Outkast’s long awaited movie and new album are less than a week away. Hip Hop’s most celebrated duo are releasing the new album to stores on August 22, but they’re currently playing the record in its entirety at myspace.com/outkast.

The movie, and its soundtrack album, are set in prohibition era south, where a speakeasy owner and his piano player (Big Boi and Andre 3000) have to overcome not only the illegality of alcohol for their club but also a gangster (Terrence Howard) who will take everything they’ve got. The setting makes Outkasts already weird and unique sound even more out there, putting the sounds of the day (jazz, swing, and blues) into modern hiphop and synth pop.

You can see the trailer at the official Idlewild movie page.

Click after the jump for the music videos for “Morris Brown” and “Idlewild Blues”
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2006.08.16 10:16PM EST
These two images have magically appeared at TFW2005. The first is the fist, arm and shoulder of what many are saying it the CG model for Optimus Prime for the forthcoming Transformers movie. The second is has a black bar censoring the middle third of the image, but it couldn’t be more clear that it Optimus Prime’s face.
You’ll recall we’ve already seen Optimus Prime’s movie truck mode, and insiders at TFW2005 have thrown their reputation toward legitimacy for that image as well as these.I’m left wondering if this is a legit leak or another Dreamworks marketing move to let us see a tiny little bit to gauge reactions and get us hungry for more.

If so, you guys win. I’m ready for this movie more than ever.

Remember, Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime, and the movie will be released to theaters July 4, 2007. 11 months to go!

[Update 2006.08.17 1:40PM EST – Crazy: It seems the Movie Blog has verified that these renders are indeed authentic. ]

COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE

Comic Brian Posehn formed a metal band for a track on his new album. It pretty successfully lampoons metal song and video conventions, even throwing in references that only real metal fans would get. Scott Ian of Anthrax is on guitar, and Brian’s real life wife and dogs are even in the video. Look for another Mr. Show vet in a cameo.
Throw up the horns and watch this video NOW

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

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.

We previously reported that the status of Hellboy 2 was in limbo. No studios had signed on to the film and the previous studio, Revolution, seems to be folding considering their deal with Sony Pictures ran out.

Apparently, Universal Studios has agreed to finance and distribute the flick. The story is said to give Abe Sapien a larger role in the film and explore his relationship with Hellboy more. I really liked the first one and am glad to see the franchise won’t die before its time. They are shooting for a Summer 2008 release.

Its only a few seconds long, and its only a rough animation, and its less than hi quality source.

But Access Hollywood has posted the first look at any Transformers in motion from the movie.

Watch “Transformers” First Look on their site, and keep an eye out at the very end for the robots.

UPDATE: Michael Bay has posted a downloadable version of the report in much higher resolution. You can get it HERE.