Hello! It’s a new year and another brand new episode of The Flickcast to keep things going..

To commemorate the second episode of 2021 and the second (in a row!) episode that Joe has been able to be on, the boys stick to the basics and talk about some new and recurring topics. Some of these include the battle between art and commerce, HBOs’ Westworld, The Mandalorian, the latest season of Star Trek: Discovery and the amazing new season of The Expanse.

It’s another big show. Let’s keep 2021 going in the right direction. Thanks for listening!

WARNING: This episode may contain discussions about COVID-19, mental health and quarantine. We understand not everyone is in a place to talk about or hear discussions surrounding these issues. Please do what’s best for you. Stay safe everyone.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.

Photo: Rafy/SYFY

Opening and end music by Kevin MacLeod under Creative Commons License

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It’s a brand new episode of The Flickcast. We’re still doing this . . . and we couldn’t be happier about it. We hope you are too. 

On this episode Chris and Joe take a minute to talk about the show’s newly-launched Patreon. Speaking of that, here’s the link if you want to support the show: The Flickcast on Patreon. Thanks!

They also get into other topics including Bill and Ted Face the Music, the upcoming new TV version of Stephen King’s The Stand, New Mutants, the upcoming Obi-Wan series, The Mandalorian, other Star Wars project ideas, Star Trek: Discovery, other Star Trek shows and, of course, the usual more. 

Picks are back this week too. Yes! On this episode Chris picks the amazing, live D&D stream/series Critical Role and Joe takes the easy way and picks Bill and Ted Face the Music. 

WARNING: This episode contains discussions about COVID-19, mental health and quarantine. We understand not everyone is in a place to talk about or hear discussions surrounding these issues. Please do what’s best for you. Stay safe everyone.

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

Also, here’s that Patreon Link again, just in case you missed it the first thousand times. Thanks!

We’re back baby!

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The Avengers has come and gone, and now we get to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) dealing with the trauma he apparently experienced in New York. He has insomnia, and it strains both his work on the latest Iron Man suit as well as his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). His bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) is now head of security for Stark Industries. And, all around the world, there’s broadcasts from a strange terrorist figure named “The Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley).

The movie opens with Stark recounting a New Year’s Eve party way back in 1999. He’s at a conference in Bern, trying to bed a buxom botantist, Maya (Rebecca Hall) before the year’s turnover. He’s interrupted by pimply geek Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who’s trying to start a think tank and wants Stark’s help. Stark blows him off, and if the use of Guy Pearce didn’t already suggest it, Stark states outright that it was the beginning of trouble.

Thirteen years later, Aldrich shows up at Stark Industries, again seeking support, though he does seem more interested in rubbing everyone’s nose in his success. He has created a new whatsit kind of technology called “Extremis” that allows the brain to regenerate tissue…and, somehow, make the patients melt things with their hands. (Dr. Curt Conners from the latest Spiderman films is going to be smacking his head with his tail when the inevitable crossover comes.)

It’s not just because he did a pretty great job with the Stark Trak reboot, we just like J.J. Abrams’ work. In fact, we’re interested when he pretty much does anything.

Add that to our love of anything post-apocalyptic and that brings us to the upcoming show Revolution. Sure, it does have a couple things against it, not the least of which is the fact that Bella’s dad from Twilight in one of the leads (although he does a pretty good job) or that the show seems like a bit of a rip off of The Hunger Games (it mostly isn’t).

Still, we’ve watched a couple episodes already and it’s actually pretty good. You might like it too. Plus, it’s got Giancarlo Esposito in it and was directed by that guy who did Iron Man (you know him as Jon Favreau), so that goes a long way for us.

We’ve got previews for the show, which premieres tonight on NBC. Take a look at them after the break. Let us know what you think of the show.

Lots of info coming out of Comic-Con in San Diego this week. Of course, we’re pretty interested in anything where comics and movies converge so when Marvel makes some announcements, we’re gonna let you know.

As we predicted yesterday, Marvel’s Kevin Feige confirmed August 1, 2014 as the release date for the next super-hero ensemble: Guardians Of The Galaxy. But wait, there’s more.

Edgar Wright said he and Joe Cornish have written Ant-Man and Wright shot a test that he showed to the crowd. Apparently, people loved it and Wright’s description of the tiny hero who “kicks ass one inch at a time.”

But there’s even more. Captain America: The Winter Solder, the confirmed title of the sequel, is set for an April 4, 2014 release. Alan Taylor is set to direct Thor: The Dark World and it will arrive on November 8, 2013.

Also, as we told you before, Shane Black is still hard at work on Iron Man 3 and working towards its release date of May 3, 2013. They also showed footage from the movie which included Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and Guy Pearce as an as yet unknown bad guy.

How’s that for a whirlwind of announcements? Anyone else need a minute?

Last weekend, the world was taken by surprise as Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger blew past the final Harry Potter film and made it to the #1 spot in its very first weekend. Since then, the film has grossed over $115 million here in the US and upwards of $170 million worldwide. Not bad for the best superhero film of the year (according to Rotten Tomatoes).

This weekend, Cap may have gotten knocked off the top spot and only made roughly $24 million, but the more interesting part is the battle between Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens and Sony’s The Smurfs. Both films opened with an estimated $36.2 million in the domestic, and while Smurfs may be the winner overseas, with a total of $40 million worldwide, that’s simply because it’s the only film to have a foreign opening.

Not a very strong opening for either film (unless you consider Smurfs to be a small film), but the true champion will be determined tomorrow afternoon when the official numbers arrive for the domestic box office.

It has cowboys. It has aliens. It has cowboys and aliens. It’s not a bad film. It’s not a good film. It is a movie. That’s a pretty lackluster opener, but, walking out of the screening, I felt almost completely neutral about Cowboys and Aliens–it was like the things I liked and the things I disliked were in perfect balance.

The film doesn’t fail to deliver on anything the title promises, and you can lose count of the standard tropes from either genre that it hits, but it’s tough to maintain the toothy grin I expected all throughout. Though I’m getting ahead of myself.

Daniel Craig plays Jake Lonergan (one of many last names I suspect are puns but am not entirely sure), a notorious outlaw who awakes one morning with a heavy case of amnesia and one hell of a bracelet on his left arm. He makes his way to the nearest town, controlled by the gruff cattle rancher Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his uppity son Percy (Paul Dano), whose favorite pastime is terrifying the community at large and in particular the local bartender (Sam Rockwell) and his wife (Ana de la Reguera).

It’s not long before Jake endears himself to the locals, among them the soused preacher (Clancy Brown), the woman with a secret (Olivia Wilde), and, naturally, the sheriff (Keith Carradine) by punching out Percy, and not long after that that his identity is revealed, and he’s locked up. Still less longer, the aliens arrive, capture a handful of significant townsfolk, and everyone’s differences are set aside as they form a posse to recover the abductees. ‘round about this time, Jake discovers that his bracelet is able to sense the aliens and, better yet, can blow ‘em up real good.

This year’s Comic-Con International was looking like it would be a bit lame with studios like Marvel, Paramount, Warner Bros, and other big companies dropping out of the festivities entirely. That means we won’t be seeing massive lines for Hall H and a glimpse at Henry Cavill in the Superman suit or footage of Thor and Hulk whomping on each other.

Instead we’re getting some of the lesser known properties in that famous football stadium-sized room known as “Hall H” such as The Knights of Badassdom and Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. With the very first day of programming for the ‘Con announced, it looks like we’re going to be getting just that, and a truck load of TV.

One good note is that all things Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 will be in the early half of Thursday, leaving the rest of the weekend vampire free (except for those Southern vamps from True Blood).

Check out the full day’s schedule after the jump, and head to their official Scheduler app, so you can make official the things you want to see that weekend!

Welcome to the first Trailer Tuesdays where you’re sure to find the best highlights from film trailers released theatrically or virally in the past week.  Plus, we throw in one trailer that’s so ridiculous that it’s awesome.

This week we found two major summer blockbusters that will hopefully prove to be good, not just cool, as well as one indie horror that will hopefully prove to be as scary as it is original.

Cowboys and Aliens

See trailer here

This film is a perfect example of a terrible premise with a cheesy title that is executed so well that it might actually turn out to be good.  The best quote I’ve heard about this film was when director Jon Favreau was being interviewed about why he chose to do this concept, he replied saying that since lots of people believed that aliens visited ancient cultures such as the Mayans and Egyptians, why can it not be believable that aliens visited the Old West?  So as long as he’s sticking by the idea, I’m down.

Certainly the best choices that were made for this film were getting Daniel Craig for the lead and Jon Favreau of Iron Man fame to direct.  This combination is certain to bring some real credibility to this film.  Craig seems to bring an old-school “bad ass-ness” to this part that has been lacking from most modern westerns.

No one could draw an alien side-arm as cool as him.  And Favreau has an uncanny ability to make even the most ridiculous action scenes seem somehow grounded in reality.

Of course you can’t forget Olivia Wilde, who is quickly becoming the hottest female action star; Sam Rockwell, who popped out of nowhere in this newest theatrical trailer but is nothing short of amazing in everything he does; and Harrison Ford, who just goes without saying.

Overall, this trailer is exciting and gets you pumped on some great visuals.  Hopefully this will be even better than Iron Man, as well as the coolest graphics of the summer.

There have been plenty of pats on the back to Favreau from the fan community since footage of Cowboys and Aliens has been surfacing, but one little fact has managed to slip through the cracks: what are the plans for Iron Man 3 now that he’s moved off of the franchise?

Well, THR seems to have a solid lead on an answer, as Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black has been having some meetings as of late with the suits at Marvel.

The writer/director has powwowed with Marvel execs about his take on the third installment in the blockbuster franchise. As of now he is being considered for the directing job, but the assumption is that if he gets the gig, he would also write a draft.

Insiders said that Black’s involvement is far from a sure thing, and that other filmmakers were being looked at.