Film Guide

YouTube is now offering around 400 movies free of charge.

Titles include some well-known films, such as George A. Romero’s classic, Night of the Living Dead, as well as many lesser-known titles.

Categories include Bollywood, comedy, romance and documentary among others.

“This is one of many efforts to ensure that people can find all the different kinds of video they want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to full-length films and TV shows,” YouTube head of video partnerships Donagh O’Malley told The Guardian.

“We hope film lovers enjoy the range of titles in this free library, whether catching up on a mainstream hit or delving into the vast archive of classic films from decades past.”

Movies are available up to 480p.

Obviously, not all films will be available in all locations.

The next big WWII film might be in 3D. Bruce C. McKenna, producer and writer for The Pacific, this week sold a pitch to Warner Bros. for a big-budget 3D film called The Battle of Midway, which intends to recreate the decisive air and sea battle that took place June 4-6, 1942.

Deadline says the pitch was bought late last week and is being fast-tracked, with McKenna set to deliver a script two months from now. Budget estimation puts The Battle of Midway at US$200m right now – so this is potentially a gigantic movie. Expect appropriate casting news to come down at the end of the year if this really goes forward. (No word if McKenna is directing, or limited to writing and/or producing.)

The Battle of Midway was the first major turning point in the war against Imperial Japan. The Japanese Navy attacked the Midway Atoll, intending to repel US forces from the Pacific theater. But US codebreakers learned of Japan’s planned attack, allowing the navy to set up a counter-ambush. In the battle that ensued, four Japanese aircraft carriers and one heavy cruiser were sunk. The Japanese navy never fully recovered from the losses, and while it took some time for the American Navy to dominate the Pacific, this was the first major US victory against Japan. -/film

As much as I’m really keen to see some big budget, serious World War II films in the pipeline, I’m still not a 3D fan. The concept certainly offers up a crap load of possibilities for 3D, but how will the end result work in 2D? Because that’s the format that serious films can be taken, well, seriously.

Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz is going back to big effects films with Panzer 88. We first heard about the film very briefly last year, when Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs was said to be directing “a supernatural horror film set in a German tank during WW2.”

At the time, Briggs said he’d been having meetings with Kurtz, and the producer is now completely on board, along with the effects gurus at WETA, who will bring the $20m indie to life.

The LA Times talked to Gary Kurtz about the project, and he said,

It’s a good, good project, you haven’t seen anything like it for a while…It’s a visceral, reality-based story with horror overtones, and the idea is to have be like the best of the graphic novels these days.  Read the rest of this entry »