plus 4, New $100K projector for 3-D movie - Daily Item

New $100K projector for 3-D movie - Daily Item
Family movie guide - Times Union
Peter Jackson plans movie on Gallipoli - Newstrack India
Holiday movie season heats up - Salisbury Post
Nielsen: PS3 Owners Biggest Fans Of Movie Games - Gamasutra

New $100K projector for 3-D movie - Daily Item

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:09 AM PST

Published December 17, 2009 05:11 am - Valley moviegoers will have the opportunity tonight to see James Cameron's epic film, "Avatar," as it was meant to be seen.

New $100K projector for 3-D movie
Valley theater adds technology in time for $283M film

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item

SELINSGROVE — Valley moviegoers will have the opportunity tonight to see James Cameron's epic film, "Avatar," as it was meant to be seen.

That's because the Cinema Center in Selinsgrove has added a digital 3-D projector in one of its 282-seat auditoriums.

The $100,000 equipment was installed last week with the goal of having it available for tonight's midnight showing of "Avatar," touted as the most expensive movie of all time at a reported $283 million.

"You're lucky in Selinsgrove. Only 2,000 theaters in the nation are equipped to show in 3-D," enthusiastic theater owner Marv Troutman said Wednesday.

The National Association of Theater Owners estimates that there are about 5,800 movie theaters in the United States, with 39,000 screens.

The addition of the 3-D projector is the first upgrade at the Selinsgrove Cinema Center in nine years, general manager Michael Kiel said.

The other 11 screens are still showing two-dimensional movies with 35 mm film.

While digital is the wave of the future in cinema, Troutman said, the exorbitant cost due in part to a lack of manufacturers is keeping him from adding to all of the 62 screens in complexes he owns in Selinsgrove, Bloomsburg, Williamsport and Reading.

A $2.2 million renovation is under way at the Bloomsburg location, including plans for one 3-D screen, digital sound systems and auditorium seating.

Troutman said he recently watched a portion of "Avatar" in 3-D and said the technology is much more advanced than watching through the old red and blue glasses. The picture is crisper and there's no scratching, even after 500 viewings.

The Cinema Center has been testing its new digital technology for the past week by showing "A Christmas Carol" with Jim Carrey.

"It works perfectly," Troutman said.

The release of "Avatar" may have been the prodding he needed to upgrade, but Troutman hopes the 18 new 3-D movie titles scheduled for release in 2010 — including Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" and sequels to "Shrek" and "Toy Story" — will keep the seats filled.

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Family movie guide - Times Union

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:09 AM PST

'THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG'

Rating: G.

What it's about: A hard-working waitress meets a ne'er-do-well prince who's been turned into a frog in 1920s New Orleans.

Good lessons/bad lessons: "The only way to get what you want in this world is hard work."

Violence: A Disney death.

Language: Disney clean.

Sex: A few frogs are kissed.

Drugs: Wine is consumed.

Parents' advisory: Suitable for all ages.

'INVICTUS'

Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language.

What it's about: White South African rugby players learn what it's like to play for their whole country when Nelson Mandela becomes their number one fan.

Good lessons/bad lessons: Tolerance cuts both ways.

Violence: It's rugby. So, yes.

Language: A few f-bombs, which considering it's a sports drama, is to be expected.

Sex: None.

Drugs: Beer, and plenty of it.

Parents' advisory: Appropriate for all ages.

-- Roger Moore, McClatchy

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Peter Jackson plans movie on Gallipoli - Newstrack India

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:47 AM PST

Wellington, December 17 (ANI): Film-maker Peter Jackson plans to make a movie on Gallipoli ahead of the April 2015 centenary of the ill-fated Anzac landings on the peninsula in World War I.The helmer had planned to give a New Zealand perspective years ago after the release of Australian director Peter Weir's 1981 film Gallipoli, but now he plans to make a more balanced version.

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"I have been thinking about it recently," Stuff.co.nz quoted him as telling Australia's ABC.

He added: "I have been thinking that I'd do it much more from a combined Australian and New Zealand point of view.

"I don't think that we need necessarily to tell a film from a New Zealand perspective because the Anzac tradition, the Australian and New Zealand, were so intertwined in that particular campaign that I think it would be a mistake.

"To me, it's a remarkable part of our history and Peter Weir obviously made a great movie but Peter's movie was set around events of August 7th, August 8th, 1915.

"Gallipoli was a seven or eight month long campaign and that story is yet to be told on film, so I'd like to do that."

The Lord of the Rings director's grandfather had even won a conduct medal at Gallipoli.

He said: "I went to Gallipoli in 1990 for the 75th anniversary. That was the amazing year where ... 50 of the original diggers were there".

"It was an amazing experience to see them all looking at this landscape that most of them hadn't seen since 1915, hadn't seen it for 75 years." (ANI)

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Holiday movie season heats up - Salisbury Post

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:59 AM PST

Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:00 AM |

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In this film publicity image released by Disney, Princess Tiana, voiced by Anika Noni Rose, right, is shown with frog Prince Naveen, voiced by Bruno Campos, in a scene from the animated film, "The Princess and the Frog." The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best animated feature film, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009. The Golden Globe awards will be held Jan. 17 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Disney, file)

Holiday movie-goers have a wonderfully diverse group of films to select from this holiday season.

For family fare, there's "The Princess and the Frog," Walt Disney Studios' first hand-drawn animated film in six years. Although it had a slower start than the studio would have liked, it's gotten good word of mouth and will likely gain momentum over the holidays.

Another movie geared to the young set is "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." That opens on Christmas Day.

Moviegoers seeking a thoughtful film will want to check out the South African apartheid drama "Invictus," already in theatres. Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, "Invictus" has gotten off to a slow start at the box office, but it's gotten good word of mouth and will probably see stronger numbers as the holiday season wears on.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated new release is "Avatar," the years-in-the-making science fiction epic by "Titanic" director James Cameron.

Opening Friday, "Avatar" is the story of an ex-Marine who finds himself on an alien planet with exotic life forms.

Also highly hyped is the sure-to-be-action-packed"Sherlock Holmes," set to open Dec. 25. Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, this action/adventure movie is rated PG-13 .

For fans of the big, flashy musical, there is the Rob Marshall film "Nine," starring Nicole Kidman and a host of other luminaries.

George Clooney fans are looking forward to the wide release of "Up in the Air," the latest from "Juno" director Jason Reitman."Up in the Air" — which features Clooney as a frequent-flyer executive whose fort is down-sizing — has gotten a slew of Golden Globe nominations and plenty of critical acclaim.

Fans of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are awaiting the Dec. 25 release of "It's Complicated," a romantic comedy.

Those looking for a Christmas-themed movie need look no further than "A Christmas Carol." Although it's been out for a while, it's still attracting audiences.

For new releases in Salisbury, go to www.cinemark.com and type in a local zipcode.

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Nielsen: PS3 Owners Biggest Fans Of Movie Games - Gamasutra

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:47 AM PST

Among those who purchase licensed movie tie-in games, PlayStation 3 is the most popular system, according to new data released by tracking firm Nielsen -- while the correlation between movie games and platform spending is lowest on the Wii.

Out of the three current major home consoles plus PlayStation 2, console spending by movie game buyers was highest on the PlayStation 3, Nielsen found in a recent study, with that group spending 17 percent over average. Xbox 360 owners, by contrast, were essentially average, measuring only 1 percent above the index; PlayStation 2 owners were similar, only 4 percent above.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the correlation between licensed game buying and platform spending was lowest on the Wii -- that group spent 6 percent less than the index.

Beyond the platform-specific breakdown, Nielsen found that those who buy movie-based games also buy more movies on DVD, information surely pleasing to the Hollywood studios who license their properties to game publishers. (Many blockbuster movies, from the Transformers franchise through Avatar, continue to receive game adaptations.)

Overall, about two thirds of US households have purchased a DVD in the last two years, but among households that have bought a video game in that same time frame, the DVD purchasing proportion is significantly higher at nearly 85 percent. And in households that have bought movie-based tie-in games specifically, it's even higher, at nearly 92 percent.

Those latter households aren't just more likely to buy DVDs; the amount they spend on DVDs is even more disproportionally high. Interestingly, the increased amount spent on DVDs by game-buying households is exactly in proportion to their increased likelihood to buy them: those households are 28 percent more likely to buy a DVD than non-game households, and they spend 28 percent more on DVDs in dollars.

But while the tie-in-buying households are 37 percent more likely to buy a DVD, they actually end up spending a whopping 95 percent more on DVDs than the non-game households.