(Photo: 9 to 5 Mac)

Just this weekend we were sitting around wondering when exactly someone would create another Steve Jobs biopic. We already have the indie one starring Ashton Kutcher and the fast-talking, sure-to-be-sexist incarnation dreamt up by Aaron Sorkin. What we really need is a third one that can make fun of the other two.

Luckily Funny or Die has come to our rescue, announcing that they'll be putting a full-length comedic biopic about Mr. Jobs online on April 15th.

The "60 to 75 minute" film is called iSteve and will star Justin Long, he of Mac commercial fame, as Mr. Jobs, and Hurley from Lost as Woz. Sadly, John Hodgman (a.k.a. PC) won't be playing Steve "Sweaty" Ballmer, which we think is a real oversight.

"In true Internet fashion, it’s not based on very thorough research — essentially a cursory look at the Steve Jobs Wikipedia page,” Ryan Perez, the film's director, told The New York Times.

There, there, Ashton.

(Photo: Cleverbot)

Look out, Hollywood screenwriters: the robots are coming for your jobs, too.

Cleverbot is an artificial intelligence robot that Internet users can converse with and, more frequently, troll until it says funny stuff. But one filmmaker, Chris Wilson, saw the creative potential in Cleverbot and decided to co-write a short film with it. It might just be the first movie written by a machine.

Mr. Wilson chatted back and forth with Cleverbot in order to tease out the dialogue for the script. Some of the character names also came from Cleverbot--the lead is called "Stomach," for instance, 'cuz Cleverbot is sassy like that. The title of the short, "Do You Love Me?", also came from the surprisingly emo mind of Cleverbot.

As smart as Cleverbot is, though, it's gleefully unaware that it co-wrote a movie. "Your movie is great!" we told it. "Get your hand off my mouth?" it responded. Okay then.

(h/t Laughing Squid)

This guy. (Photo: Screenrant)

Not only is Starbucks accepting payments via Square, the coffee conglomerate is now also selling the Square credit card reader for $10 at its retail locations. [New York Times]

Spotify has suspended its music download service in the U.K. Users can still stream music, but are sent to an unhelpful FAQ page when they attempt to purchase it. [Pocket-Lint]

Kim Dotcom says the U.S. "planted" evidence, encouraging him to keep copyrighted files on the Megaupload servers but then punishing him when he did so. [Ars Technica]

That indie Steve Jobs film, that will star Ashton Kutcher and be an inevitable flop that we will still watch anyway, is slated for release in April. Who wants to go with us? [Wall Street Journal]

The New York state comptroller is suing microchip company Qualcomm for data about its political expenditures with the hopes it can bring more transparency to corporate political spending. [New York Times]

A romance for the ages. (Photo: Robert King/Vice)

When not blogging from a prison cell, antivirus software creator John McAfee is reportedly busy planning the next iteration of his media blitz: The Hollywood Reporter writes that Mr. McAfee has successfully sold his life rights to a TV production company called Impact Future Media.

Mr. McAfee has skillfully played the media these past few months, getting a Wired reporter to speak on his behalf and telling his story to Gizmodo before inviting Vice to join him in his escape from Belize. That decision ended with his capture when a Vice employee published an iPhone photo still containing the metadata that revealed his location. Mr. McAfee still managed to temporarily convince Vice's photographer to lie for him.

Now, Mr. McAfee's story is one step closer to being splashed across televisions everywhere. The film will tentatively be called Running in the Background: The True Story of John McAfee, as a nod to the antivirus software that slows down your mom's desktop.

Mr. McAfee said that he believes Impact Future Media has a "dedication to truth" that most organizations do not these days, despite the fact that the production company has only been around for a handful of weeks. Impact is also producing a show called High on Tuna, which is about a drug dealer and not, unfortunately, about a new state school trend of smoking cat food.

Vice has also said it's developing a documentary about Mr. McAfee. We can only hope at least one film includes a dramatic tampon-up-the-nose disguise scene.

Rise and shine! (Photo: flickr.com/aloshbennett)

Twitter is blocking its first account: Tweets from the neo-Nazi group Besseres Hannover are no longer viewable in German. [Quartz]

For a company that hasn't done a damn thing, Color Labs inspires a lot of rumor-mongering. Yesterday the talk was all about whether the startup was winding down. Today, the scuttlebutt suggests Apple might buy the ill-fated photo-sharing startup. [The Next Web]

Pour one out for the concept of "going online," which is increasingly archaic and soon to be utterly foreign to the youngs, like cassettes and modesty. [AllThingsD]

Please share Betabeat's delight in this collection of "wonderfully ridiculous" movie computers. Obviously, the supposedly state-of-the-art hunk of junk from the 1974 classic The Towering Inferno takes the cake. [Wired]

Silicon Valley has its very own cover band, composed of VCs and entrepreneurs. But what did you expect? We live in a world where Dennis Hopper once did an Ameriprise commercial. [Wall Street Journal]

Mr. Gallagher (Photo: IMDB)

Michael Gallagher just wanted to tap into the zeitgeist.

The 23-year-old filmmaker--known for his popular YouTube series, Totally Sketch--is about to release his first full-length feature film, a low budge horror flick called Smiley. But what should amount to buzzy excitement leading up to the film's launch has been eclipsed by personal attacks on Mr. Gallagher made by notorious message board 4chan and hacktivist collective Anonymous.

The reason? Mr. Gallagher painted both 4chan and Anonymous as the villains of Smiley. Obviously, this didn't sit well with either group.

Going off the IMDB description, the film's plot sounds like something you and your friends jokingly thought up while stoned and surfing 4chan:

After discovering an urban legend on 4chan's /b/ board of a demented serial killer that has nothing but a carved 'smilely' on his face, Ashley, a mentally fragile teen, must decide whether she is going insane, or the next victim.

Variety elaborates, saying that the film follows a college freshman as she meets members of 4chan and "a series of grisly murders committed by Smiley, an urban-legend Internet ghoul from the imagination of Gallagher and Phillips, is linked to the shadowy real-life groups."

Shockingly, 4chan and Anonymous did not take kindly to the notion that their groups are fertile breeding grounds for serial killers. /b/ may be well known as a place for the detritus of the Internet to flourish and be celebrated, but likening it to a launching pad for vicious murderers is just a little bit disingenuous.

Of course, 4chan and Anonymous rebelled in typical fashion: by doxing and threatening Mr. Gallagher.

According to Variety:

Gallagher has endured a torrent of voicemails, emails, texts, message-board posts and comments laced with death threats, insults and admonitions to spam and harass the filmmaker, his colleagues, his girlfriend and his family. Now the FBI is considering whether to investigate the bizarre, life-imitates-art situation.

Mr. Gallagher, who as a semi-famous YouTuber is no stranger to Internet negativity, said he expected some backlash, but nothing to this extent. We have a feeling the poor guy probably hangs out on Reddit much more than he does on 4chan.

Kickstarter is looking more and more like the place for top talent to find production outside of the creative limits of studio systems and record labels. Earlier this week, a release went out heralding the arrival of neo-soul legend Cody Chestnutt's first album in a decade, funded through Kickstarter. Today, it's Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Being John Malkovich screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, teaming up with the ousted showrunner of Community for a new movie through the crowdfunding platform.  

NBC's Community was a show kept alive by a rabid fan following who nearly read the network the riot act when showrunner Dan Harmon was ousted from his own production, which will continue for one more season.

Meanwhile, Charlie Kaufman is the kind of screenwriter and director whose unfiltered creative process no doubt scares most of Hollywood's "creative execs"—or the studio suits who give screenwriters "studio notes" on how to give their material "more shape" (i.e. more marketability)—out of their skin. In the age of Transformers 3, it's sometimes amazing that his films, which are almost always critically lauded, have even been made.

It's not surprising that this higher-profile material is beginning to find its way onto Kickstarter. Their statement for Anomalisa's presence on Kickstarter reads:

Our goal is to produce this unique and beautiful film outside of the typical Hollywood studio system where we believe that you, the audience, would never be allowed to enjoy this brilliant work the way it was originally conceived. We’ve been working in the television and movie industry for years and we just want to make something ourselves. Something pure. Something beautiful.

There's a slight point to be made in opposition to the presence of projects like these, however: Is Kickstarter big enough to hold both big name creative endeavors and those users who aspire to get their ideas funded who haven't achieved some modicum of fame already? Moreover, are those who would fund either project carrying wallets big enough to push both?

Watching the two sort each other out—as well as the work of boldfaced-named funders' and creators' labors on the service come to fruition—is going to be a hell of a thing to watch. For the fans, sure, but especially for the studios and labels these artists are shrugging off, who are probably paying as much attention as your average rabid fanboy to the way this all plays out.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Mr. Sorkin (flickr.com/politicalpulse)

One Steve Jobs biopic isn't cool. You know what's cool? TWO Steve Jobs biopics. At least according to Hollywood.

Though it's been widely-rumored since late last year, a press release issued by Sony Pictures yesterday confirmed what is either your worst nightmare or dream come true, depending on how pearl-clutchy you are about the tech industry: Aaron Sorkin will be adapting Walter Isaacson's bestselling biography of Steve Jobs for Sony Pictures. We're positive it will be every bit as packed with heavy-handed dramatic irony and "so bad it's good" euphoria as The Social Network is.

Unfortunately, Mr. Sorkin's movie may have a competitor in the already-announced JOBS Movie, starring Ashton Kutcher. But that's an indie biopic with an official Twitter so terribly rendered that we originally thought it was fake. Additionally, the working title for that film--Steve Jobs: Get Inspired--may be one of the most terrible movie titles we have ever heard.

If casting for Mr. Sorkin's film can find an actor who bears a resemblance to Mr. Jobs as strong as Mr. Kutcher's, we're sure they'll have nothing to worry about.

(indiegamethemovie.com)

The first line in Indie Game: The Movie, a Sundance-winning documentary that chronicles the struggles of independent game developers, is the following: "Are you fucking kidding me?"

That incredulous statement, spat from the mouth of a 30-year-old game programmer named Tommy Refenes, punctuates the entire 96-minute film, a chronicle of the tumultuous series of ups and downs encountered by a handful of indie game developers leading up to the releases of their games.

The film was screened at the IFC on 6th Avenue today, and we were one of only three people in the theatre. It's a shame, too--even though our video game knowledge extends mostly to old school games like Super Mario and the more popular contemporary Xbox games (Portal and Borderlands are our favs), we still found the documentary to be a fascinating glimpse into just how much time, energy and passion goes into making the kinds of games we play every day.

Indie Game pits the big name game studios against scrappy independent developers hoping to achieve glory with the games they've painstakingly constructed pixel by pixel. The film centers around Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillan, a programmer and designer, respectively, who are working on building their first big commercial game: Super Meat Boy, "the adventures of a skinless boy in search of his girlfriend, who is made of bandages." It follows the two as they work on perfecting the game before its release on Xbox Live, and contrasts that with the story of Jonathan Blow, the creator of the widely-acclaimed game Braid, as he looks back on what it was like to helm one of the most popular indie games of all time.

"Jonathan Blow is kind of the worst," we have scribbled in our notes. At one point he laments the fact that people loved Braid, but they didn't necessarily 'get' it. Even the tiniest quibble with the design can bring these devs to their knees, something Mr. Blow acknowledges when he admits he was made depressed for months by the negative comments he received about himself and the game following its release.

The third story line revolves around FEZ, a video game that received much hype when it was first demoed, but one in which its designer--Phil Fish--has been working on for four years, with no end in sight.

Couple that with the fact that Mr. Fish had a falling out with his original business partner, who throughout the film refuses to sign a document that would allow Mr. Fish to demo the new version of FEZ at PAX, a video game expo.

Shortly into the film it becomes obvious just how emotionally invested all four of the leads are in their craft. At one point, the interviewer asks Mr. Fish, "What would happen if you didn't finish FEZ?"

"I would kill myself," he spits back, point blank. My reward for finishing the game would be that I don't have to kill myself, he clarifies.

Despite all of the characters's relative success, the film hammers home one key point: making an indie game is much more is grueling work than producing one with thousands of employees at a big studio like EA, though Mr. Refenes insists he would never work for them anyway because he "doesn't make shitty games."

Throughout the film, we're reminded that all four developers created the games to express themselves, to make themselves feel less alone in the world by making others feel less alone, too. In the end, despite much financial and critical success, it's unclear whether they're less--or more--alone than before.

Earlier today, Deadline Hollywood Daily reported that Spike Jonze is set to write and direct a project "about a guy who falls in love with the voice of a computer, similar to the Siri feature on the new iPhone" that would star Joaquin Phoenix, Samantha Morton, Amy Adams and Carey Mulligan. When Deadline reported on the script last March, the story was then "a satire about how world leaders gather to figure out all the seismic events that will take place in the worlds, from oil prices to wars that will be waged."

So either the concept completely changed, they're two different projects, or they're actually the same film, which—if you're familiar with Spike Jonze's repetoir—is entirely possible. Whatever the case may be, here's to Siri—or whatever it's going to be called—joining the ranks of HAL 9000, Joshua, and all the other great/terrible computers actors have talked to over the years.

Hopefully it will be the kind of thing that will make us all seriously consider the manner in which we speak to our phones.