In a time when digital HD, cable, and satellite TV bring us thousands (that’s right: thousands) of different channels to choose from in our day-to-day viewing schedule, doesn’t it make sense that one of those channels should be dedicated to one of the most popular animated sitcoms in American TV history?

That’s what News Corp. is thinking, as they’re toying with the idea of bringing us an entire channel dedicated to The Simpsons. Here’s the speculative report from LA Times.

Noting that “The Simpsons” shows no sign of slowing down as it prepares to start its 23rd season on News Corp.’s Fox network, News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said the company is starting to have internal discussions about how to create additional revenue streams for the animated hit that goes beyond reruns on TV stations and DVD sales.

Any effort at creating a platform just for “The Simpsons” may have to wait for the show to stop producing new episodes. Because the show is still in production after more than two decades, the rerun deals done years ago are still in effect. Once the show ends, so-called second cycle sales of repeat episodes can be sold. Although some shows might seem stale after 20 years, “The Simpsons” continues to be a solid performer.

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There are a few quintessential film scores in every generation. Amongst the first of the new century is the music from The Fellowship of the Ring, Howard Shore’s epic, sweeping and moving first score in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. At the end of the day, all three scores work together to tell the single story of the Lord of the Rings, weaving in and out of complex themes and structures more like an opera than a traditional film score.

This epic master work has recently found new life with the release of The Lord of the Rings Symphony, a six movement piece that spans the entire trilogy. The music is structured into two movements per movie, emulating the two books in each volume of the trilogy. Each movie getting between twenty and forty minutes of their best musical moments, woven together like a single cohesive musical experience.

So the first question on my mind as I hear about this release is how it sounds. Many times when there is a re-recording of a release, it doesn’t have that certain spark of the original recording, the music is all there, but it is just not quite the same. Thankfully, for this release the music is almost perfection, and several cases I even prefer the new recorded cues to the originals I have listened to for years.

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There’s just something about Takeshi Kitano’s films you’ve gotta love. Maybe it’s the amazing look of them, the unusual and often conflicted characters or the spectacular way he stages action. Whatever it is, he’s great at what he does so anytime he’s got a new film coming out, we’re going to take notice.

His latest film is Outrage and we’ve got a trailer for it to share with you today. Here’s some synopsis to peak your interest:

In a ruthless battle for power, several yakuza clans vie for the favor of their head family in the Japanese underworld. The rival bosses seek to rise through the ranks by scheming and making allegiances sworn over saké.

Long-time yakuza Otomo has seen his kind go from elaborate body tattoos and severed fingertips to becoming important players on the stock market. Theirs is a never-ending struggle to end up on top, or at least survive, in a corrupt world where there are no heroes but constant betrayal and vengeance.

Sounds good. We’re in. Outrage will be available On-Demand on October 28 and in theaters December 2. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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Spoiler Alert: I know how she does it. And I’m about to tell you.

The “she” of the title is Kate Reddy (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), and, for starters, she has a full-time nanny. The nanny apparently also cleans, really well, or else there is some unseen housekeeper, because the house is always in a perfect state of cleanliness, beds pristinely made and kitchen counters bare and shining.

Someone also does laundry, because there is not a single basket of dirty, clean-but-not-folded or folded-but-not-put-away laundry anywhere in sight. That same person, or perhaps someone else, must also do Kate’s personal shopping, because she has a killer wardrobe, as do the children, and what mother working a demanding 60+ hour-a-week schedule has time for shopping?

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Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is a film I enjoyed very much. It’s stylish, almost absurdly violent and immensely entertaining.

It’s what movies should be. Well, it’s what drama/action movies should be at the very least, Don’t get me wrong, it’s also got a brain.

But what makes this movie so cool are the visuals and the anti-hero played by Gosling. He’s a man of few words who lets his actions speak for him.

In the film Gosling plays “Driver,” a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman that will take any job and not ask questions. All is well until that fateful day he discovers a contract has been put on him after a heist goes wrong. And oh boy does it go wrong.

Because I enjoyed it so much I want to do whatever I can to help get the word out. Like we’ve already done. Now, We’ve got even more from the film to share with you.

This time around it’s a bunch of videos including some behind-the-scenes stuff as well as a few scenes from the film itself. You can check them out after the break.

In addition to Gosling, Drive stars Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and Albert Brooks. It hits theaters this Friday. See it.

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The nice folks at Feral Interactive who make sure cool games get to the Mac announced this week they will be bringing one of our favorite games to the Mac platform. That game? Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Sure, those of you who’ve played it already on PS3 or XBox 360 may scoff and say “Who cares?” But those who love the Mac and don’t have a console gaming system (yes, those people exist) will now be able to enjoy one of the cooles games around on their beloved Macs.

The game features a story by Paul Dini, Batman writer and Emmy Award winner. It also features the voice talents of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, who reprise their roles as The Joker and Batman from the animated TV series.

The game will reportedly cost $39.99 and will be available in stores or via download. Recommended system requirements for the game are as follows:

2.8 GHz or faster Intel-based Mac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later and a graphics card with at least 512 MB. Nvidia 7xxx series, ATI 1×00 and Intel GMA graphics chips are not supported.

Batman: Arkham Asylum will be available for the Mac on October 13th.

Those who are glued to what Marvel Studios is doing with their story leading up to next year’s Avengers film know that Agent Coulson (played by Clark Gregg) is the glue that ties all of the films together.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is the man that find’s Thor’s hammer, babysits Tony Stark, and helps wake up Captain America is the one who is able to hold our hands as we get ready for things to get heavy in Avengers next year.

Attached the the Blu-Ray and DVD release of Thor next week, Marvel is taking Coulson’s “glue” to another level with a series of shorts titled Marvel One-Shots in which Coulson literally ties the films together in short and comical scenes.

In the most recent short, titled A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Thor’s Hammer, things get a bit violent for Coulson as he treks through the desert of New Mexico.

Take a look at the teaser for the short after the jump, and catch the full thing on the Thor Blu-Ray and DVD, out next Tuesday.

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The first impression the world got of Dead Island left it with some lofty expectations to uphold.  In one of the most emotionally stirring game trailers of the past decade, no one knew really what to expect from the Techland developed zombie title. At that point, no one even had any idea what kind of game Dead Island would even be.

What Dead Island brings is a combination of many genres both in theme and gameplay style. Debating whether the title is a first person shooter with RPG elements or an RPG with first person combat becomes a moot point as the lines are so blurred in the intoxicating gameplay of Dead Island.

Gameplay:

As just mentioned, Dead Island is a combination of both FPS combat with tons of RPG style gameplay seamlessly mixed together. Add that to an open world environment and the Fallout comparisons begin building up quickly. To say that Dead Island is Fallout 3 with zombies though would be an oversimplification of what Dead Island brings to the table.

First, let’s talk combat. Dead Island is played entirely from a first person perspective. Players begin with nothing more than their fists but soon begin picking up common items found on an island paradise such as paddles, kitchen knives, coat racks and machetes (with all that jungle, it doesn’t seem odd that these are found throughout the game world). Through the use of these items, players must bash their way through zombie attacks.

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Zombies are hot right now. Hell, they’ve been hot for the past year, since AMC blew the lid off of their ratings roof with the first season of The Walking Dead last October. Now, things are kicking back into scary gear as we ramp up for the Halloween season, and people are coming out of the woodwork to show us their killer zombie franchises.

Creator Eric Powell has been trying to get the animated adaptation of his zombie-killing comic The Goon off the ground for quite some time. The film’s already got voice master Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti signed on, they just need to work on animating the film itself. Here’s the synopsis from the book, to keep you up to speed.

Bones will be broken and heads will roll! The Goon is a laugh-out-loud action-packed romp through the streets of a town infested with zombies. An insane priest is building himself an army of the undead, and there’s only one man who can put them is their place: the man they call Goon.

Recently, Powell tweeted out this awesome PSA featuring Clancy portraying The Goon in some very rough test footage. You can check out that footage after the jump, and we can hopefully see The Goon in theaters sometime in the next few years.

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• Charlie Sheen’s big roast on Comedy Central is happening Monday and this new spot starring both Charlie and Martin Sheen is having us buy that it may be pretty funny.

• Apparently, hockey is cool again, between Kevin Smith’s upcoming hockey epic and the first trailer for Sean William Scott’s Goon (not to be confused with the comic), things are looking pretty violent in sports cinema.

• For those who were suckered into watching the series finale of Entourage on Sunday and got the complete lack of an ending that was given, this is how the series should have ended for everyone.

• PSA’s are all the rage these days, so isn’t it about time the web video community started mocking them? We think so, with this PSA about driving recklessly.

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I’m not sure anyone was clamoring for this but Fox is going ahead anyway. The deal in question is the networks’s commitment today in going forward with an adaptation of the DC comic The Spectre. The new show will be written by Brandon Camp, who will also exec. produce.

In case you’re not familiar, The Spectre is a DC superhero character who made his first appearance in 1940. He’s a former cop serving time in afterlife limbo. He hunts criminals on earth on behalf of the dead, and those soon to be dead, and makes sure justice is served.

With the recent string of comic book to small screen adaptation failures including The Cape and Wonder Woman, I don’t put much hope is this working out. Networks just don’t seem to get it. After all, Fox already had a really fun show based on a comic that they axed after two seasons, just when it was getting interesting. I’m talking about, of course, Human Target.

Not only that, Fox doesn’t have the greatest track second with genre series in general. They just don’t seem to want to give things a chance to find an audience. Still, it’s nice that they seem to keep trying. At least that’s something.

Yesterday, we brought you our first batch review of DC’s newest line of rebooted books, and today, we’re finishing up on the massive 15 books that were released.

Hawk and Dove #1

Written by Sterling Gates | Art by Rob Liefeld

Hawk and Dove #1 is the worst book of the DC ‘New 52″ week one. The plot is a mess as it mentions and references things specific to old DCU continuity. The art is only good if you like to see characters constantly grit their teeth in every panel.

Seriously, how is Rob Liefeld still getting work? Unless you have read Brightest Day, this story will not make any sense. Do not buy this book.

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