The success of Hulu as an alternative site for online television has awakened the interest of three major Hollywood studios, which ended up seeing a positive view of the market for Internet videos. Lionsgate, Paramount and MGM have joined to launch a similar service, called Epix HD, specifically about movies. This means that you can watch movies like Iron Man, Cloverfield and others, without commercial interruption.

The site is still in private beta, only for the lucky few, but some sites had access to the channel. For who could see, the first HD Epix will be released as a cable channel and later as a website. But to have access to the site, we have to have the channel in our subscription package. Nothing is perfect…

This is a good proposal to come from Hollywood studios, which has been so reluctant to put content online lately. Of course, unlike Hulu, there is the possibility of seeing them in more countries than just the United States. In addition, the Epix Megaplex, by which the network option available to all distributors of the Epix will be called, will also include films that have never been scanned, including crime dramas, musical and gangs.

However, now another service even more interesting was knotted by Epix: “people who subscribed to both the TV service and an Internet service from a partner (like Verizon) could then access epixhd.com for 720p on-demand streaming to their computers at any time “(Ars Technica).

If this project succeeds, the Epix has the potential to become another “phenomenon” of the Internet because certainly the ability to watch any movies this way is very tempting.

Via: Ars Technica.

Keychest, as it called, is meant to redefine ownership as access rights, not physically possessing a copy.

It would allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices — from the Web, to mobile gadgets like iPhones and cable services. It will make movie viewing possible anywhere once you buy the access rights.

Keychest aims to address two of the biggest hurdles blocking widespread consumer adoption of movie downloads: the difficulty of playing a movie back on devices other than a PC or laptop, and limited storage space on those computers’ hard drives.
It would on the other hand, put Disney on a collision course with an initiative, known as the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE, that aims similar.

Keychest uses the same “cloud computing” logic that underlies Web-based applications, such as Google Docs, permitting users to store files and photographs on remote Internet servers and access them from anywhere, rather than keeping them on their own computers.
The release comes during a downslide slip of Hollywood’s DVD sales badly.

Via: WSJ

Disney is preparing a system, called Keychest, which will allow consumers to watch any movie on TV, smart phone or cable TV. According to the site TGDaily the content will not be “downloaded”, but instead, it will be stored in the content provider, operator of cable TV or Telephone Company.

When the product is purchased, the User will receive a password. So, instead of having physical possession of the films, customers buy the right of access to programs, a sort of “pay-per-streaming”.

The release should be done in less than two months and will be available to the public next year. If this happens, the company can move forward the initiative Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, a consortium formed by five major movie studio and TV, with support from Intel, who is trying for a year to produce a similar technology.

Bob Chapek, president of entertainment for Disney in an interview with Walt Street Journal, said the company is thinking in long term and does not expect the Keychest give tangible financial results for the next five years.

An official Disney site told ABC News that “the traditional media will coexist with digital platforms,” noting company is talking with other technology companies. The question is whether the hackers, always eager to unlock protections will not find a way to record content for later distribution.

Via: TGDaily.

The plot is action-suspense formula: some stolen antimatter from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and a threat to use that antimatter to blow up the Vatican during Conclave, by the Illuminati or some scientists driven underground during the 17th century and who are now going to make the Vatican pay by killing thousands of innocent people.

‘Angels and Demons,’ the summer thriller starring science, religion and Tom Hanks, has some ‘high energy physics’ flying off. It has the ingredients of the CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland, and the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest science experiment.

An associate professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University who has visited CERN many times says that ‘the scenes showing windowed corridors full of physicists walking past the collider tunnel are completely unrealistic’ because ‘there’s radiation in the tunnel which is buried 100 metres below ground’ and that it is ‘not a place for people.’

Poetic license with the science of particle physics is heavy in the movie. Moviemakers dramatically stretching scientific facts is shown with ‘the film’s treatment of antimatter as the active ingredient in a powerful bomb.’ In the book and the movie, ‘a quarter gram of antimatter (a dollar bill weighs about a gram) is trapped in a small container that could be used to produce a bomb powerful enough to destroy Vatican City.’
While it is true that annihilation ensues when matter comes in contact with antimatter, scientists at Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory, say ‘it would take them 70 million years to create a quarter gram of antimatter.’

That is why movies are exhilarating. In them, anything can be possible.

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Via Science Centric

The latest Hollywood release The Soloist is based on a real life story of a homeless violin player, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers of Los Angeles and columnist Steve Lopez. Steve Lopez saw this violinist lost in his music on a pavement in Los Angeles. A chance pause and conversation between the two changed the life of both creative individuals. A schizophrenic soloist found his audience and a story teller found his protagonist.

The newspaper columns of Steve Lopez on Ayers evolved into a book and finally the story is all set to release worldwide as The Soloist, directed by Joe Wright who did extensive groundwork to bring forth shunned humanity in to limelight.

We all ignore homeless on the sidewalks. All cities have them. Many of them try to earn through their art. They are saner souls. But lost souls like Ayers simply try to find some peace and home through their music. But in the modern busy world no one has time and intention to pause and listen to the free flowing music. It is rare to come across columnist like Steve Lopez who paused and embarked on an interesting journey with Ayers in spite of his mental condition and limitations. The film will definitely make audience perceive music, mental illness, friendships, compassion, social conditions and realities differently.

Via TimesOnline

Unlike many should think, YouTube doesn’t generate so many profits for Google, actually it generates more expenses. Therefore recently, it has been moving more aggressive publicity plans, as some announcements of Adsense that appear in the videos, or then music sale through iTunes. They say that this is not enough, and isn’t competitive like Hulu, which is very profitable because it makes available whole films and series, thing that is not possible in Youtube.

According to the sources of Wall Street Journal, representatives of YouTube have been talking with great studios of Hollywood to try to close an agreement that would make available in the site complete films in the same day that their DVDs was thrown, in some cases. The access to the films would be made through a rent system, different that already happens now with some series in the site, that are available gratuitously but with adds.

The new service would be similar to Netflix that, besides sending disks for the mail for their subscribers, it also leaves available a catalog of films for transmission from the web. The only difference would be that Google would not send DVDs.

It is important to point that some studios already make free available complete films in their sites. The great majority, however, are old. The price for film rent would be of 4 dollars, the same price that Apple collects for rent of some films in the iTunes.

Among the studios that can close the agreement with YouTube are Lions Gate, Sony and Warner Bros, but a spokesperson of the site said that they are always working to expand the selection and types of videos to offer to the community. For the time being the service will be tested with 10 thousand North American employees of Google during three months.

There isn’t still an only agreement for all of the studios, therefore it still is unknown if the users could download the movies.

Via: Wall Street Journal.

The site of videos YouTube was chosen to debute the new movie from director Luc Besson to both internet and cinemas, reports a news agency Bloomberg on last Thursday.

The movie “Home” which opens in cinemas and on You Tube yesterday is the most recent work of Besson, who directed films like “The Fifth Element,” “Nikita” and “Joan of Arc“.

A joint initiative with the Hollywood studios is one of strategy of YouTube to fetch  profitability from Google with large advertisers. As informed the manager of partnerships for YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Anthony Zameczkowski to Bloomberg, YouTube reaches an audience of 350 million individuals visitors per month.

For studios, the emphasis in ‘virtual’ by YouTube and by its rival Hulu is a solution to ensure financial return due to their losses with the fall in sales of DVDs and the rising of illegal downloads of movies via file-sharing networks – peer -to-peer (P2P).

The bank Credit Suisse estimates that revenue from YouTube grows 20% this year, probably reaching 240 million dollars by the end of 2009. Google does not reveal the results on YouTube, which was purchased in 2006 for 1.65 billion dollars and still seeks the financial balance.

Via: Bloomberg.

The organizers of the Oscar announced Wednesday a plan to expand the list of Oscar given to the best movie, increasing the basis of candidates to the prize of the most important world cinema for ten movies.

The “Academy”, based in Beverly Hills every year gives the Oscar awards for the best films, actors, actresses, directors and other creators of films, a gala ceremony that is accompanied by tens of millions of people throughout the world.

In recent years, the Academy has been criticized because many of the best movie are dramas that have been made for adult audiences, which appear mainly in theaters of art and therefore do not usually attract the public from blockbusters releases of the studios which are focused on adolescents and youth.

For example, the nominees given for best film political drama “Frost / Nixon ,” only raised 27 million dollars of 2008, while the biggest box office movie of last year’s “Batman – The Dark Knigh t” raised 1 billion dollars worldwide, but it wasn’t indicated.

The result is that the movies analysts see a lack of connection between Oscar voters and the movie public. They fear that there will be a fall in the Oscar audience as result of lack of nominations of popular movies.

The number of indications for best director, actor, actress and other awards will continue in five.

The indications for the 82nd edition of the Oscar on the movies released in 2009 will be announced on February 2, 2010, and the Oscar ceremony will be in Los Angeles on March 7.

Via: NY Daily News.

To me, it seemed that the filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire started out with the concept of the great pipe dream via a contest where millions of cash are at stake. The word ‘millionaire’ just has to be in the very title of the game show that will be used. Since drama is all about conflict, they looked for the juxtaposition of millions and found slums in the equation.

Next, they made their minds wander and thought of how best to visualize slums. Ergo, the famed slums of Bombay. Thus, was born a movie about the Western definition of pipe dream juxtaposed with the most graphic visualization of why one would thirst for that pipe dream.

Slumdog Millionaire is pornography of poverty. It panders to the basic instincts of pity and fear (and there’s nothing Aristotelian about it), while raking in profits. Its irresponsible filmmakers wanted to cash in on the rich visuals of a land that they have done great disservice to. There is nothing to celebrate with that film as it leaves a bad taste. I commiserate with the people of India for being used in this pornography. I say shame to Indian authorities who allowed the filming of this movie on Indian turf. Do they realize what they did to their countrymen in the process?

I feel oppressed because of that film even if I’m not an Indian. I feel the attitude of condescension that the lofty Western filmmakers had on the Indian people. Did I feel grateful for my state after I saw the film? Hell, no! In fact, there are some things I’m dying to tell the filmmakers. One, not India nor the whole of Third World has the franchise on slums. Two, the social malaise and degradation in slums are not unique to Mumbai, so the filmmakers could have used generic slums. Three, c’mon, cannibalizing car parts is much more rampant in US and UK. And four, if anyone wants to make a parody of Bollywood, at least pay tribute to it.

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Sean Pean’s film ‘Into the Wild’ (2007) is based on the book (same name) about life of a young adventurous student Christopher Mc Candless who undertook a journey to discover self by living alone in Alaska and tragically could not retrace his steps back to civilized world.

The film essentially explores darkness in the soul of the young man and what prompts him to destroy all his credit cards, give his savings away and walk away from all materialistic comforts showered on him by his parents. The story takes form from the notes maintained by Christopher as he hitchhiked his way to Alaska and is narrated by his sister.

The film captures pathos often seen in modern families where there is wealth but yet each person is lonely and disturbed. It also pans across different interesting individuals and families Christopher meets and bonds on his journey into the wild Alaska. It chronicles journey of a lonely soul to understand self and the world. It leaves disturbing images of tormented soul dying in the serene quiet Alaska.

The film won many awards and accolades. It will appeal to all those film lovers who seek more than entertainment – who seek a vision!

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