Ever wonder about what gifts to give on Valentine’s Day or what things to do? Ever wish you just had a nice list of recommendations? Ever wish you didn’t have to go to 10 different Top 10 Lists just to compile the information your sad un-romantic self needs on this day of the year? Well, your wishes have come true. Without further ado, we now present the Top 10 List of Top 10 Lists for Valentine’s Day…
The Dark Tower series, by Stephen King, is one of my favorite stories of all time, and so far has never been adapted to the screen, small or large . Rumor has it though, it might not stay that way for long. JJ Abrams, creator of the television series Alias and Lost and director of last summer’s Mission Impossible 3, is lined up to direct an adaptation of the beloved King series. Currently, Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot, is mum on the subject, so no details on whether the plan is for a television miniseries or feature film version.
The Dark Tower series is a set of 7 books set in a world many years after this one. It’s main character, a gunslinger named Roland, is on a mission to find a Dark Tower which may hold the key to our very universe. The story puts the Lord of the Rings to shame in pure epic size (seven 500+ page novels), so it would take a very big effort to do it justice. In my opinion, the material for the film is too violent, gritty, and dark for a television miniseries on ABC (maybe HBO would work) so hopefully they are seriously considering a feature film version. Here’s hoping Abrams can do the story justice and create a picture that is true to the feel of the books themselves. One things for sure, it won’t be an easy task.
An Ottawa, Canada based company, XYG RBG, has developed a new technology that allows for eight seconds of video to be converted into a 3D hologram movie poster. They demonstrated this technology, recently, by generating a custom made Terminator 2 movie poster, and presenting it as a gift to directory James Cameron. While holographic movies are nothing new, 8 full seconds of motion far surpasses the current standard of 1-2 seconds maximum. This is an interesting leap forward in technology, and at least until we have paper thin LCD screens is most likely the closest we’re going to get to full motion poster video.
Take a look at some of these example posters produced by the company.
Last week we discussed Walmart’s foray into the movie download race with the launch of their brand new service. Immediately, there were many complaints that the site would not work with any browser other than Internet Explorer. This was strange, to say the least, considering the massive size of Walmart and the fact that nowadays cross compatibility is a necessity not just a luxury. This was almost universally chalked up to an over site or poor programming. However, now it appears it may be intentional. Many users are now reporting that Walmart has completely turned off the new application to FireFox, Safari, and any other user on a browser they don’t like. This seems like a pretty poor decision for a company who is already late to the game and faces very stiff competition. I can already see Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes smiling from ear to ear…
In a recent interview at the Media Summit in New York City, Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch announced that Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor who played Borat in last years hit comedy, will do a sequel with 20th Century Fox.
From the interview:
“He will do a sequel. He will first do something else … then he wants to come back and do a ‘Borat 2.’”
Unfortunately, this whole situation does not appear to be as solid as Murdoch would make it seem. Cohen is currently doing “something else”, specifically another film about one of his other Ali G Show characters, Bruno, but has had nothing more then casual discussions about doing a follow up Borat film. Never fear though, you can almost guarantee DVD sales of “Borat: Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” will be phenomenal and with that much green , we’ll definitely see a sequel. How long we’ll have to wait though? That’s still up in the air…
Hot on the tail of Walmart’s entry into the movie download business, Amazon.com and TiVo Inc. have announced a partnership to do the same. Their solution is slightly different though, in that the movies themselves will be beamed directly to your TV (assuming you have TiVo). This new service will be known as Amazon Unbox on TiVo and will begin offering a test service as early as Wednesday to existing TiVo customers with the full service debuting later in the year. While a great idea in principle, it is unclear how successful this project will be considering TiVo is primarily available to only US customers (it’s available here in Canada only if I import it and follow “special” instructions). Competition is never bad though, so here’s hoping one of these services rises to the top before customers become too frustrated. 
After their initial tests were a success, Walmart has decided it’s finally time to throw their hat in the ring of the battle royale that is the digital movie download business. Later today, Walmart will officially launch a new site at walmart.com/videodownloads that will allow customers to download both film and television content directly to their home computers.
Although the market is already packed with competition from the likes of Amazon.com, iTunes, NetFlix, and CinemaNow, Walmart has the advantage of already having made a deal with the Big 6 movie studios (Universal, Sony, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Disney) and several television studios ( including Fox, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CW, FX , and VH1). Prices for all film downloads will be in the range of $12.88-$19.88 US when a DVD is first released and older films will be set at $7.50. Television shows will be $1.96 per episode. With ranges like that, It’s easy to see why many of these companies were willing to work with Walmart and not Apple.
While Walmart is definitely a company NO ONE should take lightly, as they have the money and resources to make this a successful venture, they have a lot of work to do in convincing customers that their option is superior to others. To be considered a success, Walmart will not only have to co-exist with its competition, but will have to make some serious in-roads into the overall market share, which is currently dominated by iTunes in both movies and television. What Walmart really wants is to bring in more customers to its 4,000 stores around the world, and only time will tell if this venture will help them accomplish that goal.
One thing’s for sure, the Digital Movie download space just got a lot more interesting…
Director Martin Scorsese won the top honor from the Directors Guild of America, Saturday, for his mob drama “The Departed.” Largely considered a good indicator for the Oscars, the DGA winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar at the yearly awards ceremony. If Scorsese can win an Oscar this year, it would mark his first win in 6 nominations in the category of best-director spanning a career of over 3 decades. His previous nominations include classic films such as Goodfellas and Taxi Driver. Here’s hoping he can actually win this year, The Departed was definitely one of the year’s best films.
