The Flickcast

Fantastic Fest Winners Announced

Posted on September 30, 2009

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At a ceremony Monday night hosted by Fantastic Fest co-founder Tim League, the festival gave out awards to some of the top films and filmmakers in attendance. Awards given out this year include ones for animated and live action short film, horror and “fantastic” shorts, horror and “fantastic” features and the next wave award which showcases emerging talent.

In addition, in conjunction with G4 TV and writer/director Uwe Boll, the fest gave out the “Filmmaking Frenzy” award for the best video game trailer with a “fantastic” twist. Winners of some of these prestigious awards included the comedic drama Down Terrace, which took home the Next Wave award, Human Centipede, which won for best horror film and Mandrill, which was given the Fantastic Feature award.

Check out a list of all the winners below.

Jury results – SHORTS Awards

ANIMATED SHORTS:
Best Animated Short – I AM SO PROUD OF YOU (Don Hertzfeldt)
Special Mention – ALMA (Rodrigo Blaas)

FANTASTIC SHORTS:
Best Fantastic Short – TERMINUS (Trevor Cawood)
Special Jury Award – NEXT FLOOR (Denis Villeneuve)

Sam Rockwell Talks Up ‘Iron Man 2’

Posted on September 30, 2009

samrockwell Sam Rockwell was out promoting his new film Gentlemen Broncos so reporters took the time to ask him a few questions…about Iron Man 2 of course. About playing Tony Stark’s competitor, Justin Hammer, in the upcoming film Rockwell said: He’s a rival of Tony’s – they are competitors in the weapons industry. I team up with Mickey Rourke and we decide we want to take him down and take down the Stark legacy. He’s sort of like a cousin of the Charlie’s Angels character I played. The smarmy cousin. But it’s Mickey – he does the fighting and the kicking ass in the film.”

Alright, I know a lot of you read Charlie’s Angels and had a giant collective groan. However, the first Angels film wasn’t that bad (Did I just lose some geek cred by admitting that?) but more specifically Rockwell turned in a great performance. That being the case, I’m really intrigued by what he will do with his character given that Hammer is pretty old in the comic book series and Rockwell…well, isn’t.

He’s one of those actors (much like Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr.) that brings something unexpected and fun to the roles he takes on. To really appreciate that, I highly recommend Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. When asked about the film overall Rockwell gave us what we wanted to hear, “It’s a bigger scope. There’s a lot more action and fighting. More characters. It’s bigger and there’s a lot more to get your head around, so it’s a tougher job for [Jon] Favreau and Justin Theroux, who wrote it.”

More action, fighting, and characters? Sounds like the recipe for a perfect followup to a fantastic film. Iron Man 2 hits theaters next summer.

New TV Shows Rolling This Fall

Posted on September 30, 2009

flash-forward The new kids on the television block are going to be just fine, if the early return numbers are any indication. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debuts of new shows this fall have bucked the last two years’ trend of low premiere numbers. NBC’s The Jay Leno Show, Fox’s Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show, CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles and ABC’s three-headed monster of Cougar Town, Modern Family and FlashForward have all benefited from large turnouts.

Even with the oncoming onslaught of new and “fan-favorite” programs, the CW’s Vampire Diaries continued to show promise. But not all shows are sitting pretty as the law of averages always seems to have an opinion on, well, everything. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy – formally a ratings juggernaut – has shown signs of slipping, and you can include genre staples NBC’s Heroes and CW’s Smallville into that mix as well.

For whom the bell tolls? Fox’s Fringe and ABC’s Desperate Housewives have dropped to the point that their respective networks are beginning to sweat a bit, and the departure of William Petersen from CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigations has had a similar effect on that show’s ratings. If returns don’t improve, these shows could end up like CW’s TBL: DOA.

Did ‘Supermax’ Derail ‘Super Max’?

Posted on September 30, 2009

Being the geek that I am I’ve been keeping a close eye on the slowly developing Green Arrow film, Super Max. Written by David Goyer (Blade, The Dark Knight), the film is not your average comic book fair. Instead of following the typical origin tale, Super Max plans to take super hero Green Arrow and drop him in a “super max” prison full of villains (many of which he probably put there). Wrongfully convicted, Green Arrow would be forced to work alongside his enemies to escape while trying not to unleash the rest of the villains in the process. Think Prison Break meets Justice League.

Well, you can imagine my dismay when I read today that Columbia Pictures picked up the rights to spec horror script, Supermax by writers Mitch Rouse and Christopher Nelson. Yes, you read that right, two films with the same name (minus the space of course). Worse yet, the similarities don’t end with the name:

“The script [Supermax], a horror/action combo about a supernatural prison, ‘centers on a skilled guard who is re-assigned to Supermax. After a riot erupts, he must join forces with one of the prison’s monstrous inmates in order to survive and fight his way out.'”

New On DVD This Week

Posted on September 29, 2009

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Guild Seasons 1 & 2, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and Life on Mars: The Complete Series. There’s also a new DVD box set that made us laugh out loud in its awesomeness: Cagney & Lacey: The Menopause Years. Yes, that’s real.

Check them out.

Movies

Away We Go ~ John Krasinski (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Dark Crystal ~ Jim Henson (Blu-ray)

The Girlfriend Experience ~ Sasha Grey (DVD and Blu-ray)

DVD Review: ‘Superman/Batman: Public Enemies’

Posted on September 29, 2009

The animation departments of DC and Warner brothers has been on quite a hot streak since last year’s release of Justice League: New Frontier. Their releases of both Wonder Woman and Green Lantern films over the last year were both critically well reviewed and did well in the stores. Since New Frontier, this project is the first story that was taken almost directly from a published storyline, originally written by Jeph Loeb.

The great part about Jeph Loeb’s Public Enemies is he teamed up with artist Ed McGuinness, who is best known for his animated art style. This made the announcement of the direct-to-DVD feature all the more exciting. Not only was the source material well done, but casting director Andrea Romano was also able to bring back the dream team of DC voice actors to return to characters they helped make immortal.

Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, and Clancy Brown all returned to the roles of Superman, Batman, and Lex Luthor, respectively, for the first time since the Animated Adventures of Superman and Batman nearly 9 years ago. Aside from the “dream team”, some other great names were added to the project, making this an epic animated feature.

‘Little Big Planet’ To Offer Watchmen Costumes

Posted on September 29, 2009

Little Big Planet is one of those games that PS3 owners love to go gaga for, but anybody who doesn’t own one, doesn’t understand it’s allure. It has been called one of the top adventure games of the year, and easily one of the highest grossing PS3 exclusive games to date, and news like today’s is only further reason.

For those unaware, Little Big Planet is about an 8-centimeter hero who travels through a world we never see, due to the fact that it’s so small. The sack-boy gets into side-scrolling adventures left and right and with your help, makes it out alive. One of the most intriguing things about LBP is the how deep you can customize your character. there are thousands of costumes and add-ons in the game, with more and more being released through downloadable content.

It was just announced that a new, geek-friendly set of costumes will be coming to PS3 this Thursday, in a set of Watchmen costumes. From here, you can choose to dress as lil’ Roarschach, lil’ Ozzy, lil’ Silk Spectre, and lil’ Night Owl. No word on whether we’ll see tiny Doc Manhattan, but this is still a pretty cool add-on to an already in-depth game. Those who follow the developer blog at littlebigplanet.com know that the creators are such big fans, that they even created a level based on San Diego Comic-Con this year.

Check out the full picture of the Watchmen costume kit after the jump, along with a super brief intro video showing you what they look like next to giant-sized Manhattan.

DVD Review: ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Season 2

Posted on September 29, 2009

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At first I was pretty excited to watch the new Fox television series based on the Terminator films, which were originally conceived by James Cameron. Sadly, after the first few episodes, I wasn’t completely hooked and my enthusiasm waned a bit. I did, however, continue to watch the show through the entire first season. Then, the second season began and it seemed the show had finally found its voice and started to really come together.

The show continued for a second season and then, as we know, was canceled by Fox — which renewed the equally low rated Dollhouse instead. But even with the cancellation of the show, it may live on as a DVD movie which will, perhaps, answer some questions poised by the finale of the series. Fortunately, while you wait for the DVD movie to happen, or not happen, you can watch the entire second season on DVD or Blu-ray, which is what I’m going to talk about here.

The second season, set in the time after Terminator 2: Judgment Day, picks up where the first left off telling the story of Sarah Connor (Lena Headey), her son John “the future leader of mankind” (Thomas Dekker) and Cameron, the Terminator (Summer Glau) sent to protect him from other Terminators who want him dead. This season John and Sarah have decided to stop running, which occupied them during the first season, and are instead intent on stopping the birth of Skynet — the super computer that eventually destroys most of humanity.

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