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It sounds too good to be true. Three Hollywood studios (Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM) plan to introduce a new service called Epix that will be available online and on television. Epix will feature recent titles from the three studios in high definition before they're released on DVD or Blu-ray, without commercial interruption, and without charge to the consumer. Sign me up, right? Big surprise: there is a catch. Or two, actually.

As explained at ars technica, the films will be available in the "pay-TV window," after the theatrical release concludes and before the title hits DVD. Epix wants to convince cable TV operators to bundle their network into an already-existing package, and thus avoid a separate, additional monthly fee. No partners have been announced yet. That's the first catch.

Here's the second: if you want to watch the films online, on demand, via EpixHD.com, you have to subscribe to the same provider's Internet offering. In the words of ars technica: "If Comcast were to offer Epix, users would need to pay for both Comcast cable and Comcast Internet in order to access the streaming, on-demand service. That's good for Comcast, and it helps them cover the cost of the service." That may be good for the cable operators, but if you're like me and have satellite service and/or DSL, you're out of luck.

EpixHD.com is "currently in private beta" and, contrary to what is stated in ars technica, there is no way I see for private citizens to sign up. The site says "library classics" will be available in addition to newer titles. More free movies are always welcome, though I wonder how widespread Epix will become.

[via Gizmodo]

Gran Torino
In his last acting stint, Clint Eastwood dances behind and in front of the camera playing a racist Korean War vet who faces his prejudices after a Hmong teen tries to steal his beloved Gran Torino. James Rocchi said: "Gran Torino is, bluntly, a pretty good film -- sleek and brawny like the title car, but a little clumsy on the corners and with no small amount of knock in its dramatic engine." Rent it on DVD or Blu-ray.

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The International
When you mix Run Lola Run helmer Tom Tykwer and Clive Owen, you get The International -- an action thriller where Owen plays an Interpol agent itching to battle corruption in the world's largest banks. In his review, William Goss said: "Throughout, The International is a thankfully, skillfully mature effort by Tykwer to produce a proper thriller for adults, that of a man on a mission, and one lent little extra resonance in our cash-strapped times." Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

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Crossing Over
Not all Harrison Ford films get slapped on the big screen with a bang. There's the multi-story immigration drama Crossing Over. But it's not exactly a little-known gem, according to Jeffrey M. Anderson: "Crossing Over is a bad movie ... about as airless and preachy as movies come." Skip it.

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Also Out: Fired Up, Nobel Son, Strike, Guns

"We're more than just dogs on skateboards." YouTube plans to premiere their first * movie, Reuters says (via The Hollywood Reporter), in an apparent bid to increase revenue, reach profitability, and, perhaps, appear more appealing to advertisers. (The opening statement was made by the company's Paris-based partner development manager.) Yann Arthus-Bernard's documentary Home, produced by Luc Besson, will debut simulatenously in theaters and on YouTube, evidently in the near future.

As I'm writing this article, I'm also watching Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly on YouTube. (I have a 19-inch monitor adjacent to my laptop, which makes it easier to watch and work simultaneously.) The quality is good, though the commercial interruptions are jarring, the same as they are with other free, online viewing sites. The ads are played at pre-determined, timed intervals, and so often appear in the middle of a scene.

YouTube gained its fame from user-submitted content, of course, but, as Elisabeth Rappe noted last November, the video site has begun partnering with studios in order to present full-length movies -- MGM was the first. You can still easily find bootleg rips in 10-minute segments, though is quality is often atrocious and, of course, there's the important issues of legality and piracy that shouldn't be easily ignored.

Where do you stand on the subject of watching movies over the Internet on your computer? Have you embraced the concept, eagerly checking new titles added to Netflix's Watch Instantly program (or iTunes or Hulu or SnagFilms or Jaman or Amazon or ...)? Or is the very idea of viewing a film on such a small screen anathema to you?

* UPDATE: Thanks to Eric Kohn for pointing out, via Twitter, that Wayne Wang's The Princess of Nebraska had its world premiere on YouTube last year. I should have remembered, since Eugene Novikov wrote about it for this very site.

When real scientists watch Will Ferrell taunting dinosaurs in the trailers for Land of the Lost, I wonder who they're rooting for? Speaking of real scientists, SnagFilms has made a doc available that provides a pretty good look at the trials and tribulations of a true-life field expedition.

Dinosaur Hunters: Secrets of the Gobi Desert follows scientists from the American Museum of Natural History in New York as they head to the "sun-scorched badlands" of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. They are retracing the steps of a famed expedition led by American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews in 1922, who made a discovery that "stunned the world": fossilized dinosaur eggs. Of perhaps even more interest to movie fans, he discovered the first evidence of a dinosaur he called an ovoraptor, later and more popularly known as velociraptor. (Hello, Jurassic Park!) Andrews became a national hero.

Blimey! Will the Brits get to watch more Watchmen than the rest of us? A two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray will be released in the UK by Paramount Home Entertainment, featuring a stack of content that will not be available in the edition coming from Warner Home Video, according to The Blu-Ray Blog.

Even before the theatrical release in March, Zack Snyder was teasing fans about the director's cut he had prepared, which he said would run 190 minutes -- 27 minutes longer than the theatrical version -- and be "considerably more violent ... and sexier." The North American edition will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 21, featuring the director's cut, two featurettes, and two BD-exclusive features, along with a digital copy of the theatrical version. A single-disc DVD edition will also be available, without all the features.

The UK edition releases on July 27, evidently with only the theatrical cut, plus two featurettes (one of which is a BD-exclusive on the North American edition), plus 11 video journals (webisodes) and four viral videos. As The Blu-Ray Blog points out, neither of these editions includes the rumored "final complete cut," which would presumably feature the 25-minute animated Tales of the Black Freighter. Also, neither has the 37-minute, live-action / interview piece Under the Hood. For now, the only way to see Black Freighter and Hood is to buy the separate DVD or Blu-ray. Here in the States, you can also buy a pretty cool Blu-ray Nite Owl Ship Edition exclusively through Amazon (see images below).

Based on my feelings about the film, I'm inclined to play the waiting game. No doubt a complete collector's edition will be announced eventually ... right after you finally break down and buy all these separate editions.

Clockwise from upper left: Revolutionary Road, Defiance, He's Just Not That Into You, The Graduate, Anaconda, Fletch.

Revolutionary Road
Leonardo DiCaprio re-teamed with Kate Winslet, Michael Sheen Shannon * in a blistering supporting role, Sam Mendes examining suburbia, an adaptation of a classic American novel by Richard Yates; what could possibly go wrong? "In truth, it's both relentlessly grim and nearly pointless," wrote Jeffrey M. Anderson. "The only thing it does really well is create a feeling of suffocation." Also on Blu-ray. My choice: Rent it.

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He's Just Not That Into You
Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper and Scarlet Johansson star in a movie that will rot your brain. Put more kindly by William Goss: "This film feels more like a one night stand than anything else: you'll enjoy taking it home overnight, but when tomorrow comes, it's less a matter of calling it as merely recalling it." Also on Blu-ray. My choice: Skip it.

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Defiance
Daniel Craig drinks martinis protects fellow Jews from the Nazis in Edward Zwick's drama, based on a true story. "An uneasy mix of action and suspense with meaningful themes, of emotion and adrenaline," opined James Rocchi. "You sincerely hope it sends people to the truth even as it fails as fiction." Also on Blu-ray. My choice: Rent it.

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After the jump: Indies on DVD, more Blu-ray picks, and a "legendary" Collector's Corner!

Above: MTV revealed the first clear shot of The Fallen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Oh, admit it -- you totally watched the MTV Movie Awards last night because you're secretly obsessed with Robert Pattinson and you knew they'd be overdosing on the poor guy since MTV is fastly becoming the All Twilight Network. In case you missed some (or all) of the action, here are the new clips they aired, as well as a little of the show itself.

First up is that clip from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. MTV took it down for some reason, but Trailer Addict has it up in decent quality. Essentially, Sam and Mikaela are hiding from a whole fleet of Decepticons, and when Sam destroys some weird looking mosquito/satellite bot, all hell breaks loose. Check it out below.



Head after the jump for much more ...

In a famous moment from John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a reporter, having learned that the legendary bravery of a U.S. Senator isn't quite the tale of heroism that he expected, tears up his notes and says, "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

It's not just a great line that efficiently sums up the movie's theme. It's also a savvy commentary by Ford on the way Hollywood approaches Western lore. And nowhere is it more true than with the legend of Wyatt Earp and the showdown at the O.K. Corral.

Most people don't realize how little time has passed since the glory days of the Old West, when cowboys herded cattle across country, bad men robbed stagecoaches, and law was established from territory to territory. Wyatt Earp lived until 1929, and spent his latter days in Hollywood where he advised on Westerns and hung out with movie cowboys William S. Hart and Tom Mix. Earp became a legend because he sought to become one.

Much of Earp's reputation was manufactured out of whole cloth by pulp-magazine biographers, with Earp's approval. He was also a man who'd spent a lot of his life dancing back and forth between both sides of the law, and his role (as well as his brothers') in the legendary O.K. Corral gunfight has been whitewashed repeatedly, most effectively by Hollywood films.

As you've undoubtedly heard, Blockbuster is in serious financial trouble ... I don't know that a lot of us cinephiles care since we were all driven to Netflix , Hulu and The Autuers for very specific reasons. But hey, people do rely on Blockbuster, and I'd rather people rent movies through them than never see them at all, and it's kind of handy to have it nearby so that you can finally rent Quantum of Solace after months of a Very Long Wait. It would be nice if they hung in there.

But now that they've unveiled their master plan of salvation, you probably shouldn't hold your breath. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blockbuster plans to rescue themselves by selling movie merchandise. Some of their plans include stocking replicas of Men in Black and Top Gun sunglasses along with "a slew of other items," which hopefully include equally hot pieces of movie swag like Field of Dreams cracker jack and Jurassic Park baseball hats.

How this differs from their current business plan is perplexing since Blockbuster has always sold movie merchandise in their stores. Or at least they've always hoped to sell it, as it's usually too broken and greasy to interest discerning buyers. (In fact, that's how I came to own a little stuffed Hidalgo -- he was too cute and clean to leave to the ravages of their shelves.) And in these tough economic times, your business plan shouldn't rely on hoping people buy a t-shirt or poster from you, it should be on providing the home entertainment people are relying on. Unfortunately, Blockbuster lost sight of that a long time ago.

These days movie studios are really into the whole prequel comic thing. Every film needs to have a prequel comic series, or a graphic novel, or an animated series, or a 3D pop-up book -- it never ends. The latest studio who looks to be going absolutely bat-sh*t crazy with their properties is 20th Century Fox, who not only want to reboot Predator and Alien, but they may want to target Die Hard next. BOOM! Studios is releasing a comic book in August called Die Hard: Year One, and it follows rookie cop John McClane during an incident involving New York City's Bicentennial celebration in 1976, more than a decade before the events of the first film took place.

Though it's not a movie ... yet ... this is the sort of thing that feels like it's being placed in the marketplace to gauge fan reaction. I could totally see Fox rebooting this entire franchise with a new face in his rookie year. Why not? Who cares? Howard Chaykin wrote the new comic book, with art from Stephen Thompson -- and part of me is real interested in reading about McClane as a rookie cop, but another part is afraid this is only the first wave in what will eventually become an all-out franchise reinvention.

What do you think? Am I getting ahead of myself? Is this cool? Do you want a copy?

[via Slashfilm]