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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!)
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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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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:
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.
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.
, 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.
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.
Valenti was a special assistant and confidant to President Lyndon Johnson when he was lured to Hollywood in 1966 by movie moguls Lew Wasserman and Arthur Krim. A lifelong film lover, he once cited the 1966 film ”A Man for All Seasons” as his all-time favorite.
Since September, United has loosened its restrictions on what types of movies can be shown on jets equipped with overhead screens, which all passengers can see. When the airline played “Little Miss Sunshine” in the fall, an R movie with some ear-curling rants by Alan Arkin, “We got a tremendous amount of positive feedback,” Kovick said.
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