Category: Movies

Play this trailer for Shark Night 3-D on top volume. At about 0:57, put your ear next to your PC speaker for about a minute. Congratulations! You are now deaf in one ear! (Note: Don’t really do that.) More »

While US residents seethe over increases in Netflix’s pricing, our neighbors in Canada are upset by the competing Movie Club package Shaw Cable is offering. The $12 per month service offers unlimited access to “hundreds of the best Hollywood movies” and plans to have high definition feeds later this summer for an additional $5 (cable companies in the US have a similar scheme under the name Vutopia.) Causing the issue are promises that “the only limit is the number of hours in your day” unlike bandwidth capped streaming from unnamed services like Netflix. While Movie Club viewing over the internet on a PC, tablet or other device is capped just like any other service, access via the cable box is not metered. That distinction doesn’t sit well with subscribers and consumer groups arguing for net neutrality, particularly as the CRTC is in the midst of hearings over usage-based internet billing. While that case hasn’t been decided, our own ruling is already in and is firmly against Shaw, or anyone else, advertising based on advantages that exist only due to policies it created in the first place.

Continue reading Shaw Cable’s Netflix competitor bypasses bandwidth caps on its way to the TV

Shaw Cable’s Netflix competitor bypasses bandwidth caps on its way to the TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 15:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The original Google Videos is going to be mighty huffy about this. Not only has it endured repeated attempts on its life following Big G’s acquisition of YouTube, but now its very identity has been humiliatingly copied and pasted onto an entirely different service. The new Google Videos is a movie rental app that will give Android users in the US mobile access to the 3,000+ premium titles that are already available to rent on a desktop. So far, no one has been able to break out the popcorn except a few lucky Xoom owners, but last night the app mysteriously became available to everyone else in Android Market, too. Unfortunately, those quick triggers who managed to install the app before it disappeared were rewarded with a riveting succession of server errors, but at least it gives us hope that the real-deal will be with the masses in short order. Google Videos is dead, long live Google Videos.

Google Videos rental app makes fleeting cameo in Market, portends of an imminent release originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As usual, Pixar is pushing boundaries when it comes to the CGI in Cars 2. Making the film required a render farm containing 12,500 CPU cores. And on average, it took 11.5 hours to render a single frame. [Cnet] More »

Hard to say why Google chose to roll its Movies app out first to 3G-packed tablets sporting Android 3.1 (a smaller testbed, perhaps?), but it looks as if it won’t matter for much longer. We’ve received a number of tips this evening suggesting that Google Movies can now be downloaded from the Android Market by WiFi-only Xoom tablets, though some are seeing a litany of server errors when trying to actually use the service. That said, we didn’t see any issues here at Engadget HQ, so it’s possible that a few kinks are still being worked out on select servers. Give it a whirl and let us know how it turns out in comments below, and if you’re a proud owner of a Galaxy Tab 10.1… well, we guess you’re also the proud owner of a trait called “patience.”

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola’s WiFi Xoom gains access to Google Movies, just in time for the weekend originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The town of Juzcar, Andalucia has an infestation of Smurfs. Family homes, shops, local businesses — even the center church — were all repainted in honor of the premiere of The Smurfs movie. Goodbye beautiful original facade, hello Smurf village. More »

The one thing you can’t call director Terrence Malick is unambitious. In The Tree of Life, out now in select theaters, he tries to do for 1950s Texas what Stanley Kubrick did for prehistoric man; that is, tie a few ordinary lives to the immensity and wonder of universe and, ultimately, to us. More »

The first official image from the second season of Walking Dead is out, showing off some new undead make up tricks. While the zombies look impressively gruesome, we’re wondering if the new yellow-eyed look is the first of many changes? More »

We quite liked X-Men: First Class, but sadly it failed to levitate the box office with the power of its mind. The mutant prequel made just $56 million in its opening weekend, less than the $69 million some analysts predicted. More »

Hurt Locker lawsuit targets a record-breaking 24,583 IP addresses originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Check out Kaydara, a sprawling, almost hour-long Matrix fan movie conceived by Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard, French fans of the Wachowskis’ trilogy. The special effects are an absolute knockout for a labor of love. More »

The Star Trek 2 script was supposed to be finished by Christmas 2009, and it’s still not done. So it should surprise nobody that there’s talk that the Trek sequel may be delayed six months from June 2012 release date. More »

Something bothered me the entire time I was watching Thor in 3D—not how closely the plot echoed Disney's Hercules, or Anthony Hopkins' dial-a-performance—no, it was something persistent through every single second of the flick. It was too dim. More »

We can't make this up people.  According to Google, who gets to make the rules since it's their service, rooted devices are not supported by the Android Markets new movie rental service "due to requirements related to copyright protection".  You'll even see a specific error message when you attempt to try — "Failed to fetch license for [movie title] (error 49)". 

So now people who root their phones, whether to get rid of the crap "open" that's forced down their throats, or to have a current version of Android, are punished and lumped in with folks who steal movies.  Nice move, Google.  That makes me want to buy more of your products and use more of your services, so I can be treated like a criminal just because I'm smart enough to get rid of CityID, or want a safe version of Android on my phone.  And of course, I'd much rather steal movies streamed with a poor bitrate at a low resolution to my phone than use Google to search out any of the thousands of places where I could steal them using my computer. Facepalm.

Of course, the Android community will find a way around this.  I already have some ideas, and I'm sure others will, too.  But we shouldn't have to.  And once we do, I'll download one (and only one) movie from the Market for the satisfaction of defeating this stupid move by Google, then be sure to never use the service again.  Redbox doesn't care if I want to run a custom ROM on my phone, so they'll get my $4.00.

Source: Android Market support.  Thanks, Joshua!