Saturday - June 27, 2009
Giant alien robots don't actually exist. So the dozens featured in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" had to be built from the ground up. That effort took hundreds of artists, thousands of hours and even caused one computer to explode. "We lost some machinery," visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar said with a smile. "The thing just kind of gave up." A high-tech blockbuster, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is practically two movies in one. There's the live-action element, which took director Michael Bay and his cast to Egypt, Jordan and New Mexico.
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Wednesday - June 10, 2009
Think the only way to see a big-screen movie is while slurping a 64-oz. soft drink, eating a five-dollar candy bar and shushing the wannabe film critic behind you? That's not the case anymore, thanks to people like John Young, part of a loosely knit network of celluloid renegades resurrecting the drive-in for a new age.
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Sunday - June 7, 2009
To hear the folks in Hollywood talk about it, improved 3-D technology and the quality films that are quickly lining up behind it represent nothing short of a moviegoing revolution. Tell that to the folks who still live hours from the nearest 3-D-equipped theater. For them, all the extradimensional summer offerings and slick marketing campaigns amount to nothing more than a big, frustrating tease.
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Saturday - April 25, 2009
Hollywood calls it "rent, rip and return" and contends it's one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry's annual $20 billion DVD market -- software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it. On Friday, industry lawyers urged a federal judge to bar RealNetworks from selling software that allows consumers to copy their DVDs to computer hard drives.
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Monday - April 20, 2009
The Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood studios said Friday they have reached a tentative deal on movie and prime-time TV show productions, capping a yearlong battle that ended with the Guild giving up its fight for better Internet compensation. The Guild said its leaders would recommend approval by the board and ratification by its members.
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Friday - April 3, 2009
Blockbuster's revolving and term loan agreement has been amended, giving the struggling company some breathing room on its finances amid a deepening recession and increased competition. The video rental company had lined up tentative financing deals prior to the amendment, but cautioned last month that its auditor was likely to raise doubts about its ability to stay in business.
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Monday - March 30, 2009
I spent much of last week attending an event put on by HP, Intel and BMW, which launched HP's new professional workstation line on top of the new Nehalem processors from Intel. This took place at DreamWorks, where we were treated to an early screening of the "Monsters vs. Aliens" movie. This last was a showcase for DreamWorks huge 3-D bet and one that I haven't been a believer in.
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Wednesday - March 25, 2009
Blockbuster and TiVo have joined forces to deliver Blockbuster's vast library of digital video to owners of the TiVo television set-top box. "We are excited to be teaming with TiVo, the company that created the DVR, to make Blockbuster's entertainment content readily available to their millions of subscribers," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO.
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Saturday - March 21, 2009
Cisco isn't content to just sell products for the deepest, darkest innards of the data center. It's also got its eye on consumer technology. It already has Linksys, which sells stuff like home network routers, and Scientific Atlanta, which does set-top boxes. Soon it will add Pure Digital Technologies, the company that makes the Web-friendly Flip Video camera.
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Wednesday - March 4, 2009
Roughly 50 million households in Western Europe have adopted broadband services over the past three years. Regulatory reforms in the UK and France in particular have helped boost penetration by creating strongly competitive markets. As a result, a large and growing number of households can now view video online, and the door is open to alternative forms of video distribution.
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Friday - February 27, 2009
Still smarting from a long-ago Best Picture snub for "A Few Good Men," I chose not to watch the Oscars this year because -- well, I can't handle the truth. So I got my Oscar news and views from various live blogging efforts that delivered their own snarkified take on Hollywood's idea of honoring truth in art.
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