That’s right, it’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. The new year just keeps on giving (pretty much).

On this week’s episode Chris and Joe discuss the movie Arrival, Ben Affleck dropping out of directing Batman, M. Night Shyamalan’s career, the curious case of Jeremy Renner, the pleasures of mindless entertainment, the start of the new Han Solo solo movie, who should be the next Doctor and more. Plus, the usual even more. But don’t worry, no politics (mostly).

Beer selections this week include Mosaic IPA from Community Beer Co. for Chris and Gnomegeddon Blonde Ale from Brewery Ommergang for Joe. Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the film Unbreakable and Joe’s pick of the movie The Accountant.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship, or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or shoot us an email.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | Spotify | RSS

Even though we don’t really care all that much who or what wins an Academy Award, the rest of Hollywood does. It’s also likley many of you care as well.

So, in that spirit, here’s a list of the nominations that were announced this morning. There’s a lot of them and, to put it bluntly, not that many surprises. The movies and performances that seem “Oscar-worthy” were nominated. It was kinda a no-brainier year.

Of course, there’s also a few regulars who made the cut, like Meryl Streep, you would expect to see on the list. One notable exception is Tom Hanks, who seemed to be a shoe-in for a nomination for his role as Captain Phillips. He got nothing.

I guess every Oscar nominations list needs at least one surprise, just to try and keep it interesting and prove the Oscar voters don’t just vote for whomever or whatever wins a Golden Globe. Of course, Hanks didn’t win the Golden Globe either, but I’m sure it was just a pleasure to be nominated.

Anyway, here’s the nominations list (stolen from the folks at Deadline):

Whatever happened to The Man of Tomorrow? In the late ’70s, when Richard Donner and Mario Puzo were making their Superman movie, they realized that the lead character, when in costume, lacked a personality. He’s tough, he’s fast, he can fly, and those abilities define him. It may be impressive as spectacle, but it’s a hard lead for an audience to connect with, and so they chose to focus on Clark Kent — in short and in a bad pun, theirs was a classic because it was more Man than Super. Now, with Man of Steel, Snyder, and his writers David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, do precisely the opposite.

The film opens with the usual prologue, though seeming far more extended here, on Krypton. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is arguing with the planet’s elders about mining the core of their world — he warns them that the planet has only weeks left before it implodes, and as soon as he’s dismissed, General Zod (Michael Shannon) appears and starts blowing the elder’s palace up. Jor-El escapes to his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer), who has just given birth to their son, Kal-El, Knowing the planet is doomed, they place him in a shuttle and shoot him off to earth, but not before Jor implants a whatsit codex into the ship.

Zod attempts to intercept the shuttle, killing Jor-El in the process, but is overpowered, tried, and sentenced to the Phantom Zone, a kind of black-hole prison. Krypton implodes, and Kal makes his way to earth, specifically to the Kansas farm of Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), who adopt the boy and impart to him the lessons of compassion and anonymity. I will say that it’s clever of Goyer and Nolan to handle Kal-El’s childhood in flashback, lest we sit through another hour or so of an origin story whose end we already know.

Summer is a great time for movies, especially if you’re a geek. With Iron Man 3 and Star Trek: Into Darkness already in theaters, we can next look forward to Man of Steel.

Another new trailer for the Superman reboot has arrived. In this one General Zod issues an ominous message to the people of the Earth: “Your world has sheltered one of my citizens. … To those of you who know his location, the fate of your planet rests in your hands.”

Uh, oh. Does Superman end up kneeling before Zod? What do you think?

Check out the trailer after the break. Man of Steel arrives in theaters on June 14.

This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt discuss a bunch of new topics and revisit a few old ones. Some of these include the upcoming Superman reboot, Star Trek: Into Darkness, the relative merits of Scary Movie 5, 3D versus non-3D box office, boardgames, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Patton Oswalt’s Star Wars dream and a whole lot more.

They also made some picks his week, as usual, with Matt’s being the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time and Chris’ being the 1980 mini-series Shogun.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook or via email.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | Spotify | RSS