movies

YouTube To Rent Movies

By Chris Walters on January 21, 2010 11:05 AM 1988 views

(Photo: Artshooter)

Tomorrow, YouTube will start renting online movies at $4 for 48 hours. At launch, the selection will consist of five titles from the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, says the Associated Press, but Google hopes to get studios on board in the coming months. Studios will be able to set their own prices and rental periods, however, should they participate. More »

36 Comments

Netflix CEO Explains Why They Made The 28-Day Delay Deal

By Chris Walters on January 19, 2010 12:39 PM 0 views

(Photo: iantmcfarland)

Earlier this month, Netflix made a deal with Warner Bros. to delay new DVD releases for 28 days. Over at Hacking Netflix, the CEO of the company goes into some detail on why he approached Warner Bros. to begin with (it was his idea, not theirs), and why he thinks it will work out better for everyone except those customers who signed up expecting all new releases all the time. More »

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Pumpkinhead New Raisin Bran Crunch Spokesthing?

By Chris Walters on January 13, 2010 4:47 PM 5169 views
When I first watched Pumpkinhead--an Alien-style monster who's rampaged through a few B-level horror movies--go on and on about finding inner peace and online dating, I thought of The Office. Now that I think about it, it's probably closer in style to Aardman's Creature Comfort animations. Either way, if you like horror movies, breakfast cereal, British accents, and very silly advertising, you'll appreciate this clip. More »

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Netflix Streaming Finally Coming To The Wii

By Meg Marco on January 13, 2010 12:23 PM 6818 views
Those of you with the Wii will no longer be left out of the Netflix streaming party. The service is coming to the console this spring. More »

53 Comments

See What Your Zipcode Likes To Rent On Netflix

By Meg Marco on January 11, 2010 2:59 PM 20311 views
The NYT has taken some data released by Netflix (the top 50 rental titles for each zipcode) and made some interactive heat maps out of it. It's weirdly fun. More »

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Is Blockbuster Sending Out Gimped Versions Of Some Blu-rays?

By Phil Villarreal on January 11, 2010 8:30 AM 0 views

(Photo: formatc1)

William claims Blockbuster sent him a not-so-special edition of The Hangover on Blu-ray that doesn't let him access an unrated version of the movie. More »

63 Comments

Redbox Customer Rents Blank Disk

By Chris Walters on January 8, 2010 8:01 AM 9996 views
Russ says he rented a movie from Redbox and ended up with a blank disc. He also says he can't get an answer from Redbox on what to do next.

I rented three DVDs for my kids at a San Antonio, TX location, then drove back home with them to Austin. When I took one of them out of its case, I noticed that it was a just a blank CD-R. The previous renter had taken the I.D. label from the original DVD and messily placed it on the CD-R. 

More »

90 Comments

Borders Crushes Employee Morale To Push Copies Of "Piano Teacher"

By Ben Popken on January 6, 2010 11:30 AM 14930 views
There is some sort of epic battle going on inside Zone #5 of dying book seller Borders to move as many units of the novel The Piano Teacher as possible. And goddamnit, people are just not pulling their weight, according to a string of emails from Zone VP Mike's demoralized underlings posted on LiveJournal: "To the GMs of these 16 stores, thanks for nothing. Had you managed your inventory, processed your freight and/or effectively executed a simple expectation (SELL at least one Make/Key ITEM EVERY DAY), your team (Zone 5) would have won...If you can deliver we will finish one, one-hundreth of a percent ahead of Zone 3 for PTD sales of Piano Teacher. If not, we lose…again." More »

86 Comments

10 Movie Theater Secrets

By Phil Villarreal on January 5, 2010 10:15 AM 48883 views

(Photo: Paxton Holley)

Yahoo Finance put together a list of 10 secrets about movie theaters, dropping some interesting factoids, including this justification for why concession snacks are so expensive: More »

245 Comments

Star Trek Blu-ray Digital Download Codes All Used Up?

By Chris Walters on December 30, 2009 2:04 PM 0 views
Nero, the Romulan villain who was driven mad by lens flares in the latest Star Trek movie, found a way to travel forward in time and use up a bunch of authorization codes included in special edition Blu-ray sets. For now, until Paramount's support staff get back from the holidays, all you can do with that third disc is flash light into the eyes of people around you and call yourself J. J. Abrams. More »

43 Comments

Amazon Handing Out Digital Flicks As Bonuses For Disc Buys

By Phil Villarreal on December 14, 2009 9:00 AM 2544 views

(Photo: chhipkali)

In a push to get people buying DVDs and Blu-rays online rather than off shelves, Amazon is tossing in a nice little bonus: a digital copy of the film to rent or keep, HD Digest reports: More »

18 Comments

Update: Accidental "New Moon" Taping Felony Charges Dropped

By Laura Northrup on December 11, 2009 1:55 PM 8481 views
The felony piracy charges against a woman who accidentally taped a few minutes of the film "New Moon" while taking videos of her sister's birthday party have been dropped. The incident occurred at a theater in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, and Cook County prosecutors announced today that they have dropped the case. More »

43 Comments

Let This Comic Strip Show You How To Save Money At The Movies

By Chris Walters on December 8, 2009 9:30 AM 28014 views

(Image: Scott Meyer)

Scott Meyer frequently makes brilliant observations in his "Basic Instructions" comic, and by brilliant I mean nutjob. In the most recent one, "How to Save Money," the comic version of Meyer realizes how expensive movie concessions are. Considering how many people commented on this the last time I posted about it, I thought you might find his ideas useful. Now I'm off to buy a stovepipe hat! More »

74 Comments

Samsung's Repair Service Can't Seem To Fix My Blu-Ray

By Phil Villarreal on December 8, 2009 8:00 AM 0 views

(Photo: Samsung)

Matthew raves about Samsung's Twitter customer service (@samsungservice), but is incensed about the repair process itself, which he says has failed to stop his Blu-ray from freezing up like Sean Suisham. More »

11 Comments

AMC Theater Chain Bans All Outside Snacks

By Chris Walters on December 3, 2009 2:02 PM 21466 views

(Photo: Scarleth White)

After reporting a loss in the 2nd quarter of this year, AMC is doing what it can to increase revenue. Since the business model of movie theaters is to give all the ticket sales to the studios and scrape out a living on concessions, that means forcing more patrons to buy snacks--so it's officially banning any outside food and drink. More »

257 Comments

Blockbuster Doesn't Believe We've Returned Their Stupid Movie

By Phil Villarreal on November 27, 2009 9:00 AM 8592 views

tahamaki

Reader and admitted Geek Squad employee Mike says he and his girlfriend rented and returned The Ugly Truth at Blockbuster, but the floundering rental chain insists it can't find the movie so his girlfriend is stuck with late fees that Blockbuster supposedly did away with years ago. More »

63 Comments

Movie Popcorn Is Really, Really Bad For You

By Phil Villarreal on November 20, 2009 4:33 PM 33116 views

If you're one of those people who munches on movie popcorn and placates yourself by rationalizing that as snacks go, it's not all that bad for you, you're just deluding yourself.   More »

170 Comments

Fight Club Blu-ray Messes With Viewers

By Phil Villarreal on November 18, 2009 3:30 PM 21565 views

If you bought or rented the new Fight Club blu-ray and brought it back to the store convinced you rented a faulty disc, you've been Punk'd by director David Fincher. When the disc boots up it displays the menu for Never Been Kissed for a few seconds before showing its true Fight Club colors.  More »

64 Comments

Warner Bros. Offers Discount Blu-ray Upgrade Program

By Phil Villarreal on November 18, 2009 3:25 PM 7599 views

Warner Bros. has thought of a way to boost sagging Blu-ray sales. The DVD2Blu program lets you mail up to 25 DVDs (discs only), with a prepaid shipping label, to a processing plant — after having paid $8 to $10 online for each film — to get new, factory-sealed Blu-ray versions sent back to you.  More »

96 Comments

Disney Removes Closed Captioning From "Up" Rental Release

By Laura Northrup on November 15, 2009 8:00 PM 40686 views

Imagine you're deaf or hard of hearing, and put off watching Pixar's "Up" until the DVD release. You rent the DVD from Netflix, Redbox, or Blockbuster, and the box or Web listing promises captions. But when you settle in to watch the movie, you discover that there are no captions to be found. Not in any language.   More »

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