Due to “circumstances” we’re a bit late with a new episode of The Flickcast again this week. But don’t worry, it’s here now. You can relax . . . and enjoy.

On this week’s episode, Chris and Joe’s anger barely registers. But still, they manage to summon a bit of it. People seem to like it when they rant. So there’s that.

Topics this week include even more on Mad Max: Fury Road, the aborted Tron 3, the reboot of Point Break, Ash vs. Evil Dead, the career of The Rock, Big Trouble In Little China and a whole lot more.

Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the History Channel mini-series Texas Rising and Joe’s pick of the BBC show Space Odyssey. No, the other one.

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 via email.

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Well, we tried. Tried to have one episode right after the other. Sadly, it didn’t work — at least not this past week.

But never fear, we’re back now and we’ve got a brand new episode of The Flickcast for you. And heck, it’s even pretty good.

This week Chris and Joe take on some new topics and some old ones. What are these topics? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out. But rest assured, they’re pretty cool. No, you can take our word for it. Why would we lie?

This week’s picks include Chris’ pick of the book Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play Itby David M. Ewalt and Joe’s pick of the podcast Children of Tendu by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Jose Molina.

And no, that pic of Darth Maul has little to do with this week’s episode. We just think he’s a badass.

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 via email.

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

Before I can go forward with a review of director Steven Soderbergh’s latest film Haywire, I need to make a confession: I’m a big fan of almost all of his films. Sure, he’s managed to make one or two that don’t exactly work (The Girlfriend Experience comes to mind), but he’s never boring and always tries to push filmmaking and creativity in new and different directions.

Given this, I went into Haywire with somewhat raised expectations due to my fondness for his previous works. As the film unfolded I was struck by several things. First, lead actress and MMA superstar Gina Carano is not only beautiful, I would not want to ever make her angry. She’s that tough.

The film also moves quickly and at a running time of 93 minutes, almost seems a bit short. I think that’s a good thing because at the end, I wanted more.

I was also struck by how similar Haywire is to one of Soderbergh’s earlier films, The Limey (which is also my favorite of his films). I guess one reason could be that screenwriter Lem Dobbs wrote both films.

I’m not saying Haywire‘s similarity to The Limey is a bad thing, it was just interesting. More on that a bit later.

Happy belated 4th of July to all you War Movie Mondays fans. In celebration of our nation’s 235th anniversary, this week’s pick salutes American submariners of World War II with U-571 (2000) directed by Jonathan Mostow.

The film stars Matthew McConaughey (Lt. Andrew Tyler) Bill Paxton (Capt. Mike Dahlgren), Harvey Keitel (Chief Gunner’s Mate Henry Klough), Jon Bon Jovi (Lt. Peter Emmet), and David Keith (Maj. Matthew Coonan).

U-571 is a fictional account about a U.S. Navy submarine crew which boards, and captures a German U-boat in the Spring of 1942 in order to seize the German’s secret cipher machine code named: Enigma. The device allowed the German high command to transmit radio messages to their U-boat fleet which were destroying the vital convoy lines from America to Britain. The code was unique and made it impossible for the allies to determine the German’s plans in the early stages of the war.

The film is superbly acted and won an Academy Award for Best Sound, but the film was not very well received in both England and Germany. The film was bashed in Britain due to the fact that the British were the first to ever capture an Enigma coding device in the war courtesy of the HMS Bulldog and HMS Aubretia of the 3rd Escort Group in the North Atlantic on May 9th 1941, seven months before the U.S. entered the war. Critics in Germany were none to thrilled of the way U-boat crewmen were portrayed.

To be honest, I never really got into HBO’s drama Big Love. Sure, it features some good actors in Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Chloë Sevigny and that Ginnifer Goodwin is pretty easy on the eyes (and can also act), but the story of a Mormon family’s trials and tribulations just never resonated with me.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped the show from becoming a big hit for HBO and going several seasons on the network. A milestone and a testament to its obvious quality and supportive fan base. That also won’t stop us from promoting the show as it’s about to begin its fifth and final season.

So, to get that going, we’ve got a bunch of video to share with you today that will give you pretty much everything you need to know to get ready for season five and the revelations to come. Even if you’ve never seen the show and want to start watching it now, these videos — especially the “catch up” one — will help.

Check out all the videos after the jump. Big Love returns to HBO for its final season on Sunday January 16th at 9/8C.

This week sees the release of several new movies and TV shows, some for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Of the ones coming out this week, we’re excited for a few of them in particular.

These esteemed examples of entertainment include A Nightmare on Elm Street, Pirate Radio, the debut of Voltron Beast King Golion, the thirteenth season of Dallas, the DVD release of the very funny Defendor and the 15th Anniversary Blu-ray of Apollo 13 (pictured above with Bill Paxton, Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise and Kevin Bacon).

Check them out:

Movies

A Nightmare on Elm Street ~ Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon (Blu-ray)

Apollo 13 (15th Anniversary Edition) ~ Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise (Blu-ray)

Creature of Darkness ~ Devon Sawa, Sanoe Lake, Matthew Lawrence (Blu-ray and DVD)

Defendor ~ Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Sandra Oh, Elias Koteas (DVD)

Final Storm ~ Luke Perry, Lauren Holly (Blu-ray and DVD)

Gone With the Wind (The Scarlett Edition) ~ Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh (Blu-ray)

It should come as no surprise that actor Bill Paxton knows James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow pretty well. After all, he’s been featured in most of Cameron’s films including Aliens, The Terminator, True Lies and Titanic and starred in Bigelow’s vampire film Near Dark. He even worked with both Cameron and Bigelow on a music video for his band Martini Ranch oh so many years ago.

So it’s been kinda odd that nobody has talked to Paxton about both Cameron and Bigelow, especially as the two directors used to be married and are both nominated for Best Director Academy Awards this year. Fortunately, the folks at The Jimmy Fallon Show have seen fit to remedy this situation with an interview of Paxton, which we’ve got the video of to share with you today.

As Paxton is a friend of both directors and owes much of his career to Cameron in particular, he doesn’t really spill the dirt and give us anything particularly revolutionary. Still, it’s interesting to hear him speak about a subject, and two people, he knows so well.

Check out the video after the break.

The ’80’s were an interesting time for many reasons. One of the main ones was the burgeoning music video scene where any band that was trying to “make it” made a video. One such band was Martini Ranch, fronted by a young Bill Paxton. And yes, they made a video.

The difference here is that the video was directed by James Cameron and featured not only Paxton but Judge Reinhold, Paul Reiser, Adrian Pasdar and Cameron’s future wife, director Kathryn Bigelow. In the video you are treated to Paxton as he rides into a typically dusty western town where in typical fashion coffins are being assembled, a beefy lady blacksmith works and prostitutes assemble on the balcony of the local whore house. Paxton then pays a visit to the saloon and said house of ill repute.

But the fun doesn’t end there when Bigelow and her posse hit town and interrupt Paxton’s fun by slipping a CD of the song, entitled “Reach”, into a player. From that point forward, it’s on. In truth, words cannot adequately describe just how cheesy this video is. After all, it was the ’80’s.

Check out this masterpiece after the jump. Thanks goodness the ’80’s are over.

I have a real appreciation for natural disaster flicks. Volcano, Dante’s Peak, 2012, I love them all and it doesn’t matter how absurd they may be.  One personal favorite is Twister. This film came with a whole bunch of destruction with a baked in love story between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.  Because nothing says I love you better then sharing the moment of running scared from a category five tornado.

Even with the success of his show Big Love, Paxton wants another Twister film.  Some may scoff at the idea but I’d love to see a sequel. Paxton said the inspiration for the the film came to him while retracing the path of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado. This massive tornado left a path of destruction 219 miles wide and killed 700 people. Paxton said:

“There’s actually footage that I found in Murphysboro at their historical society. They had footage from a biplane that the government sent down, just to do aerial footage of all of the destruction and the damage. So we just did that to kind of get some ideas, and from that I kind of extrapolated an idea for a sequel. And I kind of put that together into a format, and now we’re kind of waiting to see if that’s going to move forward.”

One thing to consider about doing a film like this is how it would be accepted by audiences. Until 2012, the disaster film genre kind of disappeared (Cloverfield doesn’t count, it was a monster after all). In that time the real world has suffered some major disasters of its own (e.g. Hurricane Katrina). This is not to say we didn’t have major disasters when Twister was originally released, but I feel there’s a higher social awareness surrounding the tragedy of the events rather than the sensational nature of them.