YouTube has quietly added ad-supported Hollywood movies, but we don’t get access to it, it seems

Man, sometimes it’s not that cool being South African. Either that or YouTube noticed that it was broadcasting free movies and put a stop to it. Nah, it’s definitely a geography thing. Ad Age reports that YouTube has started showing free, full movies in the same place where users used to be able to buy movies (did you know you could do that on YouTube?). But… when we check, the channel appears unpopulated. Definitely a geographical thing. YouTube’s director of product management Rohit Dhawan said “We saw this opportunity based on user demand, beyond just offering paid movies. Can we do ad-supported movies, free to the user?” Apparently they can, just not to locations outside the States like South Africa. Still, if you’re in the States for whatever reason, you can now get yourself some streamed Hollywood content without having to pay more for it than watching a few ads. There are currently about 100 films available but they’re all either fairly old or not exactly top-tier films. The selection is supposed to be expanding in future. Hopefully the service’s reach will, too.

Source: Ad Age

Detective Pikachu has changed the way that we see Pokémon

It’s unusual that movies divide the Stuff offices the way that Detective Pikachu has. Some of us love the direction that the film has taken, others can’t stand it at all. To be fair, putting characters that have always been animated (besides in some of the more esoteric design Reddits) into a real-world setting and making them look real was always going to be a little shocking. But if you think of it as a Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Space Jam sort of expedition, you’ll probably be fine. And, if you’re totally mystified right now, then you can go to the trailer link (below) and get yourself a Ryan Reynolds-narrated education. Once that’s done, choose a side: awesome, or awful?

Source: Warner Bros. (YouTube)

An animated Devil May Cry series is coming from the same folks who made the Castlevania series

We’ve got no idea what this is going to look like but we kinda like it already. There is an animated series based on Capcom’s video game series Devil May Cry in the works, helmed by the executive producer of Netflix’s Castlevania, Adi Shankar. That fact alone gives us a little hope that the series won’t be terrible. There’s little info to go on but Shankar said that he had acquired the rights to DMC so that Hollywood wouldn’t be able to screw it up (we’re paraphrasing a fair amount here). There’s also little information on where or when the series will launch but if they give it the same level of polish as Castlevania, we’ll be just fine. And if you can’t wait for this one to land, there is a previous DMC anime series out there for you to go hunting for.

Source: IGN

The Chemical Brothers’ Free Yourself is an unsettling music video with more than a few familiar faces

The music made by The Chemical Brothers has always seemed like it comes from the future and the newest video from the outfit does very little to change our opinion in that line. Prominently featuring a likeness of Sophia, the AI robot made by Hanson Robotics (who can’t move like that, unless she’s been given a substantial upgrade recently) and what looks like a whole lot of Boston Dynamics’ robot roster as well, Free Yourself is quite a disturbing music video. It might come across as a comedic outtake from Detroit: Become Human what with all the dancing robots but… it’s also a little scary just how plausible the situation seems. You’ve got two reasons to watch the video (at the link below) — a) it’s a glimpse of a possible future and b) it’s a new track by The Chemical Brothers.