You gotta hurry and watch this silent film parody of the mega popular film The Avengers. Don’t hesitate as it includes actual footage of the film surely acquired by illegal means. In other words, it’s inevitable that YouTube will yank it from the site citing Marvel’s copyright.

But if you haven’t yet seen Joss Whedon’s super superhero movie, do not watch this video. It spoils one of the most enjoyable scenes from the film. It’s a scene so good that you absolutely do not want it tarnished.

The video was apparently produced by R3Load, a site promising “daily online refreshments.” They’ve also distilled Whedon’s two-plus-hour movie down to a campy, 4-minute silent film. But this follow-up is a lot less satisfying.

If you’re in the Indianapolis area and you love games as much as the Horrible Night crew and I do, you should plan on attending a screening of Indie Game: The Movie at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Wednesday, May 23rd at 7pm. I’ve been hearing nothing but awesome things about this documentary lately, and I can’t wait to see it.

The film started as a Kickstarter project and went on to win awards at Sundance and SXSW. It chronicles the making of three indie games; Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Fez. Here’s the official description:

With the 21st-century comes a new breed of artist: the indie game designer. Refusing to toil for major developers, these innovators independently conceive, design, and program their distinctly personal games with the hope of connection and success. Indie Game: The Movie (2012, dirs. Lisanne Pajot & James Swirsky, Canada, 96 mins.) portrays four developers, three games, and one ultimate goal: to make the video game a supreme form of expression.

The characters: after years of work, designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes work toward the release of their first major game for Xbox, Super Meat Boy. At a big video game expo, developer Phil Fish unveils his highly anticipated game, FEZ. And designer Jonathan Blow considers a new game after creating one of the highest-rated games of all time, Braid. Indie Game: The Movie won Best Editing Award at 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Special thanks to our sponsors at the Canadian Consulate. Consul General Roy Norton is scheduled to attend this exclusive screening! Learn more: http://www.connect2canada.com/

I’ve only played one of those three games but I love the whole indie game culture that’s popped up in the last few years, and this film seems to be a great portrayal of the passion that goes into creating games like these.

If you’d like to come, you can RSVP on Facebook, order tickets online, read Horrible Night’s announcement post, and check out the trailer after the jump.
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Heck yes. Castle in the Sky may be my favorite Studio Ghibli film, and Disney is releasing it on Blu-ray on May 22nd, along with the The Secret World of Arrietty, which was pretty awesome itself.

If you’re not familiar with Castle in the Sky, it is a perfect example of Ghibli’s style and sense of humor. The American voice cast is great and includes Mark Hamil and Andy Dick, and the story is great. Thinking about it makes me want to go watch it right now, but I’m going to hold off until I can see it in HD.

Ghibli produces some of the most stunning-looking animated films of all time, and I can’t wait to have them all in high definition. After Castle in the Sky, I hope we get Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle.

I get a lot of PR emails, but when one about the restoration of Jaws for its August 14th, 2012 Blu-ray release date popped in my inbox, I had to check it out. Jaws is my co-favorite movie of all time, along with Jurassic Park, and I’ve been waiting for it to come out on Blu-ray for years. Luckily, it’s Universal’s 100th Anniversary this year and Jaws is getting the extra-special treatment. They put together this surprisingly good behind the scenes video of their restoration process, and it looks like they’re doing everything right.

I want to show this to my wife and say “We’re going to need a bigger TV” and see if that works.

Hasbro definitely gets an A for their efforts in hiding the fact that all these Avengers-branded roleplay toys are just rereleases of the toys that came out for each heroes’ individual films. The catchy/annoying rap is made tolerable by the cool shot of the kids standing around in a circle emulating the poses from the Avengers trailers alone.

Granted, there’s no Hawkeye or Black Widow to be found. How hard would it have been to have a kid in some shades chillin’ with a bow? Or a young lady with…a gun?

On a semi-related note, Walmart.com has begun selling the Avengers LEGO sets as of yesterday. I snagged a couple and I’m glad I did, because they’re showing up as out of stock now.