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.

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Some are calling it Escape From New York in space, while others are calling it not worth making a pop culture reference, but that isn’t stopping the upcoming FilmDistrict/Open Road film from Luc Besson, Lockout from hitting screens this coming Friday.

With that, and an overall panic that the film isn’t going to play as well as the studio is anticipating, Besson’s banner studio EuropaCorp has released the first five minutes of the film for free on YouTube, for those who may need more convincing to see the flick.

Sure, there are some pretty campy moments before the title card even pops up, like why they felt the need to give Guy Pierce a “futuristic” haircut, or why they thought an effective way of giving backstory to the film’s hero would be through flashbacks in an interrogation.

Regardless, the film certainly looks pretty cool, and it’s nice to see LOST star Maggie Grace and Misfits star Joseph Gilgun get some solid work in a big budget sci-fi picture. Take a look at the first five minutes of the film after the jump, and catch Lockout in theaters this Friday.

We love when good movies inspire innovative ideas. For some reason, it happens much more in the Sci-Fi genre than anywhere else, but most good ideas stem from an even better classic film. That’s what we feel like is happening with the upcoming film Lockout, starring Guy Pearce.

Take a look at the official synopsis here and see if you can pick up subtle hints to a classic film.

Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, LOCKOUT follows a falsely convicted ex- government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison.

Just call Guy Pearce Snake Plissken and you’ve got yourself a sequel to Escape From L.A, but in space. You’ll even notice the line from the trailer “He’s the best there is, but he’s a loose cannon.”  The film also stars LOST star Maggie Grace, who’s quite good at getting herself kidnapped, as proven in Taken. This time, Liam Neeson won’t be there with his particular set of skills.

Take a look at the trailer after the jump and catch Lockout in theaters on April 20th.

In anticipation of the DVD release of The Crazies , I got to speak with director Breck Eisner about that movie and some upcoming projects he has planned. While I was doing my research on Eisner, I saw that he directed an episode of Fear Itself, an anthology that played on NBC in the summer of 2008.  As luck would have it, I just happened to have seen the episode Eisner directed (“The Sacrifice”) , so we began by talking about it.

THE FLICKCAST:  I was looking at your IMDB, and I saw that you did an episode of Fear Itself, and it just happened to be one I saw.

BRECK EISNER: Oh really, you’re one of the few. Fear Itself, I think it was miscast putting it on NBC in the summer.

FC: I know, I really pull for anything horror related on TV, and none of it makes it.

BE: No, it just doesn’t, unfortunately.

FC: Well, there are definitely horror fans out there, but I think that they just don’t bother with television.

BE: Certainly not network television.

FC: You previously directed Sahara. How do you get from Sahara to this movie? They are so radically different. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got drawn to The Crazies?

BE: Sahara was my first movie, and it is a very long story about how I came to be directing it. The short version of the story is that I initially was involved with optioning the material with a producer many years before with no intention of making it, it was a much bigger movie than I could make.

As usual, the Hollywood brain trust has decided that instead of looking forward and creating some original work, they will instead look to the past for inspiration and take yet another great film and add it to the remake/reboot pile. The film in question this time, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.

Granted, Escape isn’t exactly a classic in the strictest sense of the word, but it is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the best action/sci-fi movies of the last thirty years. So, much like Predators and so many others of late, I’m not exactly thrilled it will be receiving the reboot treatment.

That said, there is one potential bright spot here now that we know Breck Eisner will be handling the directing duties on the film. His recent work on The Crazies showed he’s got a lot of skills and my hope is that he’ll be able to do something really interesting and innovative with the Escape story.

In case you’re not familiar with the original 1981 film (which if you’re not, get familiar) it was set in a futuristic 1997 where a walled-off Manhattan island had been turned into a maximum-security prison. Air Force One, with the President on board, crashes on the island and newly captured super criminal and ex-war hero Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is coerced into a rescue mission. The new film will reportedly try to mix in an origin story for Snake with the story of the original film.

The future is bright. So bright in fact, that J.J. Abrams angled multiple reflections off of every surface imaginable in the darkness of space. Just how many suns were there? A Trek fan and a friend of mine pointed out that finally the future is catching up with the dreams geeks have had for decades. It seems the PADD, or (Personal Access Data Display) has been around since 60’s Trek and is now getting its time in the sun thanks to Mr. Jobs and his iPad.

I, however, didn’t grow up on Trek, I grew up on multiple viewings of Back to the Future Part II. I dreamed of the day when I too would glide on a hover-board, wear flashy baseball caps, and watch TV on a nifty visor. To that end, some of the predictions have come true. As for the rest…well I’ll meet you at Café 80’s on October 21st, 2015.

“Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” Um, yeah we do. We need a lot more roads in fact. Take the amount of roads we had in the 80’s and double it. Either that or bring back the electric streetcars that used to take up a lane on the LA freeways.  There is another option. Anyone with a spare $194,000 lying around can now own their own hover car, or should I say Terrafugia Transition plane.