Movies

EMERYVILLE, Calif.--Oh, Pixar, Pixar, Pixar. You've done it again.

Let me just say it now: "Toy Story 3" is fantastic. I saw an advanced screening Thursday night, and going back over the notes I took in the dark theater at Pixar's headquarters here, I find this that I wrote about a third of the way into the film: "I already know it's a BIG hit."

At Pixar's request, those of us in the room for the screening are constrained about what we can say. Director Lee Unkrich, who spoke prior to … Read more

For anyone hoping that a cloud-based music service will launch with the iPad this Saturday, disappointment is lurking.

Music industry sources told CNET this week Apple has informed label managers that a streaming music service is unlikely to be ready before the third quarter.

It will be a disappointment for iTunes fans who have been speculating as to when Apple might use music site Lala--which Apple acquired in December--for its streaming expertise to launch a cloud-based music service.

Some had hoped such a service might arrive when Apple unveiled the iPad tablet in January, but it was a no-show. That … Read more

In Hollywood, everyone knows that movies are king. Television makes money, and video games are a fantastic way to extend a franchise, but movies get the prestige. Vanity Fair doesn't have an annual Emmys party.

That's been the way it is for years, but the fault lines under the entertainment industry are shifting rapidly in favor of a more cohesive and multimedia approach to storytelling, and those who refuse to adapt may well be victims of a major shake-up in the way things work.

The protagonist in this story? A relatively new and increasingly popular concept called transmedia … Read more

One of the most attractive benefits that Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and other Internet movie services have to offer is that they're a cheaper alternative to paying monthly cable fees.

That may be one of the reasons why the cable companies are going on the offensive. The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Co-op, a group that includes Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Sony Pictures, and Universal Pictures announced on Wednesday it plans to spend $30 million on an advertising campaign designed to "expand consumer awareness...of (rental) movies on demand."

The theme of the campaign will be "… Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Deep, deep in the reaches of outerspace, there is a star factory. Astronomers have theorized about its appearance, though they've never had a realistic view of it.

Until now.

Last year, the space shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida en route to a very special mission: NASA'S last-ditch attempt to repair the Hubble Space Telescope before it was too late to salvage humankind's greatest tool for peering at the mysteries in the farthest parts of the sky.

In the new film, "IMAX: Hubble 3D," viewers are treated to the riches … Read more

Rob Glaser's 16 years at the helm of RealNetworks started with the pioneering of the early dot-com days and ended with a courtroom drubbing at the hands of the entertainment industry. In between, Glaser, who by most accounts saw the promise of Web video and music long before his peers, proved himself to be a better visionary than executive.

Earlier this month, Real announced it was giving up on attempts to defend its RealDVD technology against a lawsuit filed by the major movie studios. RealDVD is software that enabled users to create copies of their film discs and store … Read more

If I can tell you one thing about trying to TiVo Sunday night's Oscars, it's that being online during the ceremonies was definitely not a safe place to be.

This is the era of time-shifting, and I like to take full advantage of the fact that I can set my DVR to record something like the Oscars and then sit down later on and watch it at my leisure and yet still be surprised by what happens.

But just as the show was beginning, I switched over to TweetDeck to check something out on Twitter and was horrified … Read more

Wall Street is once again fretting over Netflix.

Some analysts didn't know what to do with themselves on Tuesday when the share price of the Web's top movie rental service shot past their performance expectations. Sure, Netflix continues to return boffo earnings, but after the company's share price hit $70, some brokers took a hard look at Netflix's prospects for the future, according to a MarketWatch story by reporter Therese Poletti.

What the analysts found was a Web video-on-demand segment filling up fast with competitors. That apparently spooked analysts at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Susquehanna … Read more

The hard times just keep slapping Blockbuster. The company announced Wednesday that it posted a $435 million loss for the fourth quarter.

The poor performance is especially hard, considering it happened in the fourth quarter--usually Blockbuster's best months. In the third quarter, the company lost over $114 million.

Back in September, the company announced that it would be closing up to 960 underperforming stores to increase its earnings by $50 million to $60 million. Blockbuster closed 374 U.S. stores last year and plans to accelerate its plans to shutter an additional 545 retail locations this year.

To revitalize … Read more