Movies

About seven months before he died, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was pitching a plan for a subscription-video service to leaders in Hollywood.

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, the entertainment conglomerate and parent company of CNET, said Jobs approached him with the idea about a year ago, according to story in The Hollywood Reporter. Moonves shared the revelation on Saturday while addressing attendees of the UCLA Entertainment Symposium in Los Angeles.

Jobs died in October following a long fight with pancreatic cancer.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Moonves also said that Jobs failed to persuade him to support the subscription service. &… Read more

In Japan's hobby robot circles, Naoki Maru is a respected name. He has won the Robo-One fighting tournament more times than I can count, and now he has a new version of his legendary pugilist King Kizer.

Maru and his son recently showed off a kid-sized edition of the robot with a new master-slave control system. Inspired by the film "Real Steel," Maru's Real King Kizer wowed fans at an Osaka robot festival that wrapped up earlier this week.

Using a Kinect-style Xtion Pro Live sensor, the 3-foot, 2-inch Kizer reproduces the movements of Maru's son, who controlled the machine while Maru explained how it works. … Read more

Apple still has no subscription video service, and without it, Apple TV is nothing to get excited about, one industry analyst says.

As part of Apple's press event for the iPad today in San Francisco, the company announced that Apple TV would get an upgrade. The system will support 1080p movies and TV shows. Navigation was improved. Movies and TV shows will be supported in iCloud so they can be accessed from iPads and iPhones as well.

Dan Rayburn, principle analyst for research firm Frost & Sullivan, is unimpressed. He argues that Apple TV could be so much more, … Read more

An Amazon exec posted to his LinkedIn account that he's currently vice president of original television at Amazon.

Only there is no original TV programming at Amazon--at least not yet.

Fortune magazine spotted the LinkedIn post from Joe Lewis, a new Amazon hire. Lewis is a former production exec at 20th Century Fox, so it's not the like the janitor was making the claim.

Fortune reported that Lewis' title was removed from his LinkedIn page after the magazine called. His title later resurfaced as vice president of production at Amazon Studios.

Amazon did not respond to questions from … Read more

Google is rebuilding Android Market.

The Internet giant, looking to create a more comprehensive source for movies, apps, music, and e-books, is folding Google Music and Google eBookstore into one store, now renamed Google Play, according to Jamie Rosenberg, director of digital content for Google. The changes go into effect today.

Google Play marks a radical departure from Android Market, which has been a fixture of the company's mobile platform since the debut of Android more than three years ago. The move is a tacit admission that offering apps, games, and e-books--the main features of Android Market--isn't enough … Read more

Roger Ebert, perhaps the country's best-known film critic, has posted a note to Twitter that says Netflix has "largely stopped buying streaming rights to indie films."

Ebert, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who was also part of the long-running TV show "Siskel and Ebert and The Movies," began tweeting about Netflix's lack of independent films on Friday. Ebert's Twitter posts were first spotted by Hackingnetflix.com.

The first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ebert is well-sourced in Hollywood, but he did not offer any other details to support his claim. … Read more

The big film studios have made a pile of money by controlling where their movies are distributed and for how long.

A similar strategy has begun to attract supporters among big-name music acts. The idea is to debut music at Apple and Amazon and force subscription services such as Spotify and Rhapsody to the back of the line. According to the acts that have complained about subscription services, they are less profitable and also allegedly cannibalize iTunes sales.

Already, some acts, including Coldplay, have debuted tracks at iTunes and then later distributed them through subscription sites.

Critics say this will … Read more

If there's been one thing you could count on every year since the Academy Awards started honoring animated features, it's that Pixar would walk away with the Oscar. Through last year, six of the studio's eight films won golden statuettes.

But Pixar's 2011 entry, "Cars 2," a box office success but a critical failure, not only didn't win on Sunday, it wasn't even nominated. And that meant a golden opportunity for a slew of other animated filmmakers.

In the end, it was "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski's &… Read more

I knew there was something missing from my life. I just didn't know what it was until I came across ToyOtter's latest list of rejected "Star Wars" merchandise ideas on Action Figure Insider.

I'm missing a Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader salt and pepper shaker set, without which my life will never be complete. How did this product not get made?

"Let these legends of the kitchen table be a constant reminder of the battle over good and evil in the galaxy," the concept reads. Each morning there could be an epic battle for the very soul of my scrambled eggs.… Read more