Film_Fatale
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Posts posted by Film_Fatale
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$100 says you'll never guess!
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Yes, they really mean to do it this time
*Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows*
By BRAD STONE
Published: July 17, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO ? In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called Amazon Video on Demand.
Customers of Amazon?s new store will be able to start watching any of 40,000 movies and television programs immediately after ordering them because they stream, just like programs on a cable video-on-demand service. That is different from most Internet video stores, like Apple iTunes and the original incarnation of Amazon?s video store, which require users to endure lengthy waits as video files are downloaded to their hard drives.
?For the first time, this is drop dead simple,? said Bill Carr, Amazon?s vice president for digital media. ?Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can?t help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button.?
Amazon, which is based in Seattle, is also pursuing the technology and media world?s holy grail ? an Internet pipeline to the TV. It has struck a deal with Sony Electronics to place its Internet video store on the Sony Bravia line of high-definition TVs.
The video store will be accessible through the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, a $300 tower-shaped device that funnels Web video directly to Sony?s high-definition televisions. That is an awkward extra expense, for now. But future Bravias are expected to have this capability embedded in the television, making it even easier to gain access to the full catalog of past and present TV shows and movies, over the Internet, using a television remote control.
Mr. Carr said Amazon would pursue similar deals with other makers of TVs and Internet devices. ?We can support both streaming and downloading,? he said. ?Our goal is to continue to establish partnerships with all companies who have a connected device.?
Amazon Video on Demand will be accessible to a limited number of invited Amazon.com customers on Thursday before it opens more broadly to other users later this summer.
Films and TV shows from almost all the major studios and television networks are available for sale or rental to Amazon?s customers in the United States, at varying prices depending on the program and whether people buy or rent it. The lone holdouts are Walt Disney and ABC, which Disney owns. Both have close relations with Amazon?s digital rival, Apple.
Although Amazon does not release revenue numbers for its digital initiatives, its 10-month-old digital music store, Amazon MP3, is viewed favorably as a solid runner-up to iTunes from Apple. But it is far behind iTunes, which recently surpassed Wal-Mart Stores as the leading supplier of music in the United States.
Amazon Unbox, the company?s original download-only video store, was largely seen as a disappointment because it required customers to download special software to watch the programs they bought. The service also worked only on Windows PCs and TiVo set-top boxes.
To make the new service more enticing, the first two minutes of all movies and TV shows will begin playing for users on Amazon.com immediately when they visit a title?s product page on the digital video store.
It will also let users buy a TV show or movie without actually downloading the video file to the PC?s hard drive. Amazon will store each customer?s selection in what it calls ?Your Video Library.? Customers can then watch that show or movie whenever they return to Amazon, even if it is from a different computer or device, a solution that neatly gets around studio concerns about piracy.
?I can be at my office, purchase a movie, and then it will be available on my television at home,? said Robert Jacobs, a senior manager at Sony Electronics. ?Creating this on-demand available-everywhere access to premium content is going to be very attractive to consumers.?
Amazon will have some formidable rivals if it hopes to dominate the emerging world of digital video. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Netflix are all looking to capture the coveted real estate in the living room as well. Apple has had the most success with video on its iTunes video store and its Apple TV set-top box. It recently added content from several movie studios and introduced video rentals to the service.
Amazon Video on Demand is not expected to generate significant profits for Amazon, which must pay large royalties to Hollywood studios and develop the costly technical infrastructure required to make the service operate reliably.
But Jeff Bezos, Amazon?s chief executive, may have another goal in mind. Establishing a foothold on televisions could be a way to let couch potatoes and television advertisers link up to the rest of Amazon?s online store with a click of the remote control.
?That is certainly a possibility for the future,? Mr. Carr said.
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> {quote:title=MissMusical wrote:}{quote}
> Gracious! You can't say that here... or can you?
Kyle just did...
And I agree, filmlover is *not* an obnoxious poster here by any stretch of the imagination.
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From tcm.com:
http://www.tcm.com/movienews/index/?cid=200744
Elvis Mitchell currently serves as host of The Treatment for National Public Radio?s flagship Los Angeles affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM, which has been broadcast nationally since 1996. He is also entertainment critic for NPR?s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, a position he has held since that shows debut in 1985, and hosts Independent Focus for the Independent Film Channel.
Mitchell?s extensive list of television appearances includes such programs devoted to classic film as Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer, Baadasssss Cinema, Sam Peckinpah?s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade and Cary Grant: A World Apart. He has also guest-hosted for Charlie Rose several times.
Mitchell was film critic for the New York Times for four years, beginning in January 2000. Prior to that, he served as film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for two years, where he won the 1999 American Association of Sunday and Feature Editor?s Excellence in Feature Writing Award for criticism. Other positions as film critic include the Detroit Free Press, LA Weekly and California magazine. He has also served as editor-at-large for Spin magazine and has written for Interview, Esquire and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. In 1993, he was nominated for a Writer?s Guild of America Award for his contributions to The AFI Achievement Award Tribute to Sidney Poitier.
A graduate of Wayne State University with a degree in English literature, Mitchell is a visiting lecturer on African and African-American studies and visual and environmental studies at Harvard University. In October 2002, at the invitation of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, he gave Alain Leroy Locke lectures for the African-American studies department at Harvard University.
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> {quote:title=JakeHolman wrote:}{quote}
> But, *yes*, I believe Streep is a great actress...
And she can sing, too! Anyone else remember the ending of *Postcards from the Edge* ?
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*Turner Classic Movies pick for July 17, 2008: They Won't Believe Me*
?They Won?t Believe Me,? TCM, Thursday, July 17, 10:30 a.m. (EST)
When most people think of TV icon Robert Young, they think of him as the embodiment of middle-class decency he represented in the title roles of ?Father Knows Best? and ?Marcus Welby, M.D.?
In truth, Young had a wider range than he was given credit for, giving believable performances as villains (for Alfred Hitchcock, no less) and weaklings.
In the quirky 1947 B-film noir ?They Won?t Believe Me,? Young plays a combination of both as Larry Ballentine, the gigolo husband of a wealthy woman (Rita Johnson).
Larry is being tried for the murder of his mistress (Susan Hayward), but, as we learn in flashbacks, he didn?t kill her. Unfortunately for him, what really happened is so implausible that he knows the truth will be a hard sell to the jury (hence the title).
Interestingly, ?They Won?t Believe Me? was produced by Hitchcock?s former assistant Joan Harrison, who later supervised his long-running TV series.
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The print that TCM is showing even has the "MCA TV" logo at the beginning, before the Paramount logo!
Well, now I'll be able to say I've seen both versions of *Some Like it Hot* B-)
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I agree, the quality of the print of *The Black Book* very nearly reduced me to tears.
Generally speaking, I can only hope that WHV and the other Time-Warner companies will once again become the leaders in preserving and making classic films available to the general public through cable/satellite and home video, as we move towards an era when (presumably) HD presentation might become the norm for most movies and filmed entertainment.
Just don't expect it to happen overnight, heh.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/movies/17polanski.html
July 17, 2008
*Polanski Asks Prosecutor to Review Film?s Claims*
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
LOS ANGELES ? Will Roman Polanski get bailed out, finally, by a film?
Mr. Polanski, the director of ?Rosemary?s Baby? and ?Chinatown,? fled the United States 30 years ago on the eve of being sentenced for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Now, Mr. Polanski and his lawyer have asked the Los Angeles district attorney?s office to review a new documentary in which a former deputy district attorney claims to have coached the judge in the case.
In the film, ?Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,? the former prosecutor, David Wells, describes advising Judge Laurence J. Rittenband to send Mr. Polanski to prison for a psychiatric review, though Mr. Wells was not involved with the case.
Mr. Wells also points out to the judge, who died in 1993, what he considered defiant behavior by Mr. Polanski. Mr. Wells, in an interview in the film, says he showed Mr. Rittenband a photograph of Mr. Polanski with two young girls taken in Germany before his sentencing. ? ?Judge,? I said, ?Look here. He?s flipping you off,? ? recalled Mr. Wells.
Mr. Polanski has been a fugitive since 1978 when he fled to France to avoid a possible prison sentence or deportation.
In a phone interview Tuesday, his lawyer, Douglas Dalton, said Mr. Wells?s self-described contacts with the judge appeared to violate California law and legal ethics. At the time, Mr. Wells worked in the Santa Monica courthouse of the Los Angeles Superior Court, but, after some initial involvement, he was not assigned to the Polanski case.
?There could be a motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct,? Mr. Dalton said.
?We want to develop information about the extent of the ex parte contacts, what other communications Wells had, whether anybody else was aware of them, that sort of thing.?
In general, Mr. Dalton acknowledged, fugitives have little standing to press conventional appeals. But, he said, California law would permit either a judge or the prosecutor?s office to seek remedies on behalf of Mr. Polanski, including dismissal of the case, if either believed the judicial process had been corrupted.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney, Stephen L. Cooley, would not say whether his office was reviewing the film. She did say she was not aware of any plan by Mr. Cooley?s office to change its stance in the case because of Mr. Wells?s comments.
Mr. Wells, now retired and reached by telephone at home on Tuesday, denied that his contact with the judge had been improper, saying it occurred in open court during routine discussions of various cases.
?I didn?t tell him to do it or that he should do it,? Mr. Wells said of the judge?s decision to put Mr. Polanski in prison for 42 days for psychiatric review, an order that, unlike a prison sentence, could not be appealed. ?I just told him what his options were.?
Charles Whitebread, a professor of criminal law at the University of Southern California, said it would be unusual for a judge to reopen the case. ?That?s not to say that it wouldn?t be justified or couldn?t happen,? he said. ?But it would be unusual.?
In an e-mail message this week, Mr. Polanski, 74, said he would not make a decision on whether to try filing a motion with the court until Mr. Dalton had finished reviewing Mr. Wells?s actions.
?I?m not ruling anything out,? Mr. Polanski said. ?I believe that closure of that entire matter is long overdue.?
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I've been looking forward to it for many months. Partly because I enjoyed the Broadway production, but mostly because of Meryl Streep. Anyone catch Meryl on the Letterman show last nite?
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I didn't get to watch my TiVo'd *A Majority of One* until this morning, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The chance to see Roz and Alec Guinness working together is so rare and delightful that I couldn't possibly quibble about whether or not they were miscast, or if the movie might be a little bit overlong.
It is still a delight, and I wouldn't have had a chance to see it without TCM.
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See, CK, this is why reading your posts is so frustrating. Your post is apparently in response to me, yet I do not recall asking you to provide any such a list. Nor would I need you to provide it, even if I wanted to see such a list. More importantly, it really doesn't seem to bear any relevance to the subject at hand. You have the most annoying habit of frequently responding with something you just cut-and-paste from other websites, which is information that nobody has asked for or even seems to need.
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You are right that all of these movies are part of our cultural history, and one of the few things in which the U.S. has always made a unique contribution to popular culture that has been to a great extent enjoyed by many people all over the world.
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I'll admit, I didn't know *Some Like It Hot* is the original title of the 1939 film with Bob Hope which would later be retitled *Rhythm Romance* (showing tonite at 8ET/5PT). Seems to be one of those seldom-seen Paramount movies that have been largely neglected over the years.
If anyone here has any personal recollections about this movie, I'd love to hear!
(CK, if you read this, please do NOT cut and paste any info from other websites, I am interested in personal opinions from other TCM viewers, not stuff I can look up myself, thank you)
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> {quote:title=Edgecliff wrote:}{quote}
> What impressed me most was the gorgeous widescreen print that TCM ran. Incredibly this one sort of had a HD look to it which makes me hope that WBHV releases this film on DVD soon.
Just out of curiosity, what type of monitor are you using for TV viewing?
And obviously WHV has a better track record than any other studio when it comes to releasing classics.
The other interesting thing for me was that seeing Alec Guinness in Oriental-style clothes is an interesting foreshadowing of things to come, since we all know Guinness would play a by now well-known fictional character in a certain movie released in 1977.... with similar somewhat clothing.
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It was fun to see Mae Questel in this movie, too bad she had to play a character who was prejudiced against people of colour.
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How recently did you have those problems? I hadn't had any trouble up to this morning, looking up the birth dates of Barbara Stanwyck and Ginger Rogers.
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Thelma, I'm aware about that other thread, although I don't post much there. But I do think it needs to be done, not just with Universal (and their Paramount titles) but also with Paramount itself, which still owns its silents and all the other classics they didn't sell to MCA/Universal.
Only very recently have we seen decent DVD releases of Paramount films like *Ace in the Hole* and *The Furies*, due to a licensing agreement with the Criterion Collection. But Criterion alone can't handle all of the other neglected Paramount classics that Paramount still owns.
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molo, you've made some suggestions that I think are very appropriate. A lot of this friction started back in the DVD forums, precisely because CK didn't appreciate the usefulness of keeping things consolidated in such a way as to make it easier for everyone to find the information they are looking for - as opposed to having dozens and dozens of new threads every week, many of which would wind up with 0 replies.
I wouldn't mind in the least bit a consolidated thread with all showings of classic movies on movie channels OTHER than TCM. It makes a lot more sense than dozens of new threads... so-and-so is going to be on Encore Action.... so-and-so is going to be on Encore Love.... so-and-so is going to be on Fox Movie Channel... and so and so endlessly week after week.
For one thing, many of us do not get some of these other movie channels, like Encore, IFC, FMC, etc. But having them in a single consolidated thread makes it a lot easier for people to choose whether or not they want more information about this or not.
And that's been one of the most irritating things about CK. This feeling that he wants to *shove* all this information down people's throats, whether they want it or not (at least that's how it feels to me at times). Having him on ignore was not an easy option (believe me I tried) due to the very large number of threads he has been creating. Not knowing what threads he started made it very possible for some of us to create needless, duplicate threads.
filmlover already addressed those very questionable remarks by CK about claiming to have more knowledge than anyone else on the boards, so I'm not going to go there. Obviously there are extremely knowledgeable people here who don't feel the need to flood the forums with dozens of new threads every day, and it speaks highly of them.
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> {quote:title=ThelmaTodd wrote:}{quote}
> The idea of a musical film compilation should be extended to the work of other studios as well, particularly the early FOX and Paramount titles. The later would be a cue for Universal Studios, the current owner of the early Paramount collection, to create something similar. There would be plenty of material to use!
>
> A compilation release would be a good way to revive public awareness and interest in a film catalogue that the present owners otherwise don't know what to do with anyway.
>
> Thelma
Well, so far those studios have shown very little interest in doing something like that, unfortunately. With Paramount and Universal, they won't even bother releasing many of their classic film library on DVD.
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> {quote:title=filmlover wrote:}{quote}
> CK, first off, no one objects to your name; that is ridiculous. And nobody is "cyber-bullying." What people object to is your constantly trying to draw attention to yourself by posting your headers in bold. The key way to move successfully into a nice neighborhood is to be a good neighbor. Instead, you are the neighbor who moves in and plays loud music to 5 AM with windows and door wide open, not giving a care about anybody else. You've read here in this thread that people think what you are doing is annoying. If it were me, being a decent person, I would realize I had done wrong and would try to get along with the community or move out.
Yes, I agree with this completely. And before CK was bolding every single thread title, there was the exclamation marks. Yes!!! Like This !!!! On Almost Every Sentence!!! Like Every Thread was the Most Amazing Thing in the Universe!!!! It was Overkill!!!!
There is indeed no "cyberbullying" or any such nonsense, nor anything having to do with a username. It's just the annoying, obnoxious, attention-seeking attitude, which just seems at odds with the appreciation of the classic films of what was generally a quieter, gentler era in many ways, when most people generally minded their manners.
> {quote:title=mcphoto1021 wrote:}{quote}
> i joined this board this past year and i have to say everyone's picking on each other keeps me away. i come back every now and then just to look and it's the same old bulls***. my god just ignore people if you don't like what they write. i don't think ck is harming anyone or putting anyone's life in danger. get over it. i can't believe this is a group of classic movie fans it seems more like a group of soap opera fans. drama, drama, you guys must be bored!
If you only registered in January of this year, then you obviously have no idea why this person's behavior is so obnoxious and annoying. And it's not like we haven't asked him, very nicely and politely, many many times over the last 6 months to please not be so annoying.
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Criterion's October releases announced:
*Le doulos* (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962)
*Le deuxieme souffle* (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966)
*Missing* (Costa-Gavras, 1982)
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That also your source on the new movie being based on the made-for-TV movie from 1998?
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> {quote:title=rainingviolets21 wrote:}{quote}
> I love them, too- only I wish they would would have
> shown some 20th Century Foxmusicals...
These movies were made by MGM and the point of them was to highlight the best of the MGM musicals.
It would be great if Fox were to make a compilation of all its greatest musicals; for that matter, WB could do one as well, especially with all the great Busby Berkeley musicals from the early 30s it has.
Special Sales of Classic Titles on DVD & Blu-ray
in Classic Film DVD Reviews
Posted
I know the feeling, FG. Geez, there's over 60 boxed sets in that sale! How am I supposed to choose from so many?