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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In case you haven’t been watching, we need to alert you to the fact that HBO’s True Detective is a great show. But you can’t really be surprised, it is HBO after all. They have some other great shows you may have heard of like The Sopranos or Game of Thrones.

But if you really haven’t been watching, here’s a bit of info about the show:

True Detective is written by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Fukunaga. It centers on two detectives, Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), whose lives collide and entwine during a seventeen-year hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana. The investigation of a bizarre murder in 1995 is framed and interlaced with testimony from the detectives in 2012, when the case has been reopened.

In truth, that description doesn’t really do the show justice. It’s way more complicated than that. And awesome on so many levels.

If you have been watching (good for you) you know this Sunday brings a brand new episode, which we have a preview for after the break. Look for True Detective Sunday at 9/8C on HBO.

It’s that time again, folks. That’s right, a brand new episode of The Flickcast is here and once again it’s yours for the taking. Still for free.

Of course, Chris and Joe are back and ready to rock and roll with a whole slew of new and recurring topics. Some of these topics include the new photos released from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Michael Bay’s filmmaking prowess, some X-Men: Days of Future Past magazine covers, the amazingness of Hugh Jackman, the Syfy series Helix, Thor 3 and Captain America 3, the imminent return of The Walking Dead and the fact that everything sucks, at least if you believe people on the Interwebs.

There’s also the ever-present more. And, 20% more sincerity this week. So yeah, there’s that.

This week’s picks include Chris’ pick of the HBO series True Detective and Joe’s pick of the XBMC software for the Rasberry Pi. Nerd, amiright?

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.

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One thing we really love around here is a good, gritty detective story. If it’s well done it can be riveting to watch and as the story unfolds the revelations can often be shocking and very satisfying. That’s one of the hallmarks of a great show.

A prime example of this is HBO’s latest drama True Detective, which stars Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey and is written by Nic Pizzolatto. We won’t spend a lot of time describing the show, but instead will say this: you should be watching it.

It’s that good — especially if you’re a fan of the aforementioned gritty, detective stories. This one’s got grit to spare.

We’ve got a preview of the second episode to share with you today. Check it out after the break.

True Detective airs Sundays at 9/8C on HBO.

With The Wire, The Sopranos, True Blood and Game of Thrones, just to name a few, HBO continues to be one of the best networks to find original and entertaining programming. They look to be continuing that trend with the upcoming series True Detective.

The show, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana detectives Rust Cohle and Martin Hart, tells the story of a 17-year long hunt for a killer. Ranging from the original investigation of a bizarre murder in 1995 to the reopening of the case in 2012, the two detectives becomes locked in a cycle of violence and obsession as they trey to unravel the mystery.

With the latest trailer for the series, we can certainly tell that this show is going to be one to watch. True Detective debuts Sunday, January 12 on HBO. Check out the trailer after the break.

There’s about two ways to show magic on screen — the first is demonstrating the tricks, usually in an unbroken shot (if they’re smart), and hope it’s almost like being there in person. When Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) is introduced, it looks like they’re going this way. He asks someone from the crowd to pick a card, and he flips through the deck. He says he went too fast, so he does it again. Now we’re seeing this from the face in the crowd’s perspective, so the trick is played like it’s for us.

One card is shown a millisecond longer than the others, and that fraction is so perfectly timed that you notice it, but don’t notice whether you’re supposed to notice it. When the cards are flipped through again, you see it again. Then, when Atlas fans out the deck and asks if it’s in there and you don’t notice it, you realize you’ve been fooled. How that sequence is timed is so good, it’s the show-stopper.

The second way is to focus on the showmanship, and we get that in the following bit with Merritt Osbourne (Woody Harrelson), a gifted hypnotist but, more accurately, grifter who can pick up visual cues from marks, expose their darkest secrets, then blackmail them.

And while those two beats work very well, the movie never quite reaches that level again, nor does it decide which way to stick with. The succeeding two magicians we meet, Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), a straight-up thief, and Henley Reeves (Ilsa Fisher), a straight-up escape artist whose routine isn’t anything different from your standard Penn & Teller stunt — except, without, you know, Penn & Teller.

Magic is a great subject for movies. Take The Prestige or The Illusionist as recent examples of that. Sadly, it hasn’t been as successful at the box office as it could have been.

A new movie called Now You See Me is looking to change that. It’s got a great cast in Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman, Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Caine and tells the story of a group of illusionists who commit crimes using, of coure, their magic skills.

The twist is they give the money to the audience instead of keeping it for themselves. Interesting.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Now You See Me to arrive in theaters on May 31.

If it weren’t for the fact that writer/director Martin McDonagh is every bit as handsome as his favorite leading man, you’d think he was going down the Woody Allen vanity route, casting Colin Farrell as his obvious surrogate—a screenwriter named Marty M—in his second feature film, Seven Psychopaths. Fellow Irishman Farrell was also the star of McDonagh’s 2008 sleeper hit In Bruges, which also wove its story around a band of incompetent low-level criminals who accidentally get into the crosshairs of a big time criminal sociopath, played very winningly in that first film by a rewardingly cast-against-type Hugh Grant.

The tone of Psychopaths feels very much the same as Bruges in that Farrell again plays a likable fuck-up (this time an alcoholic screenwriter who is finding it hard to produce a follow-up to his first success) whose loser friend Billy (Sam Rockwell, playing very much TO type here) makes his living through a sloppy dog kidnapping operation that he runs with his mysterious elderly pal Hans (Christopher Walken). Unfortunately, Billy nabs a cute little Shih Tzu who happens to be the darling of his owner, mafia overlord Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson), and thus begins the chase. A shaggy dog story, indeed.

If you are one of the people who have not been exposed to the splendor that is In Bruges you really ought to do yourself a favor and seek it out post-haste. It has an energy about it that is hard to describe, and until you have seen it you really wont get as excited about Seven Psychopaths as you should be.

Director Martin McDonagh as teamed once again with Collin Ferrell for his next feature, and while the standard trailer does show promise, it is the red band trailer that really cements this as a must see. For those of you new to this project, here is the synopsis:

Written and Directed by Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh , the comedy “Seven Psychopaths” follows a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) who inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends (Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell) kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu.

Everything about the film feels right, from the paring of Farrell with Walken & Rockwell, to Tom Waits with a fluffy white bunny rabbit. Seven Psychopaths just might be a worthwhile successor to one of the surprise best films of 2008.

Check out the full trailer after the jump.

In what will surely be the most sought after new property on television, True Detective is being shopped to various cable networks.  The eight-part series already has Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson attached to star, which should help quite a bit.

True Detective is being described as a complicated narrative that will tell the story from multiple perspectives and utilizing multiple time frames. The story will follow two detectives, Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Harrelson), whose lives intertwine during a seventeen year search for a serial killer in Louisiana. The story will follow the events of a bizarre murder in 1995,  which will be told both using scenes from that time and the current day  testimony from the detectives in 2012.

The current idea is to utilize the 8-episode first season to resolve the mystery at hand, and have it be a stand alone story. Each of the  subsequent seasons would use a similar structure, but follow all new characters and a different mystery.

The first season will be written by Nic Pizzolatto, best known as the author of the collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea and the novel Galveston, as well as writing credits on AMC’s The Killing. Cary Fukunaga (Jane Eyre, Sin Nombre) is set to direct all 8 episodes.  In addition to having already signed on a writer, director and stars, True Detective is being pitched with two fully written episodes.

This is the first TV collaboration for the real life best friends McConaughey and Harrelson, who have starred in two features together, EdTV and Surfer, Dude. For McConaughey, this series would be the first regular TV series gig. Harrelson, on the other hand, got his big break on the classic TV show Cheers.

The nominations for the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards are out. These awards highlight the best in independent cinema and have often helped Academy Awards voters who don’t see indie films realie there’e more to life than what they get at the local multi-plex. Not that Academy Awards voters actually ever go to a multi-plex either.

Looking over the list we can guess what you’re thinking: where’s Michael Fassbender’s nomination for Shame? We don’t know either. We are, however, very happy to see Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Winding Refn and Albert Brooks get nods for their work on Drive. Great movie and great performances.

Here’s all the nominees:

BEST FEATURE
50/50 Producers: Evan Goldberg, Ben Karlin, Seth Rogen
Beginners Producers: Miranda de Pencier, Lars Knudsen, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Jay Van Hoy
Drive Producers: Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker, Adam Siegel
Take Shelter Producers: Tyler Davidson, Sophia Lin
The Artist Producer: Thomas Langmann
The Descendants Producers: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius The Artist
Mike Mills Beginners
Jeff Nichols Take Shelter
Alexander Payne The Descendants
Nicolas Winding Refn Drive

Woody Harrelson has had an interesting revitalization in the past few years with films like Zombieland and 2012, but now it’s time for him to take on another meaty lead a la The People vs. Larry Flynt. Except this time you can expect a better film with Rampart.

The film’s got a pretty star-studded cast with Harrelson being joined by Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, and Steve Buscemi, but that’s not even as good as the story itself. Here’s the synopsis.

Los Angeles, 1999. Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) is a Vietnam vet and a Rampart Precinct cop, dedicated to doing “the people’s dirty work” and asserting his own code of justice, often blurring the lines between right and wrong to maintain his action-hero state of mind. When he gets caught on tape beating a suspect, he finds himself in a personal and emotional downward spiral as the consequences of his past sins and his refusal to change his ways in light of a department-wide corruption scandal seal his fate.

Brown internalizes his fear, anguish and paranoia as his world, complete with two ex-wives who are sisters, two daughters, an aging mentor dispensing bad advice, investigators galore, and a series of seemingly random women, starts making less and less sense. In the end, what is left is a human being stripped of all his pretense, machismo, chauvinism, arrogance, sexism, homophobia, racism, aggression, misanthropy; but is it enough to redeem him as a man?

Take a look at the trailer below to see the film in action, and catch Rampart in limited theaters on November 23rd.