A couple of new trailers have been released for two new pay cable drama series.  Showtime has unveiled an extended look at its new series Ray Donovan, which stars Liev Schreiber as a “fixer” for the rich and famous in Los Angeles whose life is complicated when his powerful father—whom he may or may not have framed—is unexpectedly released from prison.  Despite the bland title, the show actually looks like a fairly interesting character drama with a pair of strong performances by Schreiber and Jon Voight.  The series premieres on Showtime on Sunday, June 30th.

Additionally, Starz has unveiled a new look at its period series Da Vinci’s Demons.  From executive producer David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), the show stars Tom Riley as the titular artist/inventor/swordsman/idealist living in Renaissance Florence, struggling to exist within the confines of his own reality and time as he begins to not only see the future, but invent it.  The series premieres on Starz on Friday, April 12th.  Hit the jump to watch the trailers for Ray Donovan and Da Vinci’s Demons.

Showtime has released a one-two combo of images and trailers for their upcoming debut shows Masters of Sex and Ray Donovan. Starring Lizzy Kaplan and Michael Sheen as real-life pioneers of the study of human sexuality, Masters of Sex follows the lives of Virginia Johnson and William Masters as their work sparks the sexual revolution and catapults them into fame.

Ray Donovan stars Liev Schreiber in the title role as a problem-solver for the rich, famous and powerful in Los Angeles. When his father (Jon Voight) is unexpectedly released from prison, he and his family find themselves in the cross-hairs. Hit the jump to check out the new images and trailers for both Showtime series.

Deliverance is one of the seminal films of the 70′s – though its influence seems mostly on the horror genre. It’s hard to imagine films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn without it. Four friends, played by Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, Burt Reynolds and Ronny Cox, head to a neighborhood in the south that’s about to be flooded. What they experience is something terrible. Directed by John Boorman, it’s a masterpiece of the tensions of masculinity. Warner Brother has put the film out on Blu-ray for its 40th anniversary, and our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Deliverance, John Boorman’s breathtaking exploration into the nature of man, is easily one of the most profoundly upsetting and nihilistic films ever made.  What on the outset appears to be a simple man vs. nature tale (four men on a weekend getaway attempt to conquer a soon-to-be-extinct river valley) reveals itself to be far more complex – for it isn’t so much men fighting the untamed natural world but a discovery that they are one and the same.  Stripped of their loved ones, their jobs and their material possessions, the quartet are forced to confront that deep down they are the beasts, no more civilized than the wild rapids they travel across.  Civilization: merely a mask to a hide their base amorality.

Forty years later, Deliverance is just as disturbing (and downright brilliant) as it was upon release.  It is the definition of timeless.  To celebrate the forty-year anniversary and in conjunction with the re-release of the film on Blu-ray, Warner Brothers invited us interview the primary cast (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox).  In the following interview, Burt Reynolds discusses the ‘rape scene’ auditions, Jon Voight reenacts Boorman’s long one-shots and Ned Beatty & Ronny Cox weigh in on how their novice acting backgrounds affected the group dynamics in the film, among many other topics of conversation.  Hit the jump to watch.

Showtime already has a fine line-up of programming with Dexter, Shameless and The Borgias holding strong, not to mention freshman series Homeland snagging some great awards nominations recently, but that line-up is looking to beef up a bit with the addition of two new series to the pay cable channel. Showtime has just announced a series pick-up for both Ray Donovan, featuring Liev Schreiber in his first series regular role, and Masters of Sex, featuring the spectacular Michael Sheen and the stunning Lizzy Caplan. The two series couldn’t be more different. Details on each after the jump!

Teri Polo and Dermot Mulroney have signed on to star in the thriller Beyond.  Directed by Josef Rusnak (The 13th Floor), the film follows a detective and a television psychic as they attempt to find a missing child.  Polo and Mulroney join a cast that features Jon Voight and Julian Morris (ABC’s shortlived My Generation).  According to Heat Vision, Polo will be playing the role of the missing child’s mother/Voight’s daughter while the details of Mulroney’s turn are left to the imagination.  While no release date has been set, the film is currently shooting in Alaska.

As for upcoming work, you can catch Polo in Little Fockers which hits theaters on December 22nd.  In Mulroney’s case, the actor is appearing alongside Kristen Bell, Drew Barrymore, and John Krasinski in the upcoming Ken Kwapis (He’s Just Not That Into You) romance, Everybody Loves Whales.  He also recently starred in the drama Inhale; a film from Iceland’s own Baltasar Kormakur that received only limited release in the States.

This argument would be a lot easier if I were pleading to longtime fans of an established TV series to stop the show from cancellation. However, today I write to the collective TV viewing public to help avert a tragedy. Fox’s new series Lone Star debuted to poor ratings this week as it found itself against Dancing with the Stars (give me a break) and The Event, a series whose lingering mystery doesn’t cover up the shows gimmicky writing surrounding it. Some might be thinking this is just the nature of the TV industry where only the strong survive. If only strength was determined by the quality of writing, directing and acting then I might be willing to let the system take its course on Lone Star, but I can’t stand by and let a perfectly good show go to waste.

Hit the jump to hear my plea and find out what you’re missing.

Lately the troubled and morally questionable characters of television like Don Draper of Mad Men and Walter White of Breaking Bad have been sweeping audiences off their feet. But Fox is hoping that an alliterative name isn’t the key to their success as they’re sending Bob Allen (James Wolk in his first starring role) into the ring of anti-heroes. Stepping into the void left behind by the cancellation of FX’s gypsy con-family drama The Riches, Fox’s new series Lone Star puts us right in the middle of the double-life of a con-man as he contemplates giving up his conveniently mobile and fraudulent life in favor of real love. The only problem is that real love comes in the form of both his middle-class, homegrown girlfriend in Midland, Texas and his upper-class, oil tycoon offspring of a wife in Houston, Texas. If you’re not onboard for the long-con just yet, find out why you should be after the jump.

The new Fox drama Lone Star centers on Robert Allen (James Wolk), a charismatic and brilliant con artist who has meticulously constructed two lives in two different parts of Texas. As “Bob,” (Wolk) he lives in Houston and is a devoted husband to Cat (Adrianne Palicki), the beautiful daughter of the patriarch (Jon Voight) of an ultra-wealthy oil family. In the suburban town of Midland, he’s known as “Robert,” where he lives a second life with his sweet, naive girlfriend, Lindsay (Eloise Mumford). He has lived both lives successfully for years without arousing any suspicions, but he now fears that his secrets may unravel as he becomes divided by his love for two women.

During a recent interview to promote the new TV series, actor James Wolk (who can also be seen in Disney’s upcoming feature You Again starting September 24^th) talked about taking on such a complex role, playing a guy torn between two loves, and the similarities between playing a con man and being an actor. Check out what he had to say after the jump: