Love him or hate him, it’s tough to deny shockumentarian Michael Moore‘s ability to spin a clever, rabble-rousing yarn that gets people talking. So it’s worth keeping a lookout for his new, recession-focused film, due Oct. 2, called Capitalism: A Love Story.
movies
Is The NRA Trying To Trick Its Members Into Paying For This DVD?
By 7.7.09
Arthur, a member of the NRA, received a promotional DVD out of the blue about six months ago. As we’ve discussed before and as Arthur points out, if you’re sent something that you never ordered, you don’t have to pay for it, return it, or acknowledge it. The NRA said as much in their letter to Arthur.
Are Blu-ray Netflix Customers Paying Extra Because The Discs Keep Cracking?
By 7.6.09
Do you rent Blu-ray discs from Netflix? Have you had any show up with a crack on the outer edge that makes the disc unplayable? Victor just wrote to us that he’s received several Blu-ray discs lately that are damaged, and he’s wondering if it’s just him or part of a wider problem.
By 7.3.09
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That end-of-the-school-year DVD may have been homemade by the teacher, but that doesn’t mean it can’t pack an accidental porno cherrybomb. An elementary school teacher in Sacramento mistakenly included 6 seconds of a “home movie” in a compilation she sent home to students. Click through to the article for an awesome photo illustration of how adults think kids react to gross-out grownup stuff. [SFGate] (Thanks to Paul!) (Photo: Adactio)
Avast! Ten Percent Of Ye Be Movie Pirates
By 6.23.09
Yo ho ho and a bottle of illegally downloaded Paul Blart: Mall Cop. A Futuresource Consulting survey says 10 percent of the people it spoke to in the United States and Europe have watched illegally downloaded movies.
Pixar Arranges Home Screening Of "Up" For Dying 10-Year-Old
By 6.19.09
We know, that headline just oozes treacle. But it’s for real! The family friend of a dying child cold-called Pixar’s offices and guessed her way through the phone tree to a live person, then pleaded her case: the child desperately wanted to see Up, but was possibly days away from death and too sick to travel or sit in a movie theater. The next day, a Pixar employee arrived with a DVD of the movie and sat with the family while they watched it. Sometimes people can be really decent to each other.
Indie Flicks Now Come To Cable Boxes As Soon As They Hit Theaters
By 6.18.09
It used to be Steven Soderbergh who could get away with bringing indie films to cable on-demand services on their theatrical opening day
Watch Out For Throttling If You're On A Blockbuster Rental Plan
By 6.4.09
Robert’s recent experience with his local Blockbuster just underscores how ill-equipped the rental chain is to compete against Netflix and new-star-on-the-block Redbox. Whether Robert has caught them deliberately throttling his account, or he’s just the victim of a poorly implemented system, it’s not the kind of customer experience you should have to settle for anymore.
Coalition Says Movies Try To Sell You Tasty, Cool Cigarettes
By 5.28.09
Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke reports the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the California Youth Advocacy Network and the American Medical Association Alliance have teamed to launch an ad campaign to warn against Hollywood’s tendency to shill for the tobacco industry.
Moving, Vibrating Chairs Creeping Into Movie Theaters
By 5.26.09
Normally when you’re watching a movie in a theater it’s cause for concern when a chair next to you starts vibrating. Not so at multiplexes rocking D-Box technology.
IMAX Says It's Neither Length Nor Girth Of Screens That Matters — It's 'Perception'
By 5.22.09
As we established last week, not all IMAX screens are the same. Some are amazingly gimongous while others are only moderately gargantuan.
Blockbuster Busted For Overcharging Customers, Must Pay $300k
By 5.19.09
What do you do when the foundation to your business is crumbling and bankrupcty lurks like the Grim Reaper just outside your drop box? If you’re Blockbuster, apparently you charge customers more at the register than what’s displayed on the product, at least in California.
By 5.15.09
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If we owned a Blockbuster franchise, we’d seriously think about just renting out the space to a bunch of Redbox kiosks. Blockbuster reported a 42% drop in revenue for the first quarter of 2009, which CEO Jim Keyes blamed on people going out to watch movies at theaters instead. Regarding the Redbox threat, Keyes said they hope to have 3,000 kiosks functioning by the end of the year. Redbox, on the other hand, has about 12,000. [Reuters]
Judge May Or May Not Allow Most Awesome DVD Player Ever To Hit Market
By 5.14.09
Let’s start with an explanation of why there’s an Arizona Cardinals jet pictured in a story about a new DVD player: Because the Cardinals’ out-of-nowhere NFC championship earlier this year has so far only been matched in miraculousness by one other development — the advent of Facet, a DVD player that lets you save movies to an internal hard drive.
Redbox Kiosks Crank Out Cheap DVD Rentals, Doom For Hollywood
By 5.12.09
With its ubiquitous DVD rental kiosks, Redbox has been known to toy with our emotions. The machines have taken up all the choice grocery store spots where your favorite stale gumball machines used to sit. And company execs taunted us by dreaming up that awesome Free Movie Mondays promotion only to vow to take it away by the end of the summer.
Soderbergh Subverts The Theater Experience Again
By 5.8.09
One of the hotter indie flicks of the summer, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, debuted on Amazon’s rental service this week, way before the movie opens in theaters May 22. At $9.99 for a three-day rental, the movie is also cheaper to rent than it will be to see at many theaters.
Redbox Starts To Wean Customers Off Free Movie Mondays
By 5.8.09
A few readers contacted us, with tears in their eyes, to let us know that Redbox is ending their “Free Movie Mondays” promotion as we know it. Redbox kiosks, which seemingly sprouted overnight in every grocery store in the country a few years ago, let you rent newly-released DVDs for $1 per day. The free movie promotion sent a free rental code out every Monday in an e-mail or text message. After May 11, new codes will only be issued once per month, ending in August.
Hey! Walt Disney Reuses Animation Sequences!
By 4.23.09
We were fascinated to discover today that Walt Disney reused animation cycles across different movies—the characters are unique (sorta) but the motions are cel for cel copies. It looks like the movies that reuse animation are from that infamous era in the 70s and 80s when Disney’s animation unit cut too many corners and churned out less “classic” fare. Well, they were copying classics—shouldn’t that count for something? Video clip below.
