The Muppets are coming! The Muppets are coming!

This holiday season the Muppets are back in the aptly titled movie, The Muppets. I am a second generation Muppet fan, I grew up on the Muppet Babies and my first cinematic exposure to Jim Henson’s genius was A Muppet Christmas Carol. So, for me, the classic era of the Muppets was discovered after the fact, meaning that most of this music I love but don’t have that same childhood bond with it that most fans possess. I like to feel this gives me a more objective look on this album.

Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Disney has released an album collection of classic songs, covered by hots bands of today. This actually happened twice for Nightmare and was splendid both times. The Muppets seemed like a natural next step for this trend with a new movie coming out and a stable of classic songs to choose from.

The collection isn’t as strong as the Nightmare release, but it does have some excellent versions of some of my personal favorite songs. This concept excels when you have a perfect blend of franchise and band, Marylyn Manson and Jack Skeleton are perfect together, unfortunately The Green Album doesn’t offer enough of that kind of perfect mix.

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Yeah, so I missed the season premiere of The Office, too (again, Sister’s wedding last week, combined with a total ignorance of the show’s return—I’ve seen tons of ads for the new “comedy” with the two sisters from that one show and the other “comedy” with Zooey Daschenel, but nothing about The Office or Parks and Rec). Has NBC put the kibosh on advertising for their shows?

Still, I watched last week’s episode “The List” to catch up, and, writing out this recap, I can safely say that don’t remember much of it outside of there being a list made up by Robert California (I love that name) and everyone worrying about what it signifies. I can’t say it was very good, but it didn’t seem particularly bad either. More ho-hum.

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I finally got to see Tucker & Dale VS Evil. It played last year at SXSW, and I didn’t have a chance to see it then—even though I interviewed the director Eli Craig following the premiere. The first thing he said to me:

Eli: So, how’d you like the movie?

Me: Uhh. I didn’t have a chance to see it.

Eli: Really? Oh man!

Me: [thinking how bad that sounds and how much of an idiot he must think I am for interviewing him about a movie I haven’t actually seen] Well, everyone who’s seen it seems to have liked it.

Eli: Really! Cool!

The interview picked up from there, thanks to the fact that Eli’s a really nice and enthusiastic guy who was perfectly content to talk horror movies. The fact that it was a gorgeous day in Austin and we were seated on the patio of one of its most pleasant restaurants—I forget the actual name, but it overlooks some water, has the décor of an old saw mill, and I believe has either the word “Tractor” or “Goat” in the title”—helped.

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If you’re a fan of cars and outrageous stunts you’re probably a frequent watcher of the BBC’s very popular series Top Gear. After a relaunch in 2002, the show has taken off and is now one of the most popular motoring series in the world.

Fortunately, we get it here in the States as well and have become big fans of those funny, crazy and occasionally controversial presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. With the new season of Top Gear in full swing the boys are set to try something new this year to further entrain their fans.

That something is Top Gear Live. In short, it’s a live version of the show featuring the presenters and, of course, The Stig. It wil also feature a huge indoor track and racing, explosions and more.

But really, why listen to me talk about it? Let Jeremy and James explain it to you instead. Click through for a video that does just that.

Top Gear Live is in Birmingham from the 11th – 13th of November and in London from the 24th – 27th. Yes folks, that’s in England. Sorry Top Gear fans in the U.S. and elsewhere, there’ no plans for a Top Gear Live in your area . . . at least not yet.

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Say what you will about Mark Wahlberg but his movies are often entertaining and he does know his way around an action sequence. Case in point is his latest upcoming film Contraband.

In the action thriller, which is based on the 2008 Icelandic film Reykjavic-Rotterdam, Wahlberg plays a security guard trying to go straight who must return to his old life of high-stakes smuggling to settle a family member’s debt with a ruthless former boss. Naturally, things don’t go exactly as planned and, you can bet, stuff ends up blowing up.

Starring with Wahlberg are Giovanni Ribisi, Kate Beckinsale, Lukas Haas and Ben Foster. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Look for Contraband to hit theaters early next year.

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You already know the premise: A jilted/disillusioned–with-love-20/30-something revisits his/her past lovers to understand why he/she can’t find love, and finally realizes that her true love has been right there all along, in one form or another.

In this case, the Disillusionee is Ally Darling (Anna Faris), a recently-fired-then-slept-with-her-boss 20/30-something who reads a magazine article that says women who’ve slept with over 20 partners tend to not find true love. Ally is at number 19. Fearful of the consequences, she makes the decision that the next new guy she sleeps with will be the guy she marries. She also decides to seek out her former boyfriends/casual hookups, hoping to reignite some of the past’s embers and hence keep her number at 19.

There’s more than a passing similarity to High Fidelity in the premise and also in the choice to have several notable comedians—Andy Samberg, Parks and Rec’s (and Faris’s real-life husband) Chris Pratt, the BBCOffice’s Martin Freeman, Zachary Quinto (not so much a comedian, but hey)—and the perfect guy who’s been there all along is her next-door neighbor Colin (Captain America’s Chris Evans).

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• It’s a complete nerd circle of life as the Imperial March from Star Wars is performed using two floppy disk drives.

• What happens when Looney Tunes meets Anime meets heavy rock music? A complete f’ing 80′s metal dream, that’s what.

• We’ve gotten our fair share of art and set pics from The Avengers, but now we’re getting them all together for the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

• The sheer fact that Superman’s Girl, Lois Lane was an actual comic at one point is ridiculous enough, but here are some of the most ludicrous covers from the series.

• Apparently, people are still going nuts for how awesome The Big Lebowski was, here are some awesome original paintings of scenes from the film.

• Not much is known about how quickly episodes are made for Comedy Central’s South Park, but finally we’ll get an idea with the new documentary 6 Days to Air.

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Last October, the world was rocked when a comic book adaptation about zombies in Georgia made its way to the home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Now, we can’t wait for October 16th, as the second season returns with a vengeance.

Fans of both the original comic, heavy drama, and zombies in general will get more than they can chew on when the show returns in a few weeks. Fans of the original will get appearances to the church and the farm, which many know, are pretty big parts of the story from the comic.

We’re also told that this season will bring us ten times more zombie killing, which is more than enough for 90% of the fanbase to return.

Take a look at the brand new, extended trailer after the jump and be sure to get your couch and popcorn ready on October 16th, as The Walking Dead returns with a full 90-minute season premiere.

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Now that we know Apple will be announcing something next week on October 4th, the speculation can continue as to what that will be. And here’s one for today.

Mac Rumors reports that a China Unicom executive apparently confirmed during a presentation at this week’s Macworld Asia that the “iPhone 5″ set to be announced next week will support HSPA+, which is sometimes called “4G.” This technology  offers a maximum theoretical data speed of 21 Mbps.

They’ve even got a photo of a slide presented during the talk that seems to support the assertion. According to the report, research vice president of China Unicom, Huan Wenliang, said the iPhone 5 “will support W-CDMA based high-speed data transfer standard HSPA Evolution” (aka HSPA+) during a keynote speech at the event.

T-Mobile and AT&T both offer 21Mbps HSPA+ in the United States and market the networks as “4G,” although it really should be thought of as more “3.5G” if anything, based on the speed. Apple is reportedly testing a true 4G LTE iPhone but we probably won’t see that being announced next week.

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As good as the movie was, 2003′s Love Actually had no idea what it was starting in the form of romantic comedies featuring a super ensemble cast. It was brought to the (more) public eye last year with Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day and now the ante is only getting upped with New Year’s Eve.

The film’s premise is relatively straightforward, but its the cast that really sells it.

“New Year’s Eve” celebrates love, hope, forgiveness, second chances and fresh starts, in intertwining stories told amidst the pulse and promise of New York City on the most dazzling night of the year.

Are you ready for a cast list to be reckoned with? Take a breath, because you’re looking at seeing Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Hector Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Meyers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Hilary Swank, and Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara join the cast of New Year’s Eve.

How the film isn’t going to be 12 hours long, we have no idea. Instead, you can check out the brand new trailer for the film after the jump. New Year’s Eve is set to hit theaters on December 9th.

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We may have the entirety of the original Star Trek series on Blu-Ray and in HD online, but for the first time ever, we’re getting Pricard and his entire crew in glorious 1080p with the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level on Blu-Ray for the very first time.

It may not be the entire series, but it’s certainly a start to hold us over until it gets a full release next year. What exactly took so long? Well apparently the folks who boldly brought us where no man has been before, they didn’t think to preserve the original footage on film. Here are the details from the press release:

Transferring STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION® to high-definition presented numerous challenges – The series was originally shot on film and then transferred to videotape, which was used to edit episodes together.

In order to create true HD masters, CBS is going back to the original uncut film negative – all 25,000 plus film reels of it – and cutting the episodes together exactly the way they originally aired. The visual effects were all shot on film and will be painstakingly recompositioned, not upconverted from videotape.

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• Robots are badass, and that’s just what we get from Paul Oakenfold’s newest music video for “Beautiful Machine“.

• Who doesn’t love profanity? That’s why this collection of 100 best uses of the word F*ck from films is right down our dirty alley.

• The internet may just be popular, as Cartoon Network’s MAD managed to cram tons of memes into this spoof titled ThunderLOLcats.

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