The Library of Congress' National Film Registry isn't the only place working to preserve the world's films, and Martin Scorsese isn't the only one concerned with keeping film prints of lost classics handy. According to a new story in the Guardian, there exists an entire subculture of devoted souls who scrounge, scavenge and otherwise dig up all kinds of rare and forgotten films.

The ultimate film scavenger story is the one about the man who found an complete print of Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) in the broom closet of a sanitarium. Though modern-day collectors can't hope for a find of that magnitude, they can at least be proud of the forgotten gems that they have launched back into circulation. Many of today's finds come from videotapes of old television broadcasts. Otto Preminger's notorious Skidoo (1968) -- with images of Groucho Marx toking up -- for example, has been unavailable for years, and now it can be had from Don Hicks' Subterranean Cinema.

Remember Clickstar? Adam told you about it six months ago – it's Morgan Freeman's joint venture with Intel that proposed to make new, major films available for download before (or, instead of) premiering in theaters. They announced this week at CES that they'll distribute Ten Items or Less, directed by Brad Silberling and starring Freeman, online a few weeks after its theatrical release. The film was partially funded by Intel in exchange for online distribution rights, but has yet to find a theatrical distributor. It's thought that major studios are itchy about the idea of paying for a theatrical rollout on a film that will be available for legal download shortly after its release. They better get used to it, because the Ten Items deal is, apparently, just the beginning: according to Variety, Clickstar is working on setting up deals with notable Hollywood talent, and as if to prove it, Intel CEO Paul Otellini was joined on stage during his announcement by Tom Hanks (who has been EVERYWHERE at CES, inexplicably) and Danny DeVito.