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Posts Tagged “

Entertainment

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If you're a fan of Joss Whedon (or Nathan Fillion or Neil Patrick Harris or Felicia Day), you can watch Whedon's new online-only supervillain musical for free until July 20th. [BusinessWeek]

3 comments

movies

9 Ways To Save At The Movies

Summer means movies, but don't get stuck paying $12 per ticket or $7 for a bag of popcorn. Instead, check out these nine ways to slash your movie budget without missing any summer blockbusters. More »

5:30 PM on Sat Jun 7 2008
By Carey
25,395 views, 142 comments

Latest by corruptsuperspy: Those AMC tickets for free popcorn/soda have expiration dates but never really expire. I used one from 2007 two weekends ago. more »

Blu-ray players just aren't selling that well, says Business Week. Maybe that's because Sony has said that prices for players "likely won't fall below $200 until the end of next year—at the earliest." [Business Week]

46 comments

Blockbuster has offered to buy Circuit City for a little over $1 billion, with the goal of creating "a chain that could sell portable devices and entertainment for them, much like Apple Inc.'s stores." [Chicago Tribune] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

18 comments

Netflix has been asking its members about their Xbox 360 usage habits as it considers whether to stream movie rentals over the device. Are you a Netflix subscriber who owns a 360? Were you surveyed? [Reuters]

21 comments

scams

Consumer Alert: Fortune Tellers Cannot Curse You, Do Not Give Them Your Money

Two fortune-tellers in Chicago are in being held in jail in lieu of $750,000 bail each for defrauding customers by convincing them they were cursed, then selling them expensive curse-removal/protection services. Remember, folks, fortune tellers cannot curse you, see your future, turn you into a werewolf, or make you lose horrific amounts of weight. They can, however, take your money. More »

2:21 PM on Wed Mar 19 2008
By Chris Walters
2,373 views, 43 comments

movies

New Service Delivers Video On Demand When You Order The DVD

Cablevision and Popcorn Home Entertainment have announced a new service that lets you watch movies immediately through Cablevision's set-top box whenever you buy the DVD through their menu system. The DVD is mailed to you, but in the meantime you have the on-demand version for "instant gratification," reports Reuters. More »

6:52 PM on Mon Feb 4 2008
By Chris Walters
1,515 views, 15 comments

new business models

EA To Release "Free" Video Game In U.S. This Summer

Electronic Arts saw crazy profits in South Korea over the past two years from distributing its FIFA soccer title online for free, then charging an average of $1.60 per transaction for character clothing and accessories. Now EA has announced it will release a free online version of Battlefield Heroes in the U.S. and Europe this summer. If it proves successful, more titles will follow. Unfortunately, in addition to micro-transactions EA will also include in-game advertising to support the business model. Suddenly we're picturing a surreal NASCAR battlefield... hey, that sounds like a new game idea! Pay up, EA! More »

7:42 PM on Mon Jan 28 2008
By Chris Walters
3,097 views, 51 comments

Latest by n/a: They have flash games like this on the internet already. Everyone is free to roam about the game as they please, doing missions or fighting other players. They have 2 types of game currency. Regular money and "special" money. All the best more »

music

Last.fm Offers Free Streaming Albums And Tracks

The popular music site Last.fm announced today that beginning immediately, you can listen to entire music tracks and full-length albums for free. Previously, you could only hear excerpts of most tracks, which made Last.fm a great place for discovering new artists but a rotten one for actually listening to them. The site is taking a Flickr-style approach to its new service, offering a free version—you can listen to a track up to three times—and a forthcoming subscription service which will allow for unlimited streaming. This sounds good, but we're curious about the three-listen limit, and how frequently that count is reset, if ever. More »

3:41 PM on Wed Jan 23 2008
By Chris Walters
2,109 views, 15 comments

Latest by Smackdown: I'm telling you guys, Slacker is where's it at. I promise, I don't work for them, I just was getting sick of Pandora, because sometimes a girl wants to listen to streaming radio that isn't always playing stuff I more »

Where Things Stand In The Hi-Def DVD Format War After Time Warner Inc.'s announcement today that they've chosen to support Blu-ray exclusively, here's the current breakdown of studio support for each format—and things aren't looking good for HD DVD.

71 comments

truth in advertising

Can A Movie Trailer Be Accused Of False Advertising?

David Pogue has an interesting rant in today's Circuits column about the movie "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"—or more specifically about its trailer, which is chock-full of scenes, dialogue, locations, and plot references that are nowhere to be found in the actual movie. He asks, "Just how different can a trailer be without becoming false advertising?" We immediately thought about last year's kids flick "Bridge to Terabithia," which was advertised like a whimsical Narnia spin-off but in reality was about the death of a major character. More »

4:37 PM on Thu Jan 3 2008
By Chris Walters
10,589 views, 90 comments

Latest by galactus5000: @Murph1908: Hudson Hawk - dumb? Truman Show - drawn out? That's it, you aren't allowed to rent here anymore. more »

Fox and Apple have reached a deal that would allow movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store. No official announcement yet, so no details on pricing, date, or how the rentals will work. [Reuters]

6 comments

travel

Build Your Dream Airline

The USA Today tossed three travel experts in a room and asked them to describe their dream airline. An airline that restores the grandeur of flight by focusing on passenger value and convenience. Pay attention airlines, and consider giving us the following: More »

11:07 AM on Sat Nov 10 2007
By Carey
3,893 views, 49 comments

hollywood

Walgreen Planning DVD-Burning Kiosks To Sell Movies

Sometime next year, Walgreen will introduce kiosks where customers can select and purchase movies—mostly older ones that aren't as frequently stocked in stores—and have them burned onto DVDs while they wait (for about 15 minutes). Although the idea seems like one that someone should have had years ago, it wasn't a commercial possibility until last month, when the organization responsible for licensing CSS—the widespread copy restriction software that's coded into pretty much every Hollywood DVD release—expanded its licensing structure to make room for business models like this one. More »

10:24 AM on Mon Oct 29 2007
By Chris Walters
1,565 views, 22 comments

Latest by Consumer-X: I just bought one of these KEWL Dymo Disc Painter devices to make all my homemade DVD's look like professional copies. Personally, I love having hard copies of movies. [www.youtube.com] more »

propaganda

Government Wants To Sneak Financial Info Onto Soaps And Telenovelas

When we posted about "30 Rock" last Friday, a reader SHOUTED IN ALL CAPS that someone—either NBC, or Tina Fey, or maybe The Consumerist, we're not sure—is a government shill for basically being paid by the gov to write about financial advice. Turns out Mr. Shouty is right, sort of: the U.S. Treasurer, Anna Escobedo Cabral, was on the radio news program "Marketplace" a couple of weeks ago to talk about how she's been meeting with the creative teams of soap operas and telenovelas to find ways to incorporate financial storylines into their plots. More »

6:28 AM on Mon Oct 29 2007
By Chris Walters
1,276 views, 19 comments

Latest by Kajj: What the hell? Why go to a gay place there? Fiscal responsibility and social tolerance aren't at odds with each other. And show me a public school in this country that would even THINK about putting "Heather has Two Mommies" more »

agitprop

Anti-Wal-Mart Show Discounted By Critics

Sure, it's a clich , but the closest New York City residents are going to get to the Wal-Mart experience is... a musical! Yes, with singing and dancing! After a year of retooling to transfer it from its semi-professional beginnings in Wisconsin to its latest incarnation Off-Broadway, "Walmartopia" opened this week to mostly poor reviews. More »

7:05 PM on Wed Sep 5 2007
By Chris Walters
3,204 views, 17 comments

conspicuous consumption

Video Game Spending To Overtake Music As Soon As This Year

Spending on video game products is poised to surpass the music industry as soon as this year, according to Ars Technica.
PricewaterhouseCooperss released the data in its annual "Global Entertainment and Media Outlook" report covering 2007 through 2011, which outlines expected growth in the entertainment, film, music, and video game industries, among others.
More »

5:59 PM on Mon Jun 25 2007
By Meg Marco
750 views, 19 comments

finger-pointing

Thomas The Poisonous Tank Engine Recall Fallout Continues

Today's New York Times has an interesting article about the process of assigning blame in the recent Thomas the Tank Engine recall debacle. Whose fault is it? The company that outsourced the manufacturing to China, RC2? The company that holds the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine, HIT Entertainment? Both? Neither? More »

1:56 PM on Wed Jun 20 2007
By Meg Marco
4,446 views, 25 comments

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