For the first time in history, the Blackberry Mobile OS has overtaken Apple’s iOS, at least in the domestic U.S. market mobile internet usage. According to the report from StatCounter, which illustrates November 2010 performance between the major mobile browsers, the BlackBerry OS rang in a 34.3% market share, overtaking’s Apple’s iOS which recorded a 33% share in November.

Another interesting trend is revealed: Google’s Android is rapidly gaining and has almost tripled internet market share from 8.2% last November to 23.8% this year. Over the same period, Apple’s iOS has fallen from 51.9% to 33%. Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 has not yet registered a statistically meaningful presence, however we’re only a month or two past the software giant’s big release, so it remains to be seen how it will perform.

This is a huge vindication for Blackberry’s parent company, Research in Motion (RIM), who has historically lagged behind the extremely popular iPhone in both features and popularity. For a considerable chunk of recent history, Blackberry mobile devices didn’t sport a true web browser, and only recently has the company begun offering a modern mobile browser with their smartphones. We recently covered the launch of RIM’s new Blackberry 6 OS which brought so-called ‘crackberry addicts’ up-to-speed in terms of mobile features.

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Muppets are becoming more of the “hip” thing, as big stars keep finding themselves cast in the newest film. Ricky Gervais and Emily Blunt are the latest high-profile celebrities to join the growing list of cameos in Disney’s newest Muppets movie. The specifics behind their cameos have yet to be announced.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the duo are joining a packed lineup that includes Alan Arkin, Jack Black, Billy Crystal, Zach Galifianakis and Jean-Claude Van Damme, who have appearances in a story that reunites the Muppets in order to save their movie studio from a developer. I smell musical numbers!

The new Muppets flick, directed by James Bobin, is currently being filmed in various locations around Los Angeles. Jason Segel, who co-wrote the script with Nicholas Stoller, is the human lead (no surprise here after his vampire number in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) while Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and Rashida Jones round out the cast of human leads.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for the latest developments on the new Muppets movie.

After some time off for the Thanksgiving holiday to consume copious amounts of food and drink, Chris and Matt are back with an all-new episode of The Flickcast. On this week’s show the boys discuss all sorts of new topics and touch on a few recurring ones as well.

Some of those topics include the new Harry Potter film, the tragic passing of both Leslie Nielsen and Irvin Kershner, James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosting the next Oscars, The Hobbit not in 3D, the future on the Internet and services like Netflix and a whole lot more. They also made some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the animated series Young Justice and Chris’ pick of the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Blu-ray.

Want more Chris and Matt? Be sure to check out this week’s episode of This Week in Walking Dead, which stars Matt, guest stars Chris, and series star Andy Rothenberg even stops by.

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 and MySpace or via email.

In between all the shopping, cooking, and holiday planning, December is a great month to find some free time, curl up on the couch, and enjoy some quality television. Fortunately, this month is chock-full of that, with upcoming season finales of some of this season’s hottest shows, plus some new additions to the lineup.

Top Chef All-Stars

If you’ve read my TV Digests before you’ll know I really can’t stand most reality television, but Bravo’s Top Chef is one exception. Between Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, and Top Chef: Just Desserts, this series about up and coming chefs duking it out for the top spot is both addiction and appetizing.

This month, a new addition to the lineup is being added, Top Chef All-Stars. In this new show, 18 previous Top Chef contestants are returning to reclaim their honor, including Season 7 favorites Tiffany and Angelo. Top Chef All-Stars premiers December 1st on Bravo.

The Walking Dead

I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you to watch The Walking Dead if you haven’t already, and I won’t be the last. AMC has finally given zombie fans a television show to love, with some amazing source material from The Walking Dead comics and an amazing showrunner in Frank Darabont.

The show’s sixth and final episode of the season will air on Sunday, December 5th on AMC, and while this season has been short, The Walking Dead has already been renewed for a second season with thirteen episodes.

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Back in October, Hatchet 2 made history as being the first film to be released by a major movie theater chain (AMC) with no rating.  Horror aficionados hailed the decision as breakthrough, now a horror movie could be seen as the director originally intended.

Their praise was cut short when the chain abruptly pulled the movie from their theaters before its opening weekend was over. There was a storm of controversy; fans cried censorship, and AMC blamed poor ticket sales.

No one knows the real story, but one thing is clear-Adam Green and the production crew got completely screwed over.  Today, the movie finally comes out On Demand at several different outlets. I got to speak with director Adam Green  along with stars Danielle Harris and Kane Hodder about the film earlier this year.

Green is a well-respected horror director, previously know for Hatchet, a film that introduced a new horror icon named Victor Crowley.  He also directed the criminally underrated Frozen. Danielle Harris has been affectionately dubbed a scream queen for her appearances in Rob Zombies Halloween and Halloween 2, along with the television series Fear Clinic.  Kane Hodder is nothing short of a legend in the business, having done stunts for over 72 well-known films, and acting in many as well.

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Although the light cycles and identity discs are pretty cool, by far the coolest visual aspect to both TRON and the upcoming TRON: Legacy is the skintight light suits that all of the characters in the game grid sport. One question has always arrisen though: where do those wonderful suits come from?

Do they manifest the moment a player enters the game, or is there a gigantic TRON Gap store that players have to go through to pick them up? Well, in this new clip we finally get that mystery revealed.

In the film, Sam Flynn, son of the famed game creator Kevin Flynn gets transported into the game where he embarks on a journey to save his trapped father.

After the jump, check out a clip from TRON: Legacy in which the game sirens dress Sam in the traditional light suit and get him ready for his very first game. Be sure to catch TRON: Legacy in theaters on December 17th.

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WWE’s SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 helped the franchise reach the momentous 50 million unit mark with sales. With SmackDown vs. Raw 2011, THQ and Yuke’s hoped to continue the sucessful tradition of the annual franchise by taking the franchise’s stalwart features like the godlike level of character customization and great in ring action and adding some new ones, most notably WWE Universe Mode, an expanded backstage arena during the Road to WrestleMania mode and the upgraded physics system.

Gameplay:

As we talked about in our review of last year’s SmackDown vs. Raw 2010,  the biggest strength of SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 is how fun it makes the matches available to players. The control scheme proves itself to be easy to learn but a challenge to master allowing players of all levels of skill to enjoy bouts against the computer. This quickly changes however in player versus player combat where a novice has next to no hope against an opponent with more experience with the franchise.

New to this year’s in ring gameplay comes an improved physics engine. The physics in WWE games has varied over the years to the Gamecube days where contact with a ladder could take out a ring full to competitors to even last year’s SmackDown vs. Raw where instead of colliding with a ladder on a big fall, superstars would hit the ground and have the ladder gingerly slide over. Now, items like tables, ladders and chairs are interactive set pieces. Instead of moving aside when a competitor is aimed at it, tables shatter on contact and pieces will remain in the ring as the action goes on around it.

Wrestlers now react to being tossed on top of chairs and a kick to a ladder can send both it and the superstar climbing it to the floor. This feels like a step towards more added realism for the game’s in ring product. (And yes, we understand the irony of talking about realism in reference to professional wrestling… er, sports

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In a somewhat surprising move, it seems AMC’s breakout hit series The Walking Dead has decided to let go of its writing staff. In addition, it is still debatable if the series will hire a new staff for the second season. Instead, series Exec. Producer Frank Darabont may decide to proceed without a writing staff and work with freelancers and/or write the second season’s thirteen episodes himself.

While this may seem like an odd decision given the fact that the show has been so successful, it’s not that hard to believe. After all Darabont wrote two of the first six episodes himself and comic book creator Robert Kirkman wrote one as well. The others were written by freelancers and then reportedly rewritten by Darabont. So it would seem the writing staff wasn’t doing that much work anyway.

No final decision on this has reportedly been made but it would appear Darabont and AMC have some time to figure it out given that the network may wait to bring the show back until next year during Halloween. So that means we may end up having to wait almost a year for the show to return. Plenty of time for Darabont, Kirkman and some freelance writers to crank out thirteen episodes.

I don’t know what bothers me more that the show let go of its writing staff or that it won’t be back, potentially, until next October. Both seem like questionable decisions with the waiting almost a year seemingly the worse one. Still, this may open up opportunities for writers to get their stuff read so I’m all for that. Guess I’ll polish up that Walking Dead spec script and send it on over.

Do these sound like bad ideas to anyone else? Sound off in the comments.

After hearing about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’s preview night, who wouldn’t want to adapt a film to a live musical? Well it seems that producer Peter Billingsly, who played Ralphie in the 1983′s A Christmas Story is ready to bring the adaptation to the world, and pretty soon!

Not many know, but after Billingsly portrayed Ralphie, he went on to team up with Jon Favreau & Vince Vaughn and produce some of their bigger comedies such as Four Christmases, The Break Up, and Couples Retreat. It looks like Billingsly is readying the musical for this month, and even has some previews happening this week. From THR.

With previews beginning Wednesday at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre (and running Dec. 9-30), A Christmas Story: The Musical! will remain loyal to the film adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s short stories and includes an original score from Broadway composing duo Benj Paske and Justin Paul.

Though Turn Off The Dark really did fail pretty hard in it’s preview this week, this production could see a different outcome. What’s the next film to get a musical adaptation? Could we see Favreau’s Elf make it’s way to the stage next?