There was a long stretch of my life — through high school and college and beyond — where I didn't read for pleasure. I don't know if it was being forced to read so many books for assignments that threw me off, or what, but reading books lost its magic for me. It's only been over the last couple of years that I've reacquired that hobby and rediscovered how much I like it: physically turning the pages, and feeling the weight of the book in my hand as I make my way through it.

Those of you who appreciate reading might enjoy this supercut of libraries and bookstores on film...but if you like reading that much, you'd probably rather have your nose in a book right now instead of watching this. There's only one scene I'm disappointed they didn't include: They Came Together's bookstore scene. ("I've never met anyone else who likes fiction!")

Via: LaughingSquid

Looks like the ride is over on overriding nation-based blocks on Netflix content. The Verge reports the company took its first step against VPN users by blocking users in Australia who are using devices to access content that would otherwise not typically be available to their area. The ban is lifted if the user removes their VPN and re-accesses the service.

Many VPN servers like Torguard are not worried about the company trying to stop them, ultimately calling the process "futile." If true, the problem will remain a problem that will hamper Netflix.

While we may not see a problem in using Norway's Netflix to get the newest episode of a first run AMC show, American networks will raise all sorts of hell if you're getting their content without paying cable or on demand prices. This means they ask Netflix for more money, and then more likely than not we lose a show. Ultimately, it's bad for Netflix viewers, but as networks are beginning to pull their shows anyway, it is perhaps a nonissue here in the near future.

Do you use VPNs on Netflix? I swear I'm not a cop.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away from the EA Games acquisition of the rights to all Star Wars games, the up-and-coming studio behind theTimeSplitters franchise was working on the third installment of the Star War Battlefront games. Free Radical had a nearly complete build of... View Full Post on GameTyrant

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NerdApproved points us to this series of videos by professional stuntman Eric Jacobus (A Good Day to Die Hard), in which he mimics the fighting styles of video game characters from the Tekken series. I couldn't get all the way through a lot of these — at a certain point, the moves all blend together for me and it looks like he's just flopping around doing random things — but the last video, in which he shows off over 200 different moves, has a great soundtrack and is pretty mesmerizing.

I've never heard of The Night Manager before, but after seeing this trailer, it looks like I'm going to have to add it to the ever-growing list of must-watch things in 2016. The six episode BBC One miniseries stars Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Olivia Colman, and is based on the novel by master spy writer John le Carre (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).

But since I write about movies all day, it was tough to keep a straight face when hearing the bad guy's name is Richard Roper; Richard Roeper is the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-hosted At The Movies with Roger Ebert after Gene Siskel died.

Anyway, I think this trailer looks excellent, but I'm interested to hear if you all agree. Let me know in the comments below.

Via: The Playlist

This. This is impressive. Yume Lee took footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and recut it to look like the stereotypical intro to an anime. You have the quick cuts, flying vehicle scenes, even the drawn out Japanese theme song! About the only thing missing are scenes from the movie that actually never appear in the movie.

I posted a couple intros from anime as a comparison...does it measure up?

Big ups to Reddit for finding the source of the song in the intro to Code Geass!

When I first saw this trailer for Term Life, I wondered why Vince Vaughn would star in something like this. Then I saw it was directed by Peter Billingsley (Couples Retreat), a long-time friend of Vaughn's (who also happens to be the kid from A Christmas Story). So I guess that explains that.

Term Life actually has a terrific cast that includes Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Bill Paxton, Terrence Howard, Shea Whigham, Mike Epps, Taraji P. Hensen, and Jon Favreau, but this looks like one of those direct-to-DVD movies that used to litter the shelves of Blockbuster Video, something you'd stumble across and say, "Wait, THOSE people are in THIS?"

The movie hits theaters on April 8th, but is going to be available on VOD starting March 1st.

Everyone wants Nick (Vince Vaughn) dead. A desperate man, Nick takes out a life insurance policy on himself, payable to his estranged daughter (Hailee Steinfeld). But the policy doesn't take effect for 21 days and he might not live that long.

Last year, we saw two different rumors pop up that excited fans who hoped to see a live-action Star Wars TV show. The first indicated that there were as many as three different shows in development that might head to Netflix, and the second came straight from Kathleen Kennedy herself when she revealed that she was very interested in developing Star Wars: Underworld, George Lucas's planned TV series that was shelved when Disney bought Lucasfilm. (Some reports indicated that Lucas had already commissioned as many as 100 scripts for that series.)

Now TVLine is here with some bad news: they've spoken to several sources who say that no live-action shows are currently in development at the company. If a live-action show were on the way, one guy who would know about it would be ABC president Paul Lee (who would certainly be vying for the show to air on his network), but he says "they are focused on their movies, so we don't have any plans at the moment." A Lucasfilm representative chimed in, saying "Our current focus for TV is animation." Even J.J. Abrams weighed in, saying that his Bad Robot Productions wouldn't have anything to do with a live-action Star Wars show because he has a TV deal at rival Warner Bros. across the street.

An anonymous source also told them: "It’s smart brand management [not to do one]. I imagine they’re looking to avoid the Marvel-ization of the franchise."

Aside from the fact that Lucasfilm is 100% trying to Marvel-ize its franchise (as evidenced by the upcoming spin-offs), maybe this person was trying to say that they didn't want to water down the brand, which makes a little more sense when you think about where Lucasfilm stands right now. They have a lot to lose if they put out a crappy live-action show that directly ties into the movies, because I don't know if you've noticed but A LOT of attention is being paid to anything Star Wars-related right now. The company is in the process of rebuilding after the prequels creatively bankrupted them on the movie front, so it makes sense that they're taking their time and trying to make sure everything they're doing is as good as possible and not jumping too far ahead of themselves.

Look, it's clear that we're going to get a Star Wars live-action show eventually. I'd much rather them take their time with it and making sure it's really going to be worth watching than the alternative.

A few weeks ago we got one of our first glimpses at the combat in the upcoming Attack on Titan game. Now Koei Tecmo has released a new trailer that shows off some of the free-roaming RPG elements of the game. Sure, we see some more of the over-the-top action which made the anime... View Full Post on GameTyrant

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Boston accents are incredibly fun to imitate, and Hollywood has certainly been enamored with making movies set in that city over the past couple of decades. Crime thrillers set in and around Southie abound, and late night host Seth Meyers has created a funny parody trailer for a movie called Boston Accent that lovingly pokes fun at the tropes we've seen in films like The Departed, The Town, Good Will Hunting, and more.

Take a look below and let me know what you think:

I enjoyed The Big Short, Anchorman director Adam McKay's latest film, but even though I really liked the movie, I have to admit I'm a little shocked to see it getting so much Oscar attention. There are people who think it has a legit shot to take home Best Picture, which just seems a little nuts to me. Still, it definitely proves that McKay is a filmmaker to be taken seriously (even in his comedies), and now it appears that he has a new project lined up that may reunite him with the stars of one of his most beloved movies, Step Brothers.

The Playlist has a great breakdown of a discussion between McKay and director Paul Thomas Anderson that took place at the Director's Guild the end of November that included this tantalizing piece of information:

“I’m actually talking with [Will] Ferrell and John C. Reilly about doing a comedy about two guys who go down to defend America's borders against the immigrants, and I’m pretty excited about it,” McKay said. “We actually have Jesse Armstrong who wrote 'In The Loop'— [he’s] delivering a draft, I think, next week.”

McKay has never shied away from making comedies with more than just jokes at the forefront — other than The Big Short, Anchorman 2 and The Other Guys both have some major commentary just beneath the surface. This sounds like a potentially great reunion for these guys, and I hope McKay takes his newfound Hollywood heat and moves forward with this as his next project.

I think it's kind of funny that my first review from the Sundance Film Festival this year is for a Hulu mini-series. The film festival hosted a screening of the first two episodes of J.J. Abrams and Stephen King's 11.22.63. This is a show that I've been incredibly excited about, so of course, I had high hopes that it would be something I would thoroughly enjoy.

I'm happy to tell you that this series delivers some fantastic, thrilling edge-of-your-seat entertainment! King's story is in good hands with this talented team of filmmakers, and they are going to deliver a top notch production.

The first two episodes that I saw basically set up the characters and a few of the main players in the story, but it moves quickly and from the opening scene, you are immediately drawn into the story. 

For those of you who don't know, the premise centers on high school teacher Jake Epping, who is tasked with the mission to travel back in time to stop the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This mission comes with a lot of moving parts, and there are lots of puzzle pieces that need to be connected before he is able to do it. For example, before he attempts to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, he has to make sure that he was the actual person who pulled the trigger.

One of the most fascinating things about the story is that when Jake gets to close to changing the past, the past pushes back and tries to prevent him from doing what he needs to do. That includes harming him. It's such an awesome concept! 

I wish I would have been able to watch more. After watching the first two episodes, I could have binge-watched the whole series right then and there! I'm completely hooked on this series, and now I have to wait to see what happens next. 

The series stars James Franco and Chris Cooper and both of them give wonderful performances. It was great to see these two talents work together and they perfectly fit the characters that King has created. Cooper, especially, is one of those actors I can't get enough of and it's great to see him get to play characters like this.

If you don't subscribe to Hulu, you seriously might want to consider doing that for this series. This is hands down the best original series they've done, and it offers a viewing experience you won't want to miss out on. I love when a series like this comes along that turns out to be better than going to the movies.

When it comes to a show as popular as Game of Thrones, HBO knows that they don't have to give fans much in order to have us salivating for the next season. Case in point: these three new promos the network shared on Twitter today, all of which feature no new footage from the show and only a couple of vague lines threatening the three main houses. Ramsay Bolton claims Winterfell for his own as the Stark banner ripples in the wind, the High Sparrow claims he and the rest of the poor people of King's Landing can overthrow the Lannister empire, and a Dothraki warlord spits fury at the now-captured Daenerys Targaryen, calling her a "queen of nothing."

Game of Thrones returns on April 24th.

@kyleworldpeace "Winterfell is mine." #GoTSeason6 #GameofThrones https://t.co/MatHGpeAuk

— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) January 22, 2016

@MapleBrownie “Together we can overthrow an empire.” #GoTSeason6 #GameofThrones https://t.co/DLJ61pYW00

— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) January 22, 2016

@av_weaver “Queen of nothing.” #GoTSeason6 #GameofThrones https://t.co/TgY4G9GcvR

— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) January 22, 2016

The official Doctor Who Twitter account revealed that Steven Moffat, who has been the showrunner since 2010, is stepping down after the show's tenth season, which is expected to air in 2017. Chris Chibnall, the creator of Broadchurch, is going to be taking his place.

I've never seen an episode of Doctor Who, but I've heard rumblings from some fans online that they aren't happy with what Moffat has done over the past few seasons, so I'm not sure how everyone is going to react to this news. For me, I'm just glad that it'll hopefully mean Moffat will have more time to devote to making sure the new seasons of Sherlock are as solid as possible.

Steven Moffat will step down as Head Writer & Exec Producer after S10… Chris Chibnall to take over! pic.twitter.com/iMhNoEAegy

— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) January 22, 2016

Geek.com has been tearing it up with Marvel movie rumors recently, and that streak continues today with an article about the new lineup of Guardians in James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Turn back now if you don't want to know, because there are potential spoilers ahead.

Here's the team as it will appear in Vol. 2: Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot will all be back, while the new additions will be Yondu (Michael Rooker), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Mantis (to be played by Pom Klementieff).

We know all about Yondu and Nebula from the first movie, but Mantis will be a brand new face in this galaxy, and you can read all about her backstory right here. It remains to be seen how Gunn will utilize these characters and how they'll differ from the comics, but after seeing what a wonderful job he did with the first movie, I have high hopes that he'll be able to pull off something equally amazing with this sequel. We'll classify this as a rumor for now, but I have a feeling Geek.com is right on the money with this one.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5th, 2017.

Tyler and Ben have some fun going through some of the worst villains to battle Batman and the Bat-family!

For more episodes of The 5Cast Podcast on GeekTyrant, click here, and click here for our entire back catalog of episodes. Be sure to e-mail us at 5castpodcast@gmail.com with your feedback and suggestions for future Top 5 lists we should discuss.

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Not long ago, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld said that he would love to see Jon Hamm in the role of Cable if Tim Miller ever got to make his Deadpool sequel. I really liked the idea of Hamm in the role, but then artist BossLogic created an image of Liam Neeson in the role of Cable and it looks completely badass! Neeson is another actor that would be awesome in the role if the character is ever brought to life on the big screen.

Cable is one of Deadpool's best frenemies and it would be great to see the two characters team up in a Deadpool sequel! Which actor do you like better in the role? Hamm or Neeson? 

We’ve got six character posters for you to check out for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Lionsgate’s big screen adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's horror parody of the Jane Austen classic. They feature three of the Bennett sisters, Elizabeth (Lily James), Kitty (Sukie Waterhouse), and Jane (Bella Heathcote). There are also posters for Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), Mr. Collins (Matt Smith), and Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth)

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is a fresh twist on Jane Austen’s widely celebrated novel. A mysterious plague has fallen upon 19th century England, the land is overrun with the undead and feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is a master of martial arts and weaponry. Casting aside personal and social prejudices, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy must unite on the blood-soaked battlefield to rid the country of the zombie menace and discover their true love for one another.

The wonderfully entertaining period zombie film is set to be released on February 5th, 2016.

Square Enix has officially revealed their Batman action figure from their Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Play Arts Kai toy line. As you can see, this thing is incredibly cool-looking! 

Square Enix continues to impress with the creations they are coming up with. The fully poseable figure comes with swappable hands, a grapnel gun, a grappling hook, a batarang, and a grenade of some sort. 

The Batman figure is scheduled to be released in April. The figure will be priced at 14,800 Yen, which is about $127 USD.

Via: Toy Ark

It seems fans are really excited to see how Michael Fassbender’s Assassin's Creed turns out. We’ve only seen a few images from the film, and now we’re waiting to see some actual footage. While we wait for that, the actor spoke about the expense of shooting the film:

"It was great. It was a huge learning experience. To be a producer on it as well was very educational. I think we’ve got something special. I think we’ve done something original in this genre."

The movie will not be a direct adaptation of the video franchise. The movie is set in the same universe, but it features a new character and the story runs parallel to events that we have seen in the game. 

Fassbender is playing a character named Callum Lynch, who also has the same ability as Desmond Miles to use the Animus to travel back in time and relive events through the eyes of his ancestors. Fassbender went on to shed some new light on this character:

"He is an outsider. He’s been institutionalized from his early teens. He’s a little bit of a lost soul of sorts. He starts to identify [his] lineage and where he comes from in a way."

Here’s the synopsis:

Callum Lynch discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he’s poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day.

That’s definitely an interesting background story for the character. Assassin's Creed also stars Marion Cotillard, Michael K. Williams, Ariane Labed, Brendan Gleeson, and Jeremy Irons. It’s currently set for release on December 21st, 2016.