. That means finally casting some of the characters we’ve treasured since first reading the book decades ago.

Last week, news came forward that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy star Martin Freeman will fill the very big feet of Bilbo Baggins, and now Jackson has decided to let us in on the rest of the cast, and who exactly they’ll be playing. Here’s the full list from Deadline.

Jackson has cast several other significant Dwarf characters. Richard Armitage (MI-5 and Captain America: The First Avenger) will play Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Company of Dwarves which sets off to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from a thieving dragon. Aidan Turner (Being Human) and Rob Kazinsky (EastEnders) will play Kili and Fili, members of the Company of Dwarves. Graham McTavish (Secretariat) will play Dwalin, John Callen (Power Rangers Jungle Fury) will play Oin; Stephen Hunter (All Saints) will play Bombur, and Mark Hadlow (King Kong) plays Dori, while Peter Hambleton (The Strip) will play Gloin.

As if these names weren’t enough, there are rumors that David Tennant (Doctor Who) and James Nesbitt (Jekyll) will make an appearance, and also possible speculation that Andy Serkis and Sir Ian McKellan will reprise their roles.

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