Why bother risking life and limb on file sharing networks? Archive.org has a great selection of public domain movies ready to download and watch on your computer and burn to a DVD, completely free of charge.
Its real simple. Some of these movies or programs are released to the net with only a Creative Commons protection, and thus are free to distribute or manipulate at your will.
Others are films so old, they’ve entered into the public domain and the copyright holders let their ownership slip.
Night of the Living Dead is the most popular by far. This is the George Romero zombie classic that spawned Dawn Of The Dead and countless imitations.
Granted, this is mostly black & white stuff here, but without protections, anyone can use or remake the footage without a fee. Don’t think I haven’t thought of it….

Today, Marvel announced the writer for the planned Avengers movie: Zak Penn. (By the way, interesting way of announcing an Avengers movie, Marvel. Nice promotional work, there.) To help sell the guy, his previous movie-writing chores for Marvel were listed: The Incredible Hulk, X-Men: The Last Stand, X2: X-Men United, and Elektra.

In his defence, that’s the upcoming Hulk movie, not the previous, Ang Lee-helmed one. The others, you might have seen. Except for Elektra.

Based on how he’s credited, the guy likely had limited input on the movies they listed, with the exception of The Incredible Hulk. And that movie’s not exactly done yet.  What is there to take away from this?  Are they just not taking the idea of an Avengers movie seriously? Is his upcoming work really that impressive to them? One of his upcoming movies is Spy Hunter – I don’t want to be too snarky without cause, but how high calibur are video game movies right now? You gotta admit, they’re not running under the best track record. While it’s by no means a death kiss, it’s not reassuring news.

Source: Comicscontinuum.com

or “Excuse me, Sessler!”

Resident X-Play fan spooie alerted us that conservative crusader Jack Thompson was on G4 TV’s “Attack Of The Show” on a panel with G4 host Adam Sessler discussing the forthcoming game “Bully”
While they got heated and voices were raised, the 9 minute clip is ultimately disappointing as the debate is cut short for crude sex jokes and a feature on how “… some chicks have bad hygiene”
Next time G4 wants to host a serious discussing with one of the gamings most notorious figures, it would do well to give it air time during a less infantile show and not consistently set up to be bullied by one of their own. Of course, our position here is well known, as the oldest post in our archives is simple “G4 sucks“

Continuing with Powet.tv’s vigiliance to review as many crappy Nintendo candy products such as possible such as the Nintendo Power Mints and Gameboy Advance Gummies we take a look at this Donkey Kong “Klik” candy dispenser from the hard working folks at “au’some candies”.

Strangely, the announcement is not on Bungie.net yet, but Halo has a director. His name is Neill Blomkamp. He’s never directed a major motion picture before, but he’s got a long history of TV and commercial work. Stop cringing. This is a commercial he directed:

Thats right, the dancing Citroen. In fact nearly all of his projects have been heavy on special effects and high technology. Joystiq invites you to scrutinize his resume.

But don’t take our word for it. Whats Executive Producer Peter Jackson say?

“As a gaming fan, I’m excited to bring Halo’s premise, action and settings to the screen with all the specificity and reality today’s technology can provide,” said Jackson. “Fran and I are intrigued by the unique challenges this project offers, and we’re delighted to be working again with our friends at Universal, and with our new ones at Fox and Microsoft. With Neill on board, I’m even more excited by the potential of this project.”

Wow, thats press release quality quoting there!

Halo is now due for a 2008 summer release.

A lot of NES favorites are celebrating over 2 decades of classic games, and Metroid is the latest. Yes, on August 6, 1986 Metroid was released on the Famicon Disk System in Japan. Its subsequent release in the US and sequels that went portable and 3D moved Metroid from beyond a simple shooting/exploring game to a rich Sci-Fi universe with depth, history, and colorful characters.

Check out the feature One Girl Against The Galaxy on 1up. For more on Metroid’s hero Samus Aran, try wikipedia. While you read, do rock out to Metroid Metal.

Also, while its not in english, theres 2 volumes of flash Manga: here and here

The latest installment in the Metroid series, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, will be in stores on the Nintendo Wii this fall. Currently available in stores is Metroid Fusion & Metroid Zero Mission on GBA, Metroid Prime Hunters & Metroid Pinball on NDS, and Metroid Prime & Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on GameCube.

Art by Torokun

Civil War brings us two issues this week, Ms. Marvel #6 and Front Line #5. Ms. Marvel was an unpalatable turd rating a grade of D / C, and Front Line was excellent as usual, rating an B+ / B-. To get an explanation of why, and to gorge yourself on spoilers a’plenty, continue on. [Read the rest of this entry…]

SQUADRON SUPREME #6
by J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank

Tomorrow, Marvel’s hitting us with issue #6 of Squadron Supreme, written by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS, for short – AKA the mastermind of Babylon 5). Now, for those of you who just crawled out of the ocean and grew legs, Squadron Supreme is a book Marvel put out in the 1980s which starred analogues of DC’s Justice League, but it did them in a much darker, more ‘real-world’ fashion, beating The Authority to the punch by over a decade. It’s considered a classic to this day. A couple years back, JMS took up the torch, and kicked off the series with a fresh start, calling it Supreme Power.

You might be asking yourself why I’d bother telling you to pick up a series at issue #6. Well, before the book was called Squadron Supreme, when it was running under the title of Supreme Power, the first issue I grabbed was #4. It was an issue that focused on Nighthawk – the Batman analogue. What I saw left a bit of an impression:

At the time, the book was under the MAX imprint. Now that it’s under Marvel Knights we won’t be seeing anything quite that ruthless, sadly. But my point is, I needed little other than that issue to run with the series. And the upcoming issue #6, which (as I’ve noted) hits the stands tomorrow, is similarly a Nighthawk-focused issue. Since this is the first real time we’ll be seeing the guy in a year, it should be a good re-introduction to the character. And it should be a good introduction to the book.

Try it out. And if you like it, you’ll be onboard well before the Ultimate Universe crossover drops. Which will make you WAY cooler than all your friends.