Movie News // Current

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‘New Moon’ Breaks ‘Harry Potter’ Record for Midnight Premiere Ticket Sales

Twilight sequel New Moon has broken the previously impressive midnight box office record of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price,... more

GossipandGab
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‘New Moon’ Star Robert Pattinson on ‘Today’ and ‘Regis & Kelly’ | Snark Food

Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson has been making the rounds on talk shows galore to promote the premiere of New Moon.... more

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Jennifer Hudson to play Winnie Mandela

Variety magazine report that Jennifer Hudson will play Nelson Mandela's ex wife in a new film about her life. The actress... more

AnnieMole
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Our Advance Review of the Syfy ‘Alice’ Two Night Event | Small Screen Scoop

When someone tackles sacred ground, the entire ensemble of people involved have to make the creation near faultless in order to be... more

GossipandGab
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Miley Cyrus Bashes ‘Twilight’ - Won’t Be Seeing ‘New Moon’ | Snark Food

Miley Cyrus apparently is no fan of the Twilight franchise and has no plans on ever seeing the original film or the sequel, New... more

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Johnny Depp Beats Out Robert Pattinson as Sexiest Man Alive | Snark Food

Johnny Depp has taken People's sexiest man alive title for the second time in a decade, beating out Twilight hottie Robert... more

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‘New Moon’ Ticket Sales Already Breaking Records | Snark Food

Twilight fans are so stoked about the second installment of the vampire film series, they are already setting records for New Moon... more

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‘2012′ Blows Up Competition at the Box Office | Snark Food

Director Roland Emmerich's doomsday film 2012 was a disaster at the box office over the weekend - for the competition, that... more

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Two New ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Posters Revealed

Disney has released a couple new Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” posters and it’s good to see in this... more

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‘New Moon’ Taylor Lautner Doll is Hot! | Snark Food

We're still a bit on the fence as to the whole Team Edward/Team Jacob thing, but one thing we will admit - the new Taylor... more

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Official ‘A Single Man’ trailer, poster debut | Hollywood Hills

Have I mentioned how excited I am for this movie? I’m a huge Julianne Moore fan and am still waiting on the day she gets her... more

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There’s going to be a Yogi Bear movie?

Really? Aren’t the people who actually ever watched the Yogi Bear cartoons like 80 or dead? I don’t recall Yogi Bear... more

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Robert Pattinson movie has same name as gay porn company | Hollywood Hills

It’s been reported that Robert Pattinson has signed on for “Bel Ami,” a biopic about 19th Century French writer... more

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Guttenberg: ‘Three Men and a Baby’ sequel coming | Hollywood Hills

Ever wonder what ever happened to those wacky (were they gay too? I can’t remember) dads and the daughter after the two... more

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Sony Pictures buy rights to RISK game

From the PR: Sony Pictures announced today it's acquired the motion picture rights to the board game of world conquest,... more

jlichman
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‘New Moon’ Volturi Featurette Goes Behind the Scenes of ‘Twilight’ Sequel | Snark Food

Twilight fans were gifted with a fabulous new video clip from New Moon on Tuesday featuring Edward (Robert Pattinson) in a... more

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TCM Celebrates Grace Kelly this November | Small Screen Scoop

Screen queen, Grace Kelly, is being honored this month by TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Not that there needs to be a special... more

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60 Minutes Puts Forth Laughable, Factually Incorrect MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy

31 years ago, in 1978, the television program 60 Minutes put on an episode about the awful threat of "video piracy" to the movie industry. Featuring the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the episode focused on how the VCR was going to destroy the movie business because anyone could copy and watch a movie in the privacy of their own home. Of course, in retrospect, that episode is hilariously wrong. You would think that, given how wrong they got it thirty years ago on this particular subject, 60 Minutes would be a bit more careful taking on the same subject again.

No such luck.

CBS's 60 Minutes has made itself out to be more of a laughingstock than usual when it comes to "investigative reporting," putting on an episode about "video piracy" that is basically 100% MPAA propaganda, without any fact checking or any attempt to challenge the (all MPAA connected) speakers, or to include anyone (anyone!) who would present a counterpoint. The episode is funny in that it contradicts itself at times (with no one noticing it) and gets important (and easily checked) facts wrong. And, of course, it basically mimics that old episode that history has shown to have been totally (laughably) false.

The report opens with the claim that counterfeit movies is where organized crime is making its money these days. Fascinating. Except they don't show any proof whatsoever that organized crime has anything to do with movie piracy at all. They just claim it, talk about Mexican gangs, and then assume it must be true. But, of course, most of the report actually focuses on the internet and file sharing of movies -- which completely goes against the claim that organized crime is "making its money" off of video piracy. After all, reports have shown that online file sharing has actually been putting DVD counterfeiters out of business. You would think that the "journalists" at 60 Minutes might have noticed this contradiction.

A big chunk of the episode is taken up by director Steven Soderbergh, who has come out in the past touting the MPAA's line before, so it's no surprise that he does so again. He claims that "piracy is costing Hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office." Does he mention that Hollywood has been making more and more and more at the box office every year the past few years? Oops. No. Did the reporters at 60 Minutes look into this fact and bring it up? Of course not. The entire story appears to be an MPAA press release, so you don't want to cloud it with pesky facts that prove they don't know what they're talking about.

Next up, Soderbergh claims that fewer movies are getting made thanks to movie piracy. Uh huh. Another checkable fact. Another one wrong. It was recently summarized, according to the movie industry's own numbers:

2004 Total Movies Released: 567 Total Combined Gross: $9,327,315,935
2005 Total Movies Released: 594 Total Combined Gross: $8,825,324,278
2006 Total Movies Released: 808 Total Combined Gross: $9,225,689,414
2007 Total Movies Released: 1022 Total Combined Gross: $9,665,661,126
2008 Total Movies Released: 1037 Total Combined Gross: $9,705,677,862
2009 Total Movies Released: 1177 Total Combined Gross: $7,596,626,766
(2009 figures incomplete, total movies scheduled to be released, gross to date)

Read the rest of this story at http://techdirt.com/articles/20091101/1818186751.shtml31 years ago, in 1978, the television program 60 Minutes put on an episode about the awful threat of "video piracy" to... more