Here’s the new trailer for the upcoming videogame-to-live-action Disney fantasy adventure movie, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”
It still looks an awful lot like a videogame and is chock full of special effects–but the adaptation also seems to feature much in the way of shirtlessness and mascara-wearing on the part of star Jake Gyllenhaal.
Here is a funny but decidedly creepy new commercial from Microsoft, in its ongoing marketing campaign to push its Bing search service.
Titled “Vampire Decision Engine,” it is an effort by the software giant to tap into vampire mania, playing into Halloween and the next chapter in the “Twilight” movie series, “New Moon,” set to debut in November.
Load up on garlic, Google!
For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”
Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.
Four years ago, the movie, “Snakes on a Plane,” became a genuine Internet phenom well before the movie was in theaters.
Which, in the end, only showed that online buzz had negligible impact on the viewing public, given that the movie’s box office turned out to be tepid at best.
But will another small film, about a demon-plagued couple with an infrared-equipped videocamera, called “Paranormal Activity,” prove that the chatter of Facebook and Twitter has more legs today?
In the ongoing fight between Redbox–which rents DVDs from kiosks for $1–and major Hollywood studios, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment just filed a brief to dismiss Redbox’s lawsuit against it.
The fascinating legal battle between Redbox and the studios centers around the issues of steep discounting, windowing and the price for premium content.
Memo to all Cyborg Geeks:
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology….We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”
Wait, that’s “The Six Million Dollar Man” motto!
But it might as well apply to the Hollywood outfit that owns the “Terminator” movie franchise.
Earlier today, BoomTown wrote a tongue-in-cheek post to depict what I thought of the $1 billion valuation that Twitter recently got from investors.
It was meant all in fun, as poking holes in the frothy atmosphere around the microblogging hottie is kind of an easy layup.
But someone on Twitter called my use of an image of the Kool-Aid pitcher man as “harsh,” and I got several other emails from those who think bubble-investing is dandy!
So, in the interest of fairness, here are some other visual choices for a metaphorical depiction of the amazing valuation.
Here’s one of the many funny videos from this week’s “Saturday Night Live” 35th season opener, hosted by “Transformers” starlet Megan Fox.
Of course, the video features her in a spoof of the silly action movie, although this one is much more entertaining than the real thing.
Since it was tacked onto the slasher movie, “Sorority Row,” which opened this weekend, many have been posting the brand new trailer for “New Moon.”
The second installment of the “Twilight” vampire series debuts Nov. 20, natch!
But for those who cannot wait, here’s the new trailer, as well as the two older ones.
Although it is not a particular surprise, because Microsoft and Yahoo execs had previously said they expected as much, the Justice Department lobbed in a “second request” for information about the search and online advertising partnership the pair struck earlier this summer.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the request to BoomTown.
“As expected Microsoft and Yahoo received an additional request about the agreement, as we said when this agreement was announced,” said Microsoft’s Jack Evans. “We anticipated this deal would be closely reviewed and we continue to be hopeful that it will be approved by early 2010.”
Eric Boyd (pictured here), a high-profile techie from Yahoo who left the company for a start-up last year, is now headed to Microsoft to work for its digital group, now run by another ex-Yahoo, Qi Lu.
UPDATE: Microsoft confirmed the hiring, although declined to provide further details.
Boyd–who is well-known for his card-counting team exploits while at MIT (which was later made into a movie)–had been VP of platform engineering at Yahoo and worked on a variety of projects there.
With the addition of Boyd, sources said, Microsoft has acquired a huge swath of the top tech talent of Yahoo, many of whom came to the software giant because of Lu and to also escape the turmoil at Yahoo.
Last night, “The News Hour With Jim Lehrer” aired a piece on “how technology companies are innovating amid the recession by designing popular new smart phone applications.”
BoomTown was to talk about how perhaps not all of the 65,000 apps being created by legions of third-party developers for the Apple iPhone will result in gold, diamonds and unicorns raining down on entrepreneurs.
Oddly enough, I somehow went all Jules Verne at the end and started talking about screens on coffee tables, so I am obviously just as bad.
If you want to get Hollywood movie studio types irked, mention Google. And if you want them steamed, bringing up Netflix will usually work.
But if you want to see the tops of their heads blow off, Redbox is just the ticket.
Except not to their movies, it seems, if the major movie studio execs have their way in an ever-growing legal battle with the DVD-rental kiosk company.
A typical consumer named Louie Swisher, though, begs to differ.
While John Hughes has almost nothing to do with the Internet, BoomTown–who is of a certain age–was saddened to hear about the premature passing of this director supreme of suburban teen angst movies of the 1980s.
He died yesterday of a heart attack at 59 years old.
His hit films included “The Breakfast Club,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He wrote “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles,” as well as “Pretty in Pink,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Home Alone” and tons of others.
Here are some great clips online.
When Time Warner reports its second -quarter earnings tomorrow morning, before the markets open, most Wall Street analysts are not expecting much from the media giant, as it continues to slog toward a rejiggering of itself.
Time Warner–which owns assets like the Warner Bros. movie studio, the AOL online unit, the HBO and Turner cable networks and Time Inc. magazines–is expected to earn 37 cents per share, compared to 72 cents a year ago, according to a poll of analysts from Thomson Reuters.
Revenue is expected to be $6.97 billion, down from $11.56 billion in the same quarter last year. This drop is mostly due to the March spinoff of its cable unit, Time Warner Cable.
But AOL and its magazine unit are expected to continue to drag on Time Warner’s financial performance.
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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