This week’s pick is the post Cold War thriller Crimson Tide which stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as U.S. Submariners who clash over their orders to launch nuclear weapons in this Tony Scott action classic. Crimson Tide begins during a period of political unrest in post Soviet Russia when military forces crush a rebellion in neighboring Chechnya.

Violence begins to spread throughout other republics and ultra nationalists headed by a man named Radchenko criticizes American, British, and French involvement which cuts off aid to Russia as a protest of its hostilities towards its neighboring country. Radchenko’s forces seize a Russian ICBM missile complex and threaten to launch nuclear weapons if either the U.S. or its allies move in to stop him.

After several years of peace, the Cold War begins to heat up once again.

Historical dramas are often hit or miss. Sure, history can be very interesting but it also can, at times, be rather dry and boring. Fortunately, when you combine the talents of actors Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightly and director David Cronenberg, history suddenly becomes a lot more interesting.

Now, as if to prove my point, a new international trailer is for Cronenberg’s upcoming film A Dangerous Method has arrived. As I said, Cronenberg is directing from a screenplay adapted by writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play The Talking Cure.

The film takes place right before World War I and follows the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), and Sabina Spielrein (Knightly), the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them. Of course, drama ensues. But good, edgy drama.

Check out the trailer after the jump. A Dangerous Method hits theaters later this year.

We’ve heard names like Kevin Costner for Jonathan Kent and Viggo Mortensen for General Zod being thrown around for Zack Snyder’s upcoming reboot of the Superman franchise, but they are not for sure yet. However, we do officially have another name to add to the cast alongside Henry Cavill as the title character. That name? Diane Lane, who is now set to play Clark Kent’s mom, Martha Kent.

The news was broken by THR late yesterday.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures said late Wednesday that the actress is set as “the only mother Clark Kent has ever known.”

“This was a very important piece of casting for me because Martha Kent is the woman whose values helped shape the man we know as Superman,” Snyder said in a statement. “We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination.”

Considering names like Phyllis Thaxter, K Callan, and Eva Marie Saint have played the character in the past, we’re expecting Snyder to take a drastic turn with Martha, as Lane is only 56. Lane is the second name to be cast in the film, after word came in earlier this year that The Tudors star Henry Cavill was to take the lead as the Man of Steel.

Snyder, who’s normally known for casting relative unknowns who pull off amazing performances, seems to be taking to the higher-profile names for this film. Could it be pressure from WB to compete with Nolan’s all-star supporting cast of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman for the Batman films?

We’re hoping to get some solid casting announcements in the coming weeks that will prove that theory.

Now that we have a relative unknown with Henry Cavill playing Superman in Zack Snyder’s upcoming film for Warner Bros, it seems that Snyder and the studio are taking more of an “over the top” direction when it comes to the supporting cast. Two weeks ago, it was announced that Kevin Costner was being approached as a “person of interest” to play Jonathan Kent. As if that wasn’t a big enough name, The Road star Viggo Mortensen is now being approached to play the Kryptonian villain General Zod in the film.

From Heat Vision:

Mortensen, who is still in negotiations for Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, is said to be at the top of the list to play General Zod, the evil and super-powered scientist who was portrayed by Terrence Stamp in 1980’s Superman II.

If Mortensen’s Snow White deal doesn’t close, that would potentially free him up to make Superman. Or Universal and Warner Bros. could work out his schedule and enable him to do both.

So given what we know about Snyder’s previous work with Warners, we know that there will be plenty of slow-motion scenes and that he does tend to go for talent over “names.” Mortensen could just be the talent to take over for Terrence Stamp’s iconic character.

Like most weeks, this time around we’ve got another bunch of new movies and TV shows hitting DVD and Blu-ray. Some of them are new, some are old and some are hitting Blu-ray for the first time.

Of the ones hitting stores today, we’re most interested in the Blu-ray release of The Road, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, the Criterion edition of Stagecoach, True Blood Season Two, Royal Pains Season One, the western Django and the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film Spartacus (pictured above with Woody Strode and Kick Douglas).

Movies

Babysitter Wanted ~ Bill Moseley, Matt Dallas, Bruce Thompson (Blu-ray and DVD)

City of the Living Dead ~ Christopher George, Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Blu-ray)

Clash of the Titans ~ Laurence Olivier, Burgess Meredith, Harry Hamlin (Blu-ray)

Dear John ~ Channing Tatum (Blu-ray and DVD)

Django ~ Franco Nero, Loredana Nusciak, Angel Alvarez (Blu-ray)

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog ~ Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day (Blu-ray and DVD)

Flashbacks Of A Fool ~ Daniel Craig, Olivia Williams, Claire Forlani (Blu-ray and DVD)

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 The Natural, Dreamscape, the debut of the quirky ABC show The Unusuals, the second season of Simon & Simon, Cocoon and the Blu-ray premiere of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (pictured above with Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan and John Rhys-Davies). Yes, we realize it’s not the director’s cut of the trilogy but still, having these great films on Blu-ray in any form is cause for excitement.

Check them out:

Movies

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ~ Fairuza Balk, Nicolas Cage, Vondie Curtis-Hall (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cocoon ~ Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn (Blu-ray)

Dolan’s Cadillac ~ Christian Slater, Wes Bentley, and Emmanuelle Vaugier (Blu-ray and DVD)

Dreamscape ~ Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer (Blu-ray)

Flight of the Intruder~ Rosanna Arquette, Adam Biesk, Reb Brown (Blu-ray)

Jade ~ David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Cazz Palmintieri (Blu-ray)

This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt again welcome recurring guest host Elisabeth Rappe and launch into a whole slew of new topics including Avengers casting and story news, The Road, potential Captain America actors, feature film adaptations of Magnum P.I. and ALF, films that should and should not be on Blu-ray and the films of Michael Mann.

Chris, Matt and Elisabeth also made some cool picks this week including Elisabeth’s pick of the Spanish thriller Alatriste, Matt’s pick of the Sly Stallone starrer Daylight and Chris’ pick of the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove, featuring George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers and Peter Sellers. See the movie to get that joke.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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The Road is the film adaptation of the Pulitzer winning novel written by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men and All The Pretty Horses.  Our fascination with what a post-apocalyptic world might be like has been fodder for countless books, television shows, and movies. When I was in college, I was required to read George R. Stewart’s novel Earth Abides. Excruciatingly detailed, the book gave me anxiety attacks for months, as it told the story of a grad student looking for other people who may have survived a plague that wipes out the entire population.

As he traverses the land, the minute changes that he observes in the landscape and appearance of the United States are painstakingly recorded. More recently, The History Channel presented Life After People, which depicts what changes would occur to the earth’s ecological systems and the infrastructure we leave in our wake. Quite frankly, this type of topic scares the crap out of me.

Now we have The Road, which is the harrowing story of a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi-Smit McPhee) trying to make their way across the country by foot after some unidentified event has wiped out most of mankind. The wife (Charlize Theron) is shown only in flashbacks. The threat of a harsh winter that they most certainly won’t survive serves as the impetus for their journey southward.  There is a vague possibility of finding other people, but it is based on faith and hope, rather than concrete knowledge of their existence.

In spite of its rather depressing subject matter and its bleak outlook on most of humanity, The Road manages to be an insightful, relevant, entertaining and important film which will not only hook you from the opening moments but will cause you to do something that most movies released these days do not: Think. Based on the Cormac McCarthy best selling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, adapted by Joe Penhall and directed by John Hillcoat, the film follows the journey of a father and son making their way to supposed safety in “The South” after an unknown disaster destroys most of humanity and reduces the world to snow and ash covered ruin.

Along the way the father and son encounter the worst of society reduced to ruin and come to realize that they may never reach safety and that that safety may, in fact, not even exist. The dynamic between the father and son is meticulously explored with both Viggo Moretnsen and relative newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee giving standout performances. Mortensen is brilliant and physically transformed to inhabit his role and Smit-McPee takes what could have been a two dimensional role and infuses it with depth and courage well beyond his years. Looking at him as he progresses and his character evolves before your eyes, you experience what this journey must be like for him and how his relationship with his father changes during the course of it.

Once again we visit the post-apocalyptic wasteland of director John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning best-seller The Road — in the form of a new trailer courtesy of Dimension Films. Previously, we brought you the first trailer for this movie, which showed more of an overview of what happened and sets up the journey a bit.

This one features more of the relationship between the father (Viggo Mortensen) and the son (Kodi Smitt McPhee) and delves a bit more into the perilous journey they are on after civilization is virtually wiped out. If you’re not familiar with the novel of the movie, this trailer should help you realize what kind of movie this is and, more importantly, why you should consider seeing it — regardless of its potentially disturbing and “downer” themes.

Be sure to check back as the film gets closer to release for a full review of The Road. In the meantime, take a look at this new trailer after the jump. The Road, directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce, opens everywhere on November 25th.