Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?

IGN gets an exclusive trailer for what will undoubtedly be the scariest movie in theaters this Halloween – the Alien Director’s Cut. Apparently, the famous Brett & Dallas in the nest scene has been re-added (despite it contradicting the xenoform life cycle of the later films.) Either way, from the Nostromo’s sMothering AI to Ash spewing milk all over the place to Kane’s “unwanted pregnancy,” twenty years later Alien is still scary – and subversive – as hell.

Four-Color Casting Call.

Eager to catch up with Marvel in the summer blockbuster dept., Warner Brothers and DC plan to screentest a bevy of young stars for Christopher (Memento) Nolan’s new Batman film. (Of these choices, I’d go with Christian Bale.) Also is comic casting news, it turns out cut-rate chanteuse/Newlywed Jessica Simpson will be playing the lead in Mort the Dead Teenager. Normally, this’d be a non-story, but she had been rumored to play Sue Storm (Invisible Girl) in the upcoming Fantastic Four flick, which — if true — would have instantly erased any interest I might have in the project. Now, Naomi Watts, on the other hand…

Hawking v. Voltron in the Land of Chocolate.

I’m generally pretty quiet about my side hobby of Simpsons-collecting in this space, but, at the risk of coming off even more Comic Book Guy than usual, two points of interest: Season 3 – “best season ever” – is available on DVD today, and the 13th wave of figures includes this great sculpt of Stephen Hawking (per his request), which I expect will have more crossover appeal than most of the recent (obscure) characters.

Forth Eorlingas.

Also out today (as you probably well know) is the LOTR: Two Towers theatrical DVD. In related news, the happy news came down during my travel days that New Line will be screening the FotR and TTT extended editions prior to RotK this December. While it may require hobbit-like levels of sloth, I think I’m going to gear up for an all-day marathon on the 16th.