1. In the wake of its recent success at the Golden Globes, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows is said to be mulling over the idea of doing a feature film version of the TV series. Yes, please — provided that Maggie Smith is on board with the idea. [via The Mirror]

2. YouTube has announced plans to partner with the Venice Film Festival and Ridley Scott’s production company on Your Film Festival, a new online film festival/global competition aimed at shorts that offers a $500,000 prize. [via ArtsBeat]

3. Rihanna and Coldplay will be performing “Princess of China” together live at next month’s Grammy Awards; Chris Martin says that her appearance on the album is his favorite bit of Mylo Xyloto. [via MTV News]

4. According to the results of a new Harris Poll, Johnny Depp is America’s favorite actor for the second year straight, followed by Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood. How much do you want to bet that some studio exec is currently trying to figure out how to get them all in one movie together? [via Deadline]

5. Bruce Springsteen’s “angry” new album has been appropriately titled Wrecking Ball, and is due out in the US on March 6th. Check out a full tracklist, as well as the cover art, here.

Bonus Buzz: 11 Bacteria Photos Presented As Abstract Art

Hey there, film lover. How’s your January? I know, I know, not much in the way of new movies worth seeing this month, what with January being the Hollywood dumping ground and all. How’s about just staying in and streaming some Netflix? What’s that? You dropped your subscription because they raised the price by five bucks? Way to take a stand! Okay, so, go hit the Redbox. Yeah, you’re right, it’s pretty cold out. No need to bundle up and head all the way over to the Walgreens, only to go find that they’re all out of Fast Five. So what now?

Well, come to find out, your old pal YouTube has a surprisingly excellent collection of feature-length flicks streaming for the bargain price of zero dollars. I know, right? And, sure, a lot of them are junk, or the same public-domain titles that have been turning up on bargain DVDs at the Dollar Tree for years now. But there are some gems in there, and (being a service-oriented organization), we’ve sifted through their offerings to find the best of the bunch. Check ‘em out after the jump.

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Always offering a slice of life, YouTube has revealed their top ten viral videos of the year. The most-watched clips include talking animals, babies, creeps, and Michael Bolton (not to be confused with “creeps”). Check out the list past the break where we try to figure out what each ranking says about us as a society. Leave your theories below. Read More »

1. Sesame Street’s YouTube channel was hacked over the weekend, and all of its content was taken down and replaced with a 7-minute hardcore porn. [via The Daily What]

2. If you’ve ever fantasized about Lady Gaga giving Bill and Hillary Clinton a Marilyn Monroe-style serenade, then it’s your lucky day. Watch a clip of her performance at a birthday party/benefit for the former President’s foundation here.

3. In an effort to compete with traditional publishers, Amazon is planning to release 122 fiction and nonfiction books of its own this fall, in both physical and e-book form. Says longtime agent Richard Curtis: “Everyone’s afraid of Amazon. If you’re a bookstore, Amazon has been in competition with you for some time. If you’re a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you’re an agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.” [via NYT]

4. According to a theory put forth in a new book, Vincent van Gogh didn’t commit suicide. Rather, the famed Dutch painter was shot by 16-year-old Rene Secretan, a local boy who often bullied him. [via The Daily Beast]

5. McDonald’s is planning to launch its own in-store channel. Reality TV king Mark Burnett , BBC America, and KABC-TV Eyewitness News have all signed on to provide content for the new network, which will focus on “local news and entertainment features, such as spotlights on upcoming films, albums and TV shows.” [via LAT]

Bonus Buzz: Fan-Made Opening Sequence To ‘The Adventures of Tintin’

Rhett and Link are best known for their hilarious local commercials that have earned them their own show on IFC, but these boys are just plain funny no matter what they are working on. In this video, the pair uses YouTube’s closed captioning tool to translate a video with a simple script into a pile of mush. Then they take the transcript from that video to make an even more nonsensical video. While the end result is hilarious, it also makes us feel bad for the hearing impaired people who actually have to rely on this terrible captioning tool to watch any YouTube videos.

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UC Berkeley researchers, whose work was published in a study in the journal Current Biology on Thursday, have created a computer program that may allow us to view the images in another person’s brain. Using an MRI machine to record the brain signals of three subjects as they watched videos on YouTube, the team then took the recorded signals and ran them through their computer program’s database of 18-million-seconds of random YouTube clips, not including the ones the subjects had actually been watching. Their program was able to reconstruct muddy composites of the movies that the subject had been viewing from the random information they were given, to a bizarrely accurate extent, capturing movement, shape, color, even text.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.” It’s true — moving images have never been captured in this way before, and this technology seems to be the first step towards getting a glimpse into the mind of a person in a coma, or being about to record and watch your own dreams — or at least a visual approximation of them. Click through to see a side-by-side video of the original footage watched by the subject and the composite the Berkeley researchers’ computer created and prepare to be amazed.

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Just in case you need something to do today: Yoko Ono has posted Bed Peace, a 70-minute documentary about the famous 1969 Bed-Ins she staged with John Lennon to protest the Vietnam war, on YouTube for free viewing this weekend only. To be honest, we’re not sure why the time limit has been enforced, especially in an age when so much is available for free on the internet all the time, albeit perhaps via suspect channels. However, if you’ve got an extra hour on this rainy Sunday morning, we think this is a good opportunity to watch the film and maybe stay in bed just a little longer. Click through to read Yoko’s letter to her viewers and see the video, and be sure to let us know what you think of the film and of the stunt in general in the comments!

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When you kicked up your high tops to watch Saved By The Bell after school let out, did you ever wish you could reach in and tell Zack the right thing to do to solve all his problems? Starting with a haircut? Well, now you can — well, er, maybe not the haircut part, but we’ll let that go. Designers Benny & Rafi Fine have created an ingenious interactive Saved By The Bell YouTube game, which we discovered straight on the heels of this distressing (and bloody) SBTB-themed short. But instead of watching everyone die, with the Fine Brothers’ retro styled game you can take control of Zack and battle all the annoying forces at Bayside High. Click through to start playing!

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Last year, director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott teamed up for an ambitious, globe-spanning undertaking. They challenged people all over the world to film a video snapshot of their life on a specific day — July 24, 2010 — and submit it via YouTube for potential inclusion in what would become the feature-length Life in a Day. More than 80,000 clips were sent in for the documentary, with 1,125 chosen for inclusion in the final product.

The result is a breathtaking overview of existence on Earth in the 21st century, spanning cultures, countries, and individual outlooks. Following its Sundance premiere this January, the film is going into limited release in theaters starting July 29; but prior to that, it will receive a one-night only premiere in cinemas all over the country this Sunday, July 24. Click through to watch the trailer, learn more about the film, and find where Life in a Day is screening near you.

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1. The sale of Borders was officially approved yesterday, and as Gizmodo says, reading the 40-year-old book retailer’s goodbye email “is like watching Old Yeller in slow motion.”

2. Some exciting news for music lovers who hate to travel: YouTube announced today that it’s planning to live stream both Lollapalooza (August 5-7) and Austin City Limits (September 16-18). [via Billboard]

3. Should we take it as a bad sign that Warner Bros. has moved the release date of Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot — which stars Henry Cavill as the famed superhero and Amy Adams as Lois Lane — from December 2012 to June 2013? [via LAT]

4. Glee star Darren Criss is in talks to replace Daniel Radcliffe as the lead in Broadway’s How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying beginning in January. Considering how well Criss spoofed Harry in A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel, this sounds like a smart casting decision to us. [via Deadline]

5. Today is Bon Iver Day! — at least if you live in Milwaukee. Celebrate accordingly. [via Vulture]

Bonus link: Starbucks Rejection Cup