It’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. It’s a great day, right? We think so.

On this week’s episode Chris and Joe discuss the crisis that is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,  the “talents” of Richard Lester, the new Sam Worthington(s), Suicide Squad being PG-13, Pacific Rim 2, Superman coming to the CW, the latest on Game of Thrones, the magical power of the AT-AT and motion capture for all! Plus, more, more, more!

Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the novel The Fireman, by Joe Hill, and Joe’s pick of The Martian: Extended Cut.

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.

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Sure, okay, there’s a LEGO movie. But you know what, it doesn’t look that bad. In fact, it looks pretty darn good. Yeah, we were surprised too.

And now, Warner Bros has released a trailer for it for all to enjoy. Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman provide the voices and the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs team of Phil Lord & Christopher Miller wrote and directed.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for The LEGO Movie to hit theaters on February 7.

Once more, friends, we enter the world of Pacific Rim and giant monsters trying to destroy humanity. Fortunately, there’s a chance for all of us in the form of our own giant creations: the Jaeger robots.

In this latest trailer for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, Idris Elba‘s Stacker Pentecost attempts to enlist Charlie Hunnam’s washed-up pilot Raleigh Becket to help save the human race. Isn’t that always the way? Only the washed-up can save us.

In the movie, Becket will team with rookie Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) to control the human-made robots as they battle the Kaiju monsters. One word to describe this trailer and upcoming movie? Epic.

Also starring in Pacific Rim are Charlie Day, Clifton Collins Jr., Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky and Max Martini. Look for it in theaters on July 12. Look for the trailer after the break.

Today has already seen a couple new trailers arrive. We’ve always found that more trailers get relased on a Tuesday than a Monday. But heck, maybe things are changing? Or, Warner Bros. just can’t contain this particular one any longer.

The one in question is the latest for Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim which, to say the least, looks pretty darn exciting. We say that in large part due to its premise: Monsters vs. Giant Robots. Well, not robots exactly, more like mech. Still, it’s pretty darn cool.

This particular trailer was first seen at WonderCon last month, but now it’s available for all. That doesn’t mean it’s any less awesome. In fact, seeing it again now we’re reminded of how much we’re really looking forward to this one.

Check out the trailer after rthe break. Look for Pacific Rim in theaters on July 12.

Giant robots fighting giant monsters. Guillermo Del Toro. Charlie Hunnam, Ron Perlman, Idris Elba and Charlie Day.

Giant frakking robots fighting giant frakking monsters! ‘Nuff said.

Enjoy the first trailer for Pacific Rim and be amazed.

If The New York Times were to break the story that the NEA has been generously funding an ongoing study of manhood and brotherhood among everyday schmoes in contemporary culture, that sure would explain a lot. Surely few phenomena have been as comprehensively documented of late as the dilemma of nondescript modern men (usually lifelong buddies) forced by extreme circumstances beyond their control (roofies, bad bosses) into the type of reckless behavior (murder, breaking-and-entering, walking into a bar in the bad part of town) they would never normally contemplate.

Almost always the upshot involves:

• •  illegal drug usage (usually unintentional)
• •  first-ever encounters with law enforcement (cue bickering recrimination scene in the back seat of a squad car)
• •  uneasy encounters with The Other (usually hip, powerful, sometimes grotesque black men against whom the protagonists’ manhoods are implicitly contrasted and found vastly wanting. In the case of Hangover The Other is represented by both Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong as an Asian Mafioso. Here, it’s a very funny Jamie Foxx.)
• •  flashes of homosexual anxiety
• •  all countered by elaborate vulgarity, gross-out humor and scatological references, as well as
• •  forced interaction with that other Other: frighteningly gorgeous and overtly sexual women who positively demand to be serviced.

Todd Phillips may have control of the box office this June with Hangover Part 2, but this July definitely has Seth Gordon’s Horrible Bosses written all over it.

With a ginormous cast including Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx, you can expect lots of great things from this upcoming raunchy comedy. Here’s the synopsis:

For Nick, Kurt and Dale, the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses into dust. Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con, the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers…permanently. There’s only one problem: even the best laid plans are only as foolproof as the brains behind them.

Like Office Space meets The Perfect Crime, you can expect some great moments with this outrageous cast. Check out the full trailer after the jump, and catch Horrible Bosses in theaters on July 8th.

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.

I never would have thought that I’d see Tom Sizemore make a cameo in Sunny, but he seems like a perfect fit among The Gang, playing Byron, the married trucker with a penchant for male prostitutes (“Treat me like a mailbox: Just shove anything you want in there”) who picks up Charlie and Dennis when they get titularly stranded in the woods.

That’s just one of the many highlights in an episode where The Gang heads to Atlantic City for an animal rights convention Frank endows simply so he can show up in a leather coat and tell off the activists—and so Mac can meet his idol Chase Utley (and on a lesser note for Dee to meet and seduce Ryan Howard, despite Frank’s observation that she’s “pregnant as shit”).

However, Frank doesn’t want to cough up any change for the “toll jockeys,” so he’s taking the backroads, and a chance encounter with a squirrel ends up totaling the vehicle. Frank, Mac, and Dee stay behind to scrounge up some food while Charlie and Dennis foot it for a ride, which takes us back to Tom Sizemore’s trucker.

Charlie and Dennis is one of my favorite pairings; Charlie’s bizarre host of talents and willingness to do almost anything and Dennis’ serial-killer charm make them ideal con men, and there’s a nice recognition of that dynamic when Charlie poses as Frank to deliver a speech to the animal-lovers (complete with him “making it rain” dolla bills, “FOR THE RATS!”). And Dennis takes up the role of Mac so he can drink heavily with Utley and Howard.

I enjoyed the uncharacteristically upbeat plotline with Charlie and Dennis (Charlie winning $15,000 at roulette and spending the bulk of it on a private jet for he and Dennis is a nice little reward for poor Charlie), but the best lines, as usual, belong to Frank, who goes into Elmer Fudd mode when he stalks wabbit—and then gets caught in its stare and concludes that its stolen his soul.

There isn’t too much for Dee and Mac to do, but overall the episode doesn’t have any dead spots—Utley and Howard don’t offer too much, but their nonplussed-to-creeped-out reactions to Charlie and Dennis is funny enough on its own, and Sizemore finds the right note of menace and perversity that I hope (though doubt) he’ll return.

Not the best episode, but solid all the way.

It’s now safe to say that Sunny has reached that stage of confidence in their characters that a show like Eastbound & Down has (or maybe I’m looking for a substitute now that that season has ended…withdrawals?). They’re different shows, of course, and Sunny’s always known its strength is in the bizarre dynamic of the group, but I think it plays safe for the most part, and whenever it takes chances it does so with the situation, so that by the end everyone remains unchanged—hey, they have a great show on a cable network; if it ain’t broke…

I have no doubt that The Gang will stay the same after “Charlie Kelly: King of the Rats,” yeah, but it played with some character development, and the results were sweet. The setup is that Charlie is in the midst of a philosophical crisis after wiping out several generations of rats in the basement, so The Gang decides to toss the poor bastard a bone (it is, as Frank notes, his birthday) and throw a surprise party.

Frank compiles a list of things Charlie might like, based on his recent pal-ing around with This Guy Duncan from Under the Bridge, who’s into “this whole Hawaiian underground shit.” Dee’s not interested, that is, until Frank lays out the day’s plan, which involves his trip to the spa (thanks to these coupons I got in the mail) with Charlie while the rest of The Gang outfits the bar in whatever regalia “underground Hawaiian shit” entails.

Frank calls Dee out on her cynicism, explaining that a surprise party is one of life’s best gifts, but that odd bit of selflessness on Frank’s part goes ignored until Dennis, caught up in charitable frenzy, suggests Dee go with Charlie. It works, and Dee surreptitiously invites Charlie to a Spa Day (not a “Spaghetti Day,” as he interprets it). I’m not going to do justice to this by dryly summarizing it, so from here on, I’ll just summarize the summary and note a few highlights:

The amazing thing is that the further anyone distances themselves from The Gang, the more like an actual human being they appear. Dee seems to be, sort of, doing pretty well as a substitute drama teacher, despite her own glaring lack of talent, and Charlie, well, was born to be a janitor, and, with his eidetic memory, ingratiates himself to the students. He even takes a young Juggalo (leave it to Sunny to make an ICP reference—is this 1998?) under his wing to teach him…uh…whatever it is he has to teach.

And Dee is showing a surprising amount of commitment to her duties as teacher, even though there is a distinct lack of understanding the allowances granted to a substitute and, indeed, the art budget, neither of which permit a field trip to New York.

And the rest of The Gang (Frank, Mac, and Dennis) is discussing their fan film of Lethal Weapon 5, specifically whether going in blackface to portray Danny Glover is morally superior to playing him as a white guy. Frank stubbornly insists on blackface, noting that Laurence Olivier played Othello, and, you can guess where it goes from there.

The group has existed in their own isolation for so long, it makes you wonder why they would often go so far out of their way to exclude Dee from any of the activities, since it’s not likely that they’d find anyone else to replace her. And seeing as how the most recent entrants seem to be Charlie and then Frank, the screening process is aimed at scraping the absolute dregs of humanity. God help them if they find anyone worse than Frank.

But they couldn’t have always been that bad, right? Earlier in life Dennis, Dee, and even Mac were perhaps semi-decent people, with a higher-class group of friends and shared equally semi-decent goals for the future. And that’s what The Gang Gets a New Member explores.

Opening a time capsule the four buried 10 years earlier, The Gang relives some of their glory days before they became misanthropic alcoholics, discovering some long-forgotten relics, which include a laserdisc of The Cider House Rules; a note from the younger Dee that includes a million-dollar check made out to her high-school drama teacher (made out, that is, under the assumption that her future self was by now a famous actress); and some photos of the old days when the fourth-and-a-half member (I assume Dee only counts for one-half a member), Schmitty (guest star Jason Sudeikis).