Countless youngsters attempting to claw their way into the film business will gladly work for free, and a lawsuit filed in federal court accuses the production of the film Black Swan of exploiting those masses. Two men who worked on the movie claim the film broke labor laws by hiring more than 100 interns to do work that should have been handled by paid employees. [More]
movies
Movie Theaters May Start Charging For 3-D Glasses
By 9.28.11
In case you thought that part of that higher ticket price you pay for seeing a 3-D movie goes to pay for the glasses required to see the often poorly done, post-production 3-D effects, you’re mistaken. It’s the studios behind these big-budget cash-ins that have been footing the bill, but that could all change in the next year. [More]
Imagine Being Deaf And Only "Breaking Bad's" Season Finale Isn't Subtitled On Netflix Streaming
By 9.27.11
Imagine watching the first season of Breaking Bad, getting hooked, and then all of a sudden the last 10 minutes of the season finale are cut off. You have no idea how it ends. You’d be all like, what is this, The Sopranos? That’s similar to what happened to Patrick. He’s hearing-impaired and enjoyed watching Breaking Bad on Netflix Instant Streaming with subtitles. That is, until he got to the season finale, which had no subtitles. Netflix doesn’t offer Patrick much of a way to make his voice heard, so he’s writing here. [More]
Netflix One-Ups HBO By Snagging DreamWorks Deal
By 9.26.11
When Netflix started upped its prices for subscribers by splitting streaming and disc rentals into separate subscriptions, the top brass said it would use the additional funds to secure streaming deals. Now the company has something to show for the promise, having secured a deal with DreamWorks for programming that currently goes to HBO. The agreement goes into effect in 2013. [More]
Recession Horror Stories: AMC Theater Stops Giving Out ICEE Straws
By 9.13.11
In a sad sign of the times, reader “Strawless” says that his local AMC Theater isn’t giving out spoon straws with ICEEs anymore. They say they’re too expensive and you’ll have to make do with a regular straw. The theater is still happy to sell you a popcorn, coke and ICEE for $20, but that’s no longer enough to subsidize shipments of the specialized straws. [More]
Report: Dish Will Launch Blockbuster-Branded Streaming Service Next Month
By 9.5.11
The likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon will reportedly face some new competition, when Dish Network finally justifies its purchase of Blockbuster by starting a video streaming service in October. [More]
Starz Won't Renew Netflix Deal When It Expires In February
By 9.2.11
Come March, Netflix’s array of video streaming options could be considerably thinned. Starz announced it’s stopped negotiating an extension with Netflix and all its movies and TV shows will vanish from the service when the current deal expires February 28. [More]
Timing Of Netflix Price Increase Depends On Your Billing Date
By 9.1.11
Netflix’s much-maligned price increase kicks in today, but not for all customers. The new pricing plan, which charges $7.99 a month to stream movies and another $7.99 to rent one DVD at a time, doesn’t go into effect until your September billing date. Depending on when your bill is due, you can squeeze a few extra days of the old rates out of your plan before either canceling or choosing either streaming or disc rentals to avoid the bill bump. [More]
Samsung Cites 1968 Movie To Prove It Didn't Rip Off iPad
By 8.24.11
Responding to Apple’s lawsuit alleging it copied designs for the iPad and iPhone, Samsung’s lawyers have pulled out video evidence from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In a 1-minute clip, the lawyers imply that the iPad-style form factor predates Apple’s devices. [More]
Netflix Emails 3% Discount To Apologize For Streaming Outage
By 7.19.11
To say sorry for a outage to their streaming service on Sunday night, Netflix sent around an apology email this morning with a link to click on to get 3% credit off your next bill. Reader Stephen says, “Interesting that Netflix is willing to offer the discount but only to those who open the email and click the link. Wouldn’t the right thing be to give the discount to everyone?” [More]
Fewer Kids' Movies Featured Smoking Last Year
By 7.15.11
Anti-smoking groups have long pressured Hollywood to decrease smoking in kids’ movies, and studios have apparently listened. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report says there were 72 percent fewer smoking incidents in kids’ movies in 2010 than in 2005 levels, dropping from 2,093 instances to 595. Smoking in PG or G-rated films plummeted 94 percent (from 472 instances to 30) in that span. [More]
Would You Pay $50 A Month To Watch All The Movies In Theaters You Want?
By 6.28.11
MoviePass is a new in-beta service that lets movie buffs watch as many movies in theaters as they want for $50 a month. [More]
How To Remove Scratches From CDs and DVDs
By 6.24.11
If you lend a movie, CD or game to a friend and get it back with scratches, it isn’t necessarily cause for rage. With the right technique you can easily remove the damage and have the disc playing as though it were new. [More]
Theater Warning: No Refund If You Don't Understand The Movie
By 6.24.11
Director Terence Malick’s latest film, The Tree of Life, may have won over the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, but it appears to be having such a polarizing effect on the moviegoers at one Connecticut theater that the owners felt obliged to post this reminder. [More]
DirecTV Sends Coupons Designed To Look Like Netflix Envelopes
By 6.22.11
How scared are the satellite and cable providers of Netflix? So much so that DirecTV recently sent out a coupon to customers designed to look exactly like a Netflix mailer, except in blue. You know what they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery. [More]
Do DVD Rental Store Closures Make Summer Road Trips Tougher?
By 6.17.11
Now that spotting an open Blockbuster location is a novelty that merits a double take, and scores of other video rental chains have vanished, movie fans who want to rent some DVDs for the road have had to change the way they operate. Redbox remains an option for nightly rentals, and Netflix will still ship out discs via the mail, but gone are the days you can stop by a rental store, browse and pull some discs off the shelves and not have to return them for a week or so. [More]
Sorry, Best Buy Can't Sell You A Non-Scratched DVD
By 6.16.11
If brick-and-mortar retailers and entertainment companies want their customers to keep showing up and paying for content, it might help if they worked together to make sure that the DVDs on their shelves are playable, and not mysteriously scratched all to hell. Spencer bought two “American Dad” box sets at his local Best Buy, seeking out the least-mangled one on the shelf. He checked the DVDs of one set when he reached his car, found scratched and smudged discs, and headed back into the store to see if he could get a refund. Unfortunately, he could have ripped the DVDs in his car in the intervening ten minutes, and Best Buy wasn’t interested. [More]
