There’ve been a ton of movies announced on our forum recently; none of these have been submitted to our peer review rating system, so they’re not eligible for HBO hosting, but you can still check them out:

• Praetoria Guard has 3 films out (one is a blooper reel)
• KoTHALO has released a trailer for 3lite, another zombie-type movie
• Spartan92290 posted a note about Grunts Gone Wild, a grunt party movie (better link here)
• Nighthawk 117 put up a vehicle antics film – acrobatics in Halo 2

I’m sure there are others I missed.

TrickingIT.com has set up a movies database where you can rate released films. At the moment, it’s mostly just promotional info about recent or upcoming films (the majority of posts have no ratings at all)… but I guess the more people who use this, the more useful it will become. (You must be registered at that site to even SEE the database.) There’s more info in a forum post made by Phan7om, as well as on the TrickingIT.com front page.

Wow… must be comic time. We’ve been told about three new ones this weekend:

• 2401 is sort of a One-One-Se7en-esque strip from Guilty Spark – humor is a bit spotty, but it’s early yet. As of this writing, there are 7 strips in that thread.
• Halo In Paradise has just a single strip up – and apparently, something went terribly wrong when he saved it (so it’s really small). Strip 2 coming soon.
• This Island Earth is a merging of Halo and a classic 1955 B-movie from Andrew Gaynor of Black Art Studios; there are currently two pages up, with more coming soon, homework allowing.

In addition, we got mail from Über-Chief 69 about bandwidth problems with Resolute (mentioned a couple of times recently in our news). If anyone wants to help… hmm. I’d tell you to contact him via his website, but there doesn’t seem to be any contact link at all there. Oh, well.

We’ve placed a link to the Movie Peer Review Rating System on the news pages – if you’ve got a Halo movie you need hosting for, go visit! (There’s now a stats section at the top of the page; you can get an idea of what we’re seeing by looking at approval rates and processing times. Initial response has been smaller than I’d expected; is it possible that folks aren’t willing to face the opinions of their peers, or is it just that suddenly, nobody needs hosting any more?) We’ve also augmented the ‘Hot Pages’ list on the right with a couple of new links (more coming soon, maybe). Update: A page has (finally) been added that contains links to all the articles we host here that have been written by Stephen Loftus.

Keving Atherton writes about a series called ‘Triple Threat’ – a trailer (WMP9 format, 20.4 mb) is available here, from the Olapstats.com forum. If you like impossible odds… you’ll like this trailer.

I HATE it when I forget stuff. I forgot Friday’s One One Se7en. What’s worse… nobody noticed. Hmm… (The thing is, this one hits close to home. Maybe that’s why I forgot it.)

The Halo CE Chronicles, a machinima series attempting to show a more human side of a Spartan, has gotten popular enough that it’s moved to its own site (up till now, it’s been hosted on halomaps.org). The videos are now available not only in their original Flash movie format, but also in WMP9 and QuickTime. Thanks to Dennis Powers, who let our forum know.

The New Zealand tournament we mentioned in February and March has now been completed – and David Beaton (16) is the overall winner. Congrats! He’s off to Australia soon to compete against the rest of the world.

Hehe – now THERE’S an energy sword.

Über-Chief 69 points out that Resolute Issue 6 has been released – MC and Sonic get some ideas about Mario…

Hehe – the first movie approval by the new MPRRS has been issued – and it’s for a movie I meant to post a month ago (in a slightly smaller form), but forgot. I guess that means the system works! Check out Zukan’s Elite Fight (QuickTime, 10.7 mb), a short but intense battle betweem a pair of elites. (He originally posted a smaller, less polished version in our forums in early March.) And to give you an idea about how the system works – here’s the feedback page generated by our movie peer review rating system. From submission to approval (a movie needs 7 reviews, and a non-public minimum score, to pass) was about 3 and a quarter hours! Here’s hoping that the sort of feedback provided by our volunteers will make ALL submissions better.

Gravity points out that HALOader, an Bungie RSS stat reader, has been updated – visit the site for more details.

The latest from Red vs Blue, episode 54, “Hello My Name Is Andrew,” is available for sponsors over on their video page. Dubious mathematics, a new epithet for the human race, and a brand-new character (among other things) are all available now for sponsors. If you’re not a sponsor, look for it in a few days.

A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that Overswarm would be creating an online strategy guide here at HBO – the first few pieces are now online. As you navigate through, you’ll find many links specified, but not yet functional – this should give you an idea of what’s coming. Anywhere you FIND a working link, there’s new content; explore! (You’ll find a couple of articles, some movie commentary, and plenty of basic intro information. And there’s plenty more coming.) Check out Not So Common Sense!

This week’s WWU mentioned that there won’t be an official Bungie Fanfest at this year’s E3. You may wonder, what are we missing by not having one of those? Well, one of the things that happened last year was that Lorraine McLees sketched a bunch of on-demand pictures for lucky visitors. One of those visitors was Eric Good, who asked Lorraine for a specific viewpoint of the Master Chief… he was kind enough to share this pic with the Halo community. Not something you see every day…

SketchFactor has posted another one of Bungie’s delicious 3D screenshots, utilizing QuickTime to show the picture in 360 beautiful degrees. That’s Sketch’s body, flying in death on a platform in Warlock…

Weekly What’s Update is up really early today. Good stuff in there. Looks like the cheat fixes will be out in the next couple of weeks, barring nasty crashes… no fanfest at E3 this year (boo!)… the recently-released game save that lets you play online without reloading will get you BANNED, immediately (no second chances)… and a bunch more. And an Atari 2600 Mister Chief. What more could you want? Thanks, Mr Yun.

A month ago, I posted a note explaining a logistical problem we were facing with regard to Halo movies. It spawned a massive forum thread, and the concept for the HBO Movies Peer Review Rating System was born. From here on in, this is how all movies to HBO will be submitted. It’s a work-in-progress; if we run into snags, or unexpected bumps, we’ll certainly modify the system… but it’s been tested a bit, and does what we want it to do. This is good for everyone; it reduces MY workload, by having movies filtered through a first layer of reviewers… it increases the overall quality of HBO movie releases (I don’t even SEE the stuff that doesn’t make the first cut)… it speeds up the release process (no more waiting 2 months for your movie to see the light of day)… and (maybe most importantly) it provides constructive criticism to ALL submitters, in the hopes of improving the quality of released material. If you have a movie you’d like hosted by HBO, visit the site, and follow the directions – our bandwidth is waiting for you. I’d like to thank the peer reviewers who volunteered for this project (and I’m guessing we’re going to need more, over time, as people cycle in and out – let us know if you’re interested, we’ll add you to a waiting list), but most of all, thanks to Cybrfrk, who coded this monster. Now get to submitting!

LunarShadow has updated his H2O Stats Reader – bunch of new features, bug fixes. Details in this forum post.

Hehe – today’s Halo Babies is the first of a two-part strip, looking at what can only be described as spam. (If you look closely, I got a kill.)