Hey, it’s a new episode of The Flickcast! We know it’s late (again) and we apologize (again). You can still blame Chris and his move to Austin. That’s going to be the default for the next few weeks at least.

We really will try to do better in the future. No, really. Until that magical time arrives, however, here’s what’s happening on this week’s episode.

Chris and Joe talk Daredevil season 2 (aka Daredevil vs. Punisher), Star Trek: Beyond, the new season of True Detective and a whole lot more. Yep, more.

Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the new AMC series Humans and Joe’s pick of the Netflix series Between.

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.

(Photo from Justin Lin’s Twitter)

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Lone Survivor is a movie that does itself a few large disservices: Its title reveals too much; its trailer is much too long and plays like quick spot on an On Demand showcase; and it tugs and shoves and pulls in so many directions, that it ends up seeming unsure of both its strengths and its point.

There’s a decent and well-crafted movie in there, but the marketing, and a good deal of the film itself, tend to be dissuasive.

Survivor, if you haven’t seen the trailer, chronicles the story of SEAL Team 10’s somewhat disastrous Operation Red Wings, a 2005 mission with the objective of assassinating Taliban leader Ahmad Shah during the Afghanistan war.

Mark Wahlberg plays SO1 Marcus Luttrell, the titular Lone Survivor and author of the book on which the film is based, and his story is indeed an interesting, even uplifting one, and director Peter Berg shoots it with an apparent grittiness and shakiness that you would expect. Wahlberg plays haggard and weary well. Impassioned well. Sorrowful well.

Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, and Eric Bana, as his team, convey the sense of golden brotherhood that makes films like these sustainable. The story, while short, is compelling, and the second act of Wahlberg’s survival is an interesting twist. It’s a decent film, and if you’re in the mood for a good war drama, this is safe bet.

But…

What’s the point? This doesn’t need to be a political film; it doesn’t need to justify its war or its mission or, on the opposite end, attack it. And it doesn’t. Nor does it need to go far beyond what it does well, which is action. It’s not spectacular or very original, it even seems too polished in its sterile dirt. However, the biggest flaw, which nearly becomes an insult, at least to me, is what I want to describe as the film’s lack of faith in itself, but which I should really, if I’m being honest, is its pandering.

It’s a board-game movie, so I don’t think anyone has their expectations especially high, though the only other board-game movie I can think of off the top of my head is Clue, and it was fantastic. And Connect Four, but I think that’s a porno. Seriously, we all kind of knew this wasn’t going to be that good.

Anywho, the plot can be deduced from the trailer: Aliens come down and get nasty with the Navy, leading to an all-out aquatic assault. Wedged in between there is a love story involving a plucky, up-and-coming Lieutenant Alex (Taylor Kitsch) and the daughter (Brooklyn Decker) of the fleet Admiral (Liam Neeson).

There’s more: Alex’s brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) is a Commander aboard the destroyer USS Sampson, while Alex is aboard the USS John Paul Jones. Alex wants to marry his girlfriend but is worried about asking her father. The girlfriend is a physical therapist helping out an amputee.

Even with Battleship already out in theaters in other countries, there’s still time for the big PR push to keep on going in the US of A. Case in point is this new clip from the movie which debuted last night on MTV.

In it we see some of our men and women of the Navy get their action on and try to attack and alien space ship. We also get more of our favorite cast in action as well.

One thing this clip does prove is that machine guns don’t really have much effect on giant alien ships and those aliens are not to be trifled with. We could have told you that.

UPDATE: As a bonus, we’ve also got another clip for you which just arrived in our mailboxes. Enjoy.

Check out the new clips after the break. Look for Battleship, directed by Peter Berg and starring Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard and Rihanna, hits the US on May 18.

Oliver Stone is a very capable director. His visual style makes almost anything he crafts watchable. Unfortunately, lately his choices in films have not really allowed him to embrace his more frenetic skill sets.

That is about to change when the gloriously chaotic Savages hits theaters. For those unfamiliar with Stone’s new film here is the synopsis:

Laguna Beach entrepreneurs Ben (Aaron Johnson), a peaceful and charitable Buddhist, and his closest friend Chon (Taylor Kitsch), a former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary, run a lucrative, homegrown industry—raising some of the best marijuana ever developed. They also share a one-of-a-kind love with the extraordinary beauty Ophelia (Blake Lively).  Life is idyllic in their Southern California town…until the Mexican Baja Cartel decides to move in and demands that the trio partners with them.

Sounds like a ton of fun, and now thanks to MTV we get a chance to see the trailer deliver on that promise. The film looks like a cross between Domino and Traffic with all the best parts of each preserved. Of course we wont know if that for sure until the movie is actually released, but this trailer has put Savages high on our to-see list.

Check out the full trailer after the jump.

There is some good, some awesome, some sad and some well excepted news in this weeks box office results.

Coming in at number one for the weekend, 21 Jump Street makes a splash with $35 million, and it’s very good news. To see a successful TV adaptation that proves you can be R-rated, have a completely unexpected tone and still work is a wonderful trend starter for the industry.

Hollywood is a copy cat industry and if remakes and reboots have to happen, the only way you can maintain some artistic credibly is to bring something fresh to the table. Hopefully this success can grease the wheels with other creative folks and deliver something unexpected with these name brands. It will be interesting to see how the zany Dark Shadows is received in the wake of this win.

The well expected news comes in the form of our second place finisher, The Lorax. This Suess adaptation is performing well above initial expectations and is proving to have strong legs as it fell another soft 40ish percent to nearly $23 million. The Lorax will take a hit next week, but is well on it’s way to crossing the $200 million bar.

I’m not sure what it is about movie marketing these days. For some reason, studios seems determined to hide elements of a film when putting together trailers and other marketing materials.

It’s almost as if they’re afraid to reveal anything for fear of alienating some segment (or all) of a film’s potential audience. In truth, that’s probably pretty close to the reality.

Such is the case with Disney’s upcoming film John Carter. It’s painfully obvious from the trailers released so far that Disney marketing has no idea how to sell this film. In fact, I’d wager the first trailers have done little to entice potential viewers into the theaters.

Personally, I’ve found them to be dull, uninspired and tending to focus on elements making this film pretty much look like every other Disney film released in the last ten years. Fortunetely, for those of us who are fans of the books and want this movie to succeede, others have stepped up to help.

Enter YouTube user John Carter Files. They’ve taken it upon themselves to make a trailer for the film and after watching it I’m sure you will agree it’s so much better than any of the “official” ones Disney should give these guys a job immedietly and leave them alone to do their work.

Check it out after the break. Look for John Carter to hit theaters on March 9.


With comic properties being snatched up by movie studios like lucrative hotcakes, a Luna Brothers film project is clearly inevitable. With their cinematic style, self-contained stories, and strong emotional centers, Joshua and Jonathan Luna’s titles are a perfect fit for the silver screen.

Probably the best thus far, a very original and dark superhero tale called simply The Sword could make an amazing, violent, and beautiful modern fantasy film. Of course, the cast would have to be as moving as the source material. Here are my humble suggestions for a movie adaptation of The Luna Brothers’ The Sword.

I can hear the pitch meeting now. It probably went a little something like this: Peter Berg: “Transformers made a crapload of money, right? Well, this is Transformers on the ocean. See, robots attack ships and try to sink the them.” Studio Exec: “You’re a genius. Here’s a bag of money.”

I don’t know if Battlship will be good or not (probably not) or if Peter Berg is really a genius (I’m guessing no) but I can guarantee the movie will be busy and extremely loud. To prove that fact, please take a look at the new trailer just released today. We have it for you after the break.

In it you see lots of robots and whatnot trying to attack a group of ships at sea. All they wanted to do was have some simple war games and now these damn underseas robots have made this shit get real — or something like that. Does the story really matter? Not much as long as stuff explodes convincingly. Hint: it mostly does.

Peter Berg “directs” a cast of pretty people like Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and the always cool Liam Neeson (obviously doing this one for the money).

As the trailer says “The battle for Earth begins at sea” on May 18, 2012. Check it out after the break.

We’ve had some tidbits from this film already including some stills and a poster and the first trailer. Now, Disney has released a new trailer for John Carter, the science-fiction epic based on the series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In case you’ve forgotten (or never knew in the first place) here’s a synopsis of the film:

“John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom (Mars) and its people rests in his hands.”

Well, does the trailer live up to the hype and your expectations? Check it out after the jump. Disney’s John Carter arrives in theaters on March 9.

If toys make an effective inspiration for movie franchises, why not games? After all, regardless of its relative creative merits, the Transformers franchise has managed to make a metric crapload of money.

So, why not try to do the same with a movie based on a classic game? It could work. That’s just what director Peter Berg and his team have done with the upcoming Battleship. To prove it, we’ve got the first trailer for the film for you right now.

In it we get a lot of the film’s story of a young, upstart naval officer (Taylor Kitsch) in love with his Admiral’s daughter (Brooklyn Decker) who needs to put aside his personal feelings and learn to be a man when an alien invasion threatens his fleet of ships. The movie is, of course, based on the classic board game Battleship and from the trailer, it actually looks like director Berg gets that he’s making a movie based on a game, is in on the joke and doing his best to make it a fun and exciting film.

When I first heard they were making a movie based on Battleship, I was, to say the least, skeptical. After watching the trailer I’m now intrigued, especially as to how Berg and company are going to pull it off. Who knows, maybe they can?

Check out the trailer after the jump. Battleship, which stars Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna, arrives in theaters on May 18th, 2012.