Netflix streaming is great and all, but one has to admit, the selection of movies leaves a lot to be desired.  Mubi will soon be filling this void when they bring their online service to the Sony PS3, offering a ton of awesome movies created by top directors from around the world.

The Announcement:

Hello,

We are MUBI.

Who? What?

Ok, lets make this simple… Do you know who Kubrick is? What about Antonioni? David Lynch? Ring any bells?

It’s ok, don’t bother if you don’t…

But if you are still reading you are going to like this a lot.

Well, we are MUBI and we are basically transforming your PS3 console into your own online cinema. (You can still play games and all that, don’t worry!) We couldn’t resist the idea of everyone having their own exquisite film library—And that’s it in a nutshell.

But lets get this straight, we are not just an online cinema and we are not just some tech and film geeks in California—well, some of us are, yes—but we are 300,000 friends talking, discovering, and sharing films with one another every day. In fact, every 2 minutes there’s someone joining us. Yes. 2 minutes. Sorry to get a bit geeky (we warned you!), but that’s 700 people joining each day. Not bad… but joining what?

The truth is, we can’t even start explaining. But let’s try this: At the moment, some of us are at the Cannes Film Festival announcing a major collaboration with SCEE for PS3. So, soon, you will find a new application on your console, which will let you stream the best of international cinema from the comforts of your couch. This is not a simple virtual videostore; we emphasize quality over quantity. You’ll find undistributed festival gems ripe for your discovery, your favorite recent independent and art-house releases. Names like the Coen brothers, Godard, Kitano, Almodóvar, Tarantino, and Van Sant are some we’ll bring home to you.

Palm d’Or winners and simply films we think should have won awards. But that’s not all. We’ll bring you exclusive online premieres, collaborations with international film festivals, and retrospectives of some of the best cinema the world has ever seen.

And as we said, we love talking and sharing wonderful cinema too. Which makes MUBI like a small coffee shop, a place where you can gather and chat about alternative endings, directors’ cuts, or whatever those frogs in Magnolia meant.

You can follow members and interact with them: This is Martin Scorsese’s profile for instance (he happens to be a member!). Anyway, you get the point. We’ve spent some time tying together an online cinema with a simple, engaging social network to help film lovers spread around the world connect over the movies they love best. And that is that. Welcome to MUBI.

I consider Hydro Thunder to be one of the last great arcade games I ever played.

Back in the late ’90s, arcades were already headed well on their way to extinction, or at least a pitiful existence not nearly as glorious as their reign in the ’80s.  As such, I never really cared for most of the arcade titles that were coming out at that time like Dance Dance Revolution, but racing games could always tend to grab my attention.

Hydro Thunder was no exception.  The frenetic, high-speed boat racing game was so fun that I had to rent it for my Nintendo 64 as often as possible.  In hindsight, I really should have saved money and just purchased the game.

Unfortunately, Hydro Thunder arrived at a time when most home consoles were still woefully underpowered compared to their arcade counterparts.  So while the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions of Hydro Thunder were decent enough and could certainly qualify as arcade ports, the definitive home version landed on the Dreamcast, and, well, we all know what happened to that thing.

Luckily, Hydro Thunder is headed for the Xbox Live Arcade care of Vector Unit, the developer that has grabbed the rights to the game from Midway’s cold, dead hands.  It has even grabbed an updated title: Hydro Thunder Hurricane.  Sounds fancy.

The title is already planned to retain the 4-player splitscreen mode previously seen only in the Nintendo 64 version (which suffered from horrendous framerate issues) and feature an 8-player online mode.  However, the developer has shared some new features for the downloadable title, such as online leaderboards and a Wave Race-like slalom event, which you can read below.

The title is planned for a vague summer 2010 release.

• Ring Master
A slalom-style event, Ring Master challenges players to race through a series of rings and compete for best time. Every track environment in HTH features three unique Ring Master layouts, which ramp up in difficulty from Novice to Pro to Expert. Novice courses feature larger gates, and are designed to introduce players to the basic mechanics of each level. Pro and Expert courses feature smaller rings, and the layouts are more challenging – they also introduce players to alternate routes and shortcuts in each level.

• Gauntlet
Time trial with an explosive twist: every course is peppered with exploding barrels. The barrels are generally placed off the primary racing line, on the outsides of corners and such, to encourage players to use the fastest racing line possible. However in spots they are also placed in the center of the track, requiring players to dodge between them or hop over them using the Boost Jump mechanic.

• Leaderboard Opponents
Single Player Race, Ring Master, and Gauntlet events all support asynchronous racing with your Xbox LIVE Friends through a feature we call “Leaderboard Opponents”. When you begin an event, we grab your next-best-Friend’s time and display split times at every checkpoint so you can compare your time to theirs as you’re racing. If you’re the best of all your friends, we pull times from the global Leaderboards.

Warner Premiere has announced the availability of their 8th Motion Comic, Jonah Hex.

“Warner Premiere Motion Comics are taking the casual comic book fan deeper into the pages of these amazing stories and giving fans a new way to experience timeless comic books and graphic novels,” said Eva Davis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Warner Premiere. “Jonah Hex Motion Comics are a great way for fans to prime themselves for the upcoming theatrical release. The voice acting by Jim Cummings and the rich artwork by Sequence Studio will really make fans feel like they’re in the heat of battle with Jonah.”

Jonah Hex Motion Comics is an all-new collection of archival comics featuring Jonah Hex, the ruthless bounty hunter with a conscience. Now three of his legendary stories have been brought to life, page-by-page, and told in seven extraordinary episodes. The first five episodes are adapted from the graphic novel Two Gun Mojo, telling the action-packed story of Jonah Hex seeking justice and revenge against Doc Williams and his gang when a friend is murdered. The Gunfighter and The Hangin’ Woman are two additional stories from the popular 1970’s comic series featuring the notorious gunslinger, re-colored and animated for the first time.

Jim Cummings, the versatile voice actor known for his many roles in animated productions takes on the voice of Jonah Hex, the no-holds-barred, rough gunslinger. Other characters are voiced by Steve Blum, Bill Farmer, Maurice LaMarche, Lani Manella, Colleen O’Shaughnessey and Mick Wingert.

iTunes Link ($5.99)

Remember Pixeljunk Racers, one of the first downloadable games on Sony’s Playstation Network? Yeah, the game that looked cool in screenshots but played like utter garbage? Yeah, the game that just about every critic hated? Thanks to the ESRB once again rating and outing an unannounced game, we’ve learned that PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap will be filling that gaping hole in your soul. No word on when the sequel will be released to an unenthusiastic public.