amazon.com Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you are the type of person who likes to get their Christmas shopping done early, I've got some good news for you, because now is your chance to buy some seriously cheap DVDs. Variety is reporting that the online stores for Walmart, Target, and Amazon, have gotten into a DVD pricing war and passing those savings on to you. But don't worry, these aren't your usual discount bin selections, instead, big name titles like Star Trek, Night and The Museum 2, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be going for the low price of only $10 each.

It all started when Walmart announced last Thursday that they would be offering titles like Angels & Demons, Julie & Julia, and Terminator: Salvation at a lower price (but you were only guaranteed the discount price if you shopped online). The reason for the discount according to Walmart was to, "help families holiday shop during this difficult economic environment.", but most have just speculated that the retailer was suffering online and this sale is just the latest attempt to drum up flagging business.

It didn't take long before Target and Amazon jumped into the fray and now an all out 'pricing war' has begun between the three retailers. But before you get too excited, keep in mind that this isn't a shift to a new price scale for DVDs, and the discount is simply to drive new customers to shop online. Prices are expected to go back to normal by the time these titles go into wide release later this month -- so if you love a bargain, you're going to need to act fast.

With the popularity of those new Netlix-playing Roku devices and this week's news that Xbox will also work with the Netflix Watch Instantly service and yesterday's launch of the documentary site SnagFilms and the fact that everyone including your grandma has a site that streams movies, it's no surprise that Amazon has finally also launched a stream service called Amazon Video on Demand. And it's got its own special Roku-type device to be manufactured by Sony, only it's much more expensive at $300 (compared to $99 for the Roku). And it seems you also need a Sony-made hi-def television to use it. The good news: eventually Sony's Bravia TVs will cut out the middle man (aka that $300 device) and Amazon may be able to work out future deals with other TV manufacturers.

Because it comes a little too late in the game, and because iTunes will likely forever keep its rival from offering Disney and ABC titles, I don't see Amazon Video on Demand being hugely successful. But the service at least sounds better than Amazon Unbox, which sold movie downloads. Because everyone and your grandmother subscribes to Netflix, if anyone wants to stream a movie they're going to just go with Watch Instantly and Roku. And because the main downside to that service is that it doesn't transfer to portable devices nor does it allow offline viewing, movie consumers are better off with iTunes for their non-Netflix needs. Hey, at least Amazon is still the preferred place to buy books, whether in paper or digital format.

[via Cinema Tech]

Amazon.com is taking over the world!

Not content with selling everything in the world at the cheapest prices, Amazon is teaming up with 20th Century Fox to bring Keith Donahue's fantasy novel, The Stolen Child, to the big screen. The e-tailer has owned the rights to the novel since 2006, but has only just set up the property with Fox, only to be delayed again with the writer's strike.

The book is to be adapted by the talented Ron Nyswaner, the pen behind Philadelphia and The Painted Veil. The material seems like a brilliant fit, as Donahue's novel centers on a man who was kidnapped by hobgoblins in his youth, and replaced with a lookalike. The novel follows both versions of the character as they grapple with their new lives in an unfamiliar world.

Let me start by saying that I think Tivo, along with the Macintosh computer and buying stuff on the Internet, is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century. The ability to pause live TV or record it via hard drive was a brilliant innovation that has changed the way people think about and use their content. So, it was with a great deal of interest that I ready this Hollywood Reporter article which talks about two of my favorite things joining forces to launch a new video download service.

The new service, known as "Amazon Unbox on Tivo", was originally announced last month but officially went live on Wednesday. It is an extension of Amazon's already existing Unbox service which lets buyers purchase video from Amazon's site and download it to their computers for viewing. With the addition of Tivo as a partner, buyers can now download the content to their computers and then play it through their networked Tivo boxes onto their televisions. Even with this new service, Tivo and Amazon have a long way to go to compete with content providers like Apple's iTunes Store.

As it states in the article, Apple has sold millions of iPods that can play video purchased from iTunes. In contrast, only about 600,000 users have networked Tivos. But even with Tivo's vastly inferior number of potential users, Tara Maitra, Vice President of Content Services at TiVo, is upbeat: "The rate at which we went from zero to 600,000 has happened very quickly. Something like 60% of new boxes are connecting, so certainly the level of interest for having the TiVo on a home network is growing," she said. I hope her positive outlook is warranted because I really want to see Tivo stay in business a long time -- even if they compete with my other favorite company, Apple.

This is some pretty big news, so let's use that handy old writer's crutch known as The Bullet Point:

• Starting this Thursday you'll be able to download movies (and TV shows) from Amazon.com's brand-new Unbox service. Rental movies are $3.99 and the permanent downloads will run you about $15. TV episodes will be 2 bucks, and you can get 'em the day after they play on network TV.
• Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, Sony and Universal are all on board. Disney is not. (You'll be able to download Disney fare via iTunes, but that's not what this story is about. This one, however, is.)
• Amazon will give members their own movie page, which will be accessible from any computer, to house all their purchases.
• The picture quality will (allegedly) be on par with DVD technology, and you'll most likely be using Amazon's own browser-embedded player to enjoy your films.
• The "window" issue still hasn't been clarified. We're not yet sure if we can purchase Movie X upon its DVD release -- or if we have to wait for the pre-cable pay-per-view window.

Sounds like a pretty good plan. (Check out an excellent sneak peek!) I'll definitely be checking out the Unbox service -- although nothing's gonna stop me from continuing to build one helluva powerful DVD collection.

Back in June, Warner Bros. and Amazon.com got together to promote "DVD Decision 2006," which would allow the movie fans to vote on which WB titles they'd most like to see released this year. And yes, the results are in.

On December 19th you can pick up Lucille Ball in Best Foot Forward (1943)*, Rod Steiger in Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (1969), Sophia Loren in Michael Anderson's Operation Crossbow (1965), Judy Garland in Presenting Lily Mars (1943), Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's There Was a Crooked Man... (1970), and James Garner in Up Periscope (1959). And then on January 30th we get the original Angels in the Outfield (1951)*, Kirk Douglas and Faye Dunaway in Elia Kazan's The Arrangement (1969), Clark Gable in Raoul Walsh's Band of Angels (1957), gymnast Kurt Thomas in the insipid Gymkata (1985), Albert Finney in Michael Crichton's Looker (1981), and Greer Garson & Walter Pidgeon in Mervyn LeRoy's Madame Curie (1943).

Ah, but here's what the Amazon page doesn't tell you: Which movies didn't make the cut! Fortunately for you I have a PhD in Googlizing, so I was able to put together a list of the losers -- almost all of which will most likely be on DVD by the end of next year, anyway. (By the way, those two *asterisked* titles are Amazon.com exclusives, just so you know.)

Though Amazon.com has yet to initiate its widely-anticipated foray into the movie rental business (currently expected to be launching next month), it has today announced its intention to get into production. The company recently acquired the rights to The Stolen Child, the best-selling debut novel by Keith Donohue, and is now in the process of tracking down a screenwriter and director. The book actually sounds really disturbing -- it tells the story of "a 7-year-old [who] is kidnapped by forest-dwelling changelings, who replace him with a look-alike." The kid ends up "[roaming] the woods with a pack of feral children" while his replacement tries to fit in with his new family. YIKES.

Interestingly, Amazon's main role in the film will be in advertising. Sort of like Starbucks recently did with Akeelah and the Bee, Amazon will use its website to promote the hell out of the movie when release time comes. While this is sure to be incredibly annoying (I'm envisioning a movie-related version of ESPN's endless, odious shilling of their crappy cell phones), it'll be sure to get the film a massive amount of exposure, since everyone and their brother uses Amazon for, well, everything. And, if you click on the book title above, you'll get an idea of what they have in store -- for some reason, Amazon's been pimping the hell out of the novel for a while.