plus 4, Netflix movie streaming coming to PlayStation 3 - Morning Journal

Netflix movie streaming coming to PlayStation 3 - Morning Journal
3-D coming to homes - Washington Times
Zooey Deschanel - HitFix
Jackson movie a thriller in worldwide premiere - YAHOO!
Must Watch: Green Zone Movie Trailer - Slashfilm.com

Netflix movie streaming coming to PlayStation 3 - Morning Journal

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 10:17 PM PDT

By BARBARA ORTUTAY
AP Technology Writer

Netflix customer poses with the "Frost Nixon" DVD in Palo Alto, Calif. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

NEW YORK (AP) — PlayStation 3 owners will soon be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix to their TVs using the gaming console, just as Xbox 360 owners have been able to do for a year.

Sony Corp. and the DVD rental company planned to announce the service Monday and launch it next month. It will be available for free to PlayStation 3 owners who have a Netflix subscription that starts at $9.

Netflix streaming is already available on a broad range of devices, such as the Roku digital video player, Internet-connected TV sets (including Sony's) and Blu-ray players — and the PlayStation 3's archrival, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360. On the Xbox, however, the Netflix streaming is available only to Xbox Live "Gold" members, who pay $50 a year mainly to play games online with friends in other places.

For Netflix Inc., the deal brings millions of potential new customers, to add to the 11.1 million it already has in the United States. About 9 million PlayStation 3 systems have been sold in U.S., and more than 25 million worldwide.

Movie streaming is an increasingly important service for Netflix even though it says it expects to keep renting DVDs until 2030. And Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said he would like the streaming service to be available on all three of the major gaming platforms — the Xbox, the Wii and the PlayStation. Until now, however, the company had an exclusive deal with Microsoft.

"The PlayStation 3 is an amazing video platform," Hastings said in an interview.

This leaves the Wii as the last console without Netflix streaming. But even without it, the Wii is the top-selling console.

Netflix has about 17,000 movies and TV shows available for streaming, though few of them are new releases. This will expand the movies Sony already rents and sells through the PlayStation 3, and will give the company another feature to tout as it markets the PlayStation as a diverse entertainment device.

With a TV ad campaign whose slogan is "It Only Does Everything," Sony is targeting men and women between 18 and 49 and playing up the console's capabilities beyond gaming. Last year, its aim was still younger men, the gamer demographic.

"I think we always knew we made a significant investment in the PS3 and we were ahead of the time in terms of technology," said Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America. "But technology that was mystifying to the consumer three years ago is being coveted now."

To access the Netflix streaming service, PlayStation 3 users will have to pop in a Blu-ray disc that Netflix will mail out. The disc will access the Internet and activate the Netflix system so people can find movies to stream.

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3-D coming to homes - Washington Times

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 05:17 PM PDT

By Ryan Nakashima ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES

Fans scrambled to see 3-D movies such as "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" in theaters this year, and new 3-D televisions soon could have home viewers feeling as if they're surrounded by a spaghetti hurricane on their couches.

Next year, major electronics manufacturers Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. plan to introduce 3-D-capable high-definition televisions for the mass market. You'll still need to wear special glasses, though.

Movie studios hope 3-D can help lift the sagging home-video market the same way it has pushed up box-office results.

The initial price of such sets is expected to be high -- perhaps 20 percent more than for normal sets of the same size. But costs should come down in the coming years.

Depending on prices, 3-D-ready TVs could be in 28 million to 46 million homes worldwide by 2013, predicts Alfred Poor, an analyst with GigaOM Pro. He estimates that next year, as many as 2.5 million sets worldwide will be sold with 3-D capability.

"We're raising a whole generation of kids who expect to see this effect for their movies at home," Mr. Poor said. "I think people want 3-D. I just don't think they're going to want to pay a whole lot more for it."

To avoid the need for special screens, some TV manufacturers are shunning the 3-D technology common in theaters in favor of what's known as "active shutter." That uses an infrared emitter on the TV to tell battery-powered glasses when to flicker the left and right lenses in conjunction with the images on the screen, which gives the perception of three dimensions.

The sets themselves will require relatively minor upgrades from today's models, but the glasses will cost more, raising the price of the overall package.

There's no question 3-D movies are popular.

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Zooey Deschanel - HitFix

Posted: 28 Oct 2009 12:55 AM PDT

'500 Days of Summer's' always adorable Zooey Deschanel enjoys the touch, the feel of cotton as she walks the Hollywood Film Awards red carpet.

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Jackson movie a thriller in worldwide premiere - YAHOO!

Posted: 28 Oct 2009 12:55 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Michael Jackson delivered a posthumous thriller Tuesday as fans flocked to worldwide premieres of a documentary film billed as the final concert performance of the King of Pop.

Four months after Jackson's death, red carpets were rolled out for 18 simultaneous screenings on five continents for "This Is It," culled from more than 100 hours of footage taken from rehearsals for the pop icon's comeback. Related Article: 'This Is It' Review

The Los Angeles premiere began as parts of the city were plunged into darkness as punishing gusts downed dozens of power lines. Related Article: Los Angeles Premiere

Gesturing to the strong winds buffeting the event, Jackson's former manager Frank DiLeo joked: "He's happy. You can feel him spinning around in the air here ... He's looking down right now laughing his rear end off."

Travis Payne, choreographer for the show, added: "It's time to celebrate Michael, to rejoice in his wonderful message of peace and love. People will enjoy seeing the Michael Jackson I always got to see."

The Hollywood screening mirrored events being held in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America before the two-hour film comes out in 99 countries on Wednesday for a limited two-week release.

In Beijing, a troupe of Jackson impersonators grabbed their crotches and moonwalked for hundreds of screaming fans as the movie premiered in China. Related Article: Beijing Premiere

Fans wearing single white gloves and clutching posters of the late pop star shrieked as the lookalikes danced in unison to hits like "Thriller" and "Beat It" outside the central Beijing cinema where the film was screened at midnight.

Early reviews of the movie were positive.

The USA Today newspaper said that while the film did not "restore Jackson to his past glory" it did "offer glimpses of his bygone greatness."

"The songs remind us that early this summer, the world lost a genuine, if genuinely troubled, star," it said.

Melanie Hillman, a television producer who attended the Los Angeles premiere, said the movie had captured the imagination of the audience.

"Sometimes you were sitting in your seat like, 'wow.' People were crying, clapping, cheering," she told AFP.

Advance tickets to shows in several countries sold out within days as fans scrambled to be among the first to see a film billed by Sony Pictures as the movie of "a concert that never happened."

Jackson, who died on June 25 aged 50, spent the previous four months rehearsing in Los Angeles for a grueling series of 50 concert spectaculars scheduled to begin at London's 02 Arena in July.

More than 800,000 tickets had been sold for the concerts, with organizers promising one of the "most expensive and technically advanced" live shows ever.

Video footage from the rehearsals had been intended to help organizers critique the show and was never intended for public viewing. Sony bought the footage for 60 million dollars after executives saw only several minutes.

The movie also got a stamp of approval from Jackson's long-time friend and confidante, actress Elizabeth Taylor, who was privy to a sneak preview.

Taylor, who recently underwent heart surgery, hailed the movie as the "single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen" in a post on micro-blogging site Twitter.

"It cements forever Michael's genius in every aspect of creativity."

Despite the anticipation surrounding the film, a group of diehard Jackson fans had launched an online campaign urging devotees to boycott the movie, claiming it hides the truth about his final days.

The group claims on its website -- "This-Is-Not-It" -- that the movie attempts to mask Jackson's physical frailty as he maintained a punishing schedule of rehearsals.

But audience members at the first screening said Jackson looked healthy in the film.

"Michael Jackson was very fit. Very healthy. It was the old Michael Jackson, the young Michael Jackson," Hillman said. "I was really surprised how creative and healthy and rhythmic he was."

Los Angeles government workers Fernando Ramirez and Jacqueline Martinez also gave the film the stamp of approval, saying the documentary hinted that Jackson might have made a successful comeback.

"I thought it showed that he still had it, he had the strength to continue," Ramirez said. "His attention to detail really came across in the film."

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Must Watch: Green Zone Movie Trailer - Slashfilm.com

Posted: 28 Oct 2009 01:09 AM PDT

green_zone_trailer_1

One of the movies I've been increasingly curious about in the last year has been Green Zone, the Paul Greengrass-directed semi-adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. Universal has just released the first trailer. Check it out and let us know what you think of the latest political actioner from the guy behind United 93, Bloody Sunday and the last two Bourne movies.

Yahoo has the trailer debut. After watching the trailer a couple of times, what I'll say is this: I hope the film is a lot less conventional than this pitch makes it appear. What I'm seeing here is a fairly serious political action movie sold in a Bourne manner to appeal to the widest possible audience.

Which isn't really a surprise, as there has been concern in some quarters that Universal didn't have the greatest confidence in the film. It was pushed from this fall to March of next year, though in a weak business year for Universal, like 2009 has been, that makes sense. Because Green Zone is a $100m Iraq movie, and no Iraq movie has done that well with audiences. But star Matt Damon is behind it, while recognizing that it isn't the easiest sell:

It's great, I've seen it. They're finishing some of the effects, and it'll be ready for March. We got a $100m Iraq movie, so we'll see! I do have high hopes for it, though. I think it's really good. I know the Iraq movies haven't been particularly popular so far, but hopefully this will find an audience. It's a thriller, really, set against the canvas of Iraq in 2003.

Regardless of my less than ecstatic feelings for this trailer, there aren't many mainstream American filmmakers in whom I have more confidence and interest than Greengrass. He hasn't made a bad film yet, and United 93 was all the things a 9/11 film needed to be: powerful, tasteful and full of insight. If anyone can knock this one out of the park, it's him.

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