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I lived at home for a year after graduating college and commuted to the city everyday by train.  I enjoyed growing up and had such a great college experience, culminating it to backpacking the middle east for almost a month right after.  Then I entered the working world, began living in the same baby room I did when I was 15, did the daily grind with the rest of the zombies, and had no life.  Due to the fact that I lived at home, didn’t have that many friends in the area at the time, and because of this new working lifestyle was just downright miserable, I found myself heading straight to Blockbuster many a Friday nights after work to get a movie, and waste my night away by myself.  It costs $5 to rent a movie, am I didn’t even mind cause if I got lazy and didn’t return the movie within the week, I never had to worry about late fees anymore.

Well times have changed, so have my movie rental preferences, and so has Blockbuster’s late fee policies.

Much like myself, many users switched to Netflix, the leading movie rental service where you could be as lazy as you like, simply click a few buttons, and the movie of your choice came to your mailbox.  I love this option, said see you later Blockbuster and have never looked back.  Well because so many people have done this, Blockbuster, was forced to bring back their late fees to try to make up for some lost revenue.

Blockbuster already is in deep financial trouble and is closing down stores left and right throughout the country.  The problem with Blockbuster is ironically that in order for the store to thrive, it needs users to rent older movies, which in store Blockbusters lack the selection.  There are many reasons why Netflix is dominating, mainly because there are no brick and mortar building, because the cost of them is way too high, so they rather get a couple of warehouses in the middle of bumblefuck and ship everything out.  Blockbuster hasn’t realized this yet for reasons I have no idea.  Now they have their own mail in service but are still behind Netflix, especially since they recently made deals with all the gaming systems to stream movies online.

Blockbuster is in the dumps, and not only Netflix, they have to compete with itunes, on-demand, PPV, and of course illegal downloads.  Bringing back the late fees is a desperate attempt at the company to try to squeeze a little more money out of its customers.  This will backfire.  The ones who are loyal, will be pissed that Blockbuster now is bringing back late fees, and this will most likely cause customers to leave.

Either two things are going to happen in the near future with my predictions.

1. Blockbuster is going to file chapter 11, go completely bankrupt and just shut their doors.

2. Completely shut down all brick and mortar stores and only be a online movie rental service or some sort of downloadeable service to compete with Netflix and itunes.

Circuit City recently had tons of financial problems, shut down, and rumors are they are going to sprout back up but strictly be an online electronics store.  If Blockbuster ever wants to continue in business, they will have to use this business strategy, otherwise they will be another company we will forget ever existed.

What do you think about Blockbuster bringing back late fees?

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We were saddened this morning to hear that 80’s Teen mega star, Corey Haim, suddenly passed away.  It was originally reported that the death could be drug related, but we are not here to confirm anything.

Haim, to me, is best remembered for his role in the 80’s teen hit Lucas.  Lucas is one of the most interesting and captivating characters ever to hit the teen-film world.  Haim is also well remembered for the role of Sam Emerson in The Lost Boys.

More recently, Haim was in the papers for his antics with fellow friend Corey Feldman. The two had a reality show together called “The Two Corey’s.”

Haim suffered from drug problems throughout most of his life.  When one moment we think he might be on the road to a clean life, Corey Haim gets unfortunately taken from us.  Haim will forever live as an 80’s teen all star.

RIP Corey Haim

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Earlier today the 2009 Razzie Award Winners were announced. Sandra Bullock took home the top, or should I say worst, acting prize of the night by winning Worst Actress of the year for “All About Steve.”

Never has the same actress won the Razzie and Oscar in the same year. Bullock will be at the Oscars tonight and is the front runner for Best Actress. Her portrayal as Leigh-Ann Toughy in “The Blind Side” was one heck of a performance and is likely to get her Oscar gold. I guess all I can say is, Bullock is fairly dynamic if she can put on the best and worst acting performances. Could she make history?

If somebody else has something to say about it, it might be Gabby Sidibe in Precious.

Anyways, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen won for Worst Picture and the Jonas Brothers collectively won Worst Actor for the Jonas Brothers Movie.

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I am ecstatic about Tim Burton’s revival of Alice in Wonderland. And if you’re not trying to boycott the movie on account of Disney yanking it from theaters a few weeks early, I take it you are as well. We’ve got a cool new clip from the controversial Disney flick, in which Alice (Mia Wasikowska) and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter, Mrs. Burton herself) meet face-to-face for the first time. Check it out below, and catch Alice in Wonderland in theaters starting March 5^th.

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The Oscars of the UK, aka The BAFTA’s, happened a couple days ago.  The Hurt Locker took home the top prize.  Unlike the Golden Globes which gave the Best Picture award to Avatar, the BAFTA’s gave the award to the true best film of  2009. However, one thing I wanted to quickly discuss is actually something unique to the BAFTA’s.

Like the Grammy Awards, the BAFTA’s give out a rising star award. This is a category that is not included in the Oscar show. I actually think it’s a pretty cool award, and the Academy might want to think about adding some additional categories to spice up the show. Adding this category is something to consider.  The show currently is too straight forward. For lack of a better phrase is pretty ‘by-the-book.’  However, bashing the Academy is not why I want to quickly discuss the award.

The BAFTA’s gave the rising star award to Kristen Stewart. The young actress has dominated the big screen recently with the Twilight series and Adventureland.  She is also starring as Joan Jett in the 2010 anticipated film “The Runaways.”  Stewart beat out Jesse Eisenberg, Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult, and Tahar Rahim. This a big moment in the young career of Kristen Stewart.  Clearly, the success of Twilight has catapulted her fame to stardom. Smile Kristen!

The award was first given out at the BAFTA’s in 2006. Past winners include Noel Clarke, Shia LaBeouf, Eva Green, and James McAvoy.  Just looking at the short group says a lot.  Green, McAvoy and LaBeouf are all huge names now. Will Stewart be as big as them? Is she as big even now? I think you have a big argument to say she is definitely as big as Green and maybe even bigger than McAvoy. I’m not sure she is at the Shia LaBeouf level yet.

What are your thoughts on Kristen Stewart?

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I’m a diehard Kevin Smith fanboy, for better or for worse. But every movie he’s written or directed has been worth seeing to me. I was even one of the few who embraced Zack and Miri Make a Porno for the admirable piece of genius that it was. Point being that Smith has gathered a rabid fan base over the 15 years since Clerks made him more than just another face. On February 26^th, Smith will break tradition and release his first directorial that he did not write the script for.

The first title for Cop Out, about a retired New York police officer who hires his partner to sniff out a rare baseball card to fund his daughter’s wedding, was A Couple of Dicks. However due to the title issue with Zack and Miri (the “Make a Porno” suffix was cut off when the comedy hit DVD for mass appeal) the heading sadly had to change. What I love about Smith is that he’s fearless, and creates movies he knows will stir up controversy. Hell, we were talking about Dicks before, weren’t we?

Cop Out seems all too safe a name, and for that matter all too safe a movie. I can’t help but be unimpressed by both green band and red band trailers released for the film. The jokes seem tired, the premise is lame and has Bruce Willis played anyone in a movie lately who wasn’t a retired cop? The blame can’t be placed on Kevin Smith’s shoulders. That’s the burden of Robb and Mark Cullen, brothers-turned screenwriters with Cop Out. I’ve never heard of these two, although they have no experience at all doing anything movie-wise. They produced 17 and wrote four episodes of the Josh Duhamel-starring television crime drama Las Vegas. Should we be rest assured because they’ve written a few who-done-it TV episodes? I don’t know, but if their definition of a good case is something with Josh Duhamel then I think the Cullens have the same mindset as Michael Bay.

I’ll see Cop Out just because Kevin Smith directed it and, as it was also recently announced, took an 80% pay cut so the flick would get an R-rating. Even if this movie is a total bomb I won’t mark this is Smith’s failure. Up next he’s trying to make the horror Red State and a hockey film entitled Hit Somebody which some are insinuating is a passion project for him. Big-budgeted or not, this can’t be Kevin Smith selling out.

Check out the trailer below and tell me: is Cop Out worth seeing?

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Red Box is the latest victim to the pressures of Hollywood studio giant Warner Brothers.  The shark just ate the little fish of Red Box and is making them delay the rental of new movie releases to 28 days later in order for the studio to try to sell more DVD’s in that time period.  There have been rumors that Warner Brothers was going to force this type of deal with Red Box.  Warner Brothers already delayed new movie releases with Netflix.  The difference is Netflix is rapidly growing their online streaming movies and new releases is only about 30% of their movie rental service distributions.  Many people like myself use the service more to find older and more obscure titles.

Red Box fully relies on new releases and fans of the service love how the kiosks can be found at local stores they normally shop at, and for only $1.  Now with this deal, it will scare users away, really hurting the company big time.  This is total crap.  Warner Brothers is killing a quality and inexpensive service that customers love because it is trying to make more money by selling crappy DVD’s no one wants.  People are getting smarter, and with so many rental options, itunes, and illegally downloading movies, why pay the money to own a crappy movie you will watch once and never again?  Not worth it, DVD’s are dying.  The only DVD’s I don’t mind getting are the classics you find in the $4.99 section in Best Buy.  Other than that, I haven’t bought a new DVD in well over a year, and a lot of that has to do with Netflix.  This deal will not make me buy DVD’s again, and it won’t change Red Box customers minds either.  Sadly I wouldn’t be surprised if other Hollywood studios do the same type of deal.

Here’s what Warner Brothers had to say.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and redbox today announced a new multi-year distribution agreement that will make Warner Bros. new release DVD and Blu-ray titles available to redbox customers after a 28-day window. The agreement also marks the end of the lawsuit that redbox filed against Warner Home Video in August 2009.  Below is a copy of the press release with additional details.

What do you think of Warner Brothers bullying Red Box?

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Buckle that seat belt, we’re going to Wallyworld.  The Griswolds are back for round two, they didn’t get enough of their adventure to Walley World the first time around.  Well….not exactly.  It was just confirmed that there will be another sequel to the National Lampoons Vacation movies after the original came out in 1983.  This time though it will be all grown up Rusty and his family on a trip to Walley World.

Empire Reports

The studio has hired writing team Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley to write a new Vacation flick, which will focus on Rusty Griswold, the son of Chevy Chase’s heroic buffoon, Clark W. Griswold.

Now all grown up, Rusty decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and take his family on a trip to Walley World – the same quest that preoccupied Clark in the original, Harold Ramis-directed Vacation, back in 1983.

I loved the whole series and all them can be considered classics even though fans will always have their order of rank of all the movies.  You can’t go wrong with another one, hopefully the raunchy comedic timing and crude humor will be back.  I think it will be, I don’t believe another sequel would be done if it wasn’t in mind.

More than anything I am curious to see who plays the role of Rusty.  There was a different actor for each Vacation movie so I am curious if they are going to bring back one of the actors who already played the character or bring in someone completely new.  My guesses would either be to bring back Ethan Embry from Vegas Vacation playing the high school aged Rusty or Anthony Michael Hall who played Rusty in the original.  Both older now, a reprise from either of these two would be great and I think fans would agree.  Given my choice I would go with Embry just because he was in the last movie and played an older Rusty, so the continuation would make sense and flow well.  If they go with someone new, hopefully he has the wackiness that can lead to yet another classic Vacation movie.

Who do you think should play Rusty in the new Vacation movie?

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The movie rentalwar has always been seen as a 2 way battle between heavyweights Blockbuster and Netflix.  But there is another up and comer who has made strides in the niche and has won over the hearts of many.  Red Box releases movies from kiosks for $1 and can usually be found in many local grocery stores and Wal-Mart’s around the country.  The low price and general convenience of having the kiosks where people generally shop anyways makes it easy to rent from without the cost of a monthly subscription.

Things may be changing though with Red Box.  On February 1, 2010, Wal-Mart put a 5 limit cap on new release purchases at a time.  This may make things very different for Red Box to keep new releases stocked in their kiosks.  In the end, this could end up really hurting Red Box from succeeding in this large and very competitive industry, especially if more restrictions are made.

Why?

Studios are putting more pressure on rental companies to delay the release of new movies to rental services.  Warner Brothers delayed new releases with Netflix for 28 days, and rumors are more studios will follow.  With decreasing DVD sales, studios are looking for ways to boost sales.  If rental companies are limited to the amount of new releases, especially in the kiosks, then the studios will end up lowering the selling price of DVD’s in an attempt to lure those customers into buying the DVD’s instead of waiting.

Personally I think that’s a load of crap and a small decrease in a DVD is not going to suddenly grab a consumers attention to make them buy it.  Especially if they already have a movie subscription or love the convenience of the local kiosk in their grocery store.  Why would a consumer spend close to $20 instead of just waiting a month and paying $1 at Red Box?  They won’t.

But while a lot of people use Netflix to rent older movies with their huge selection, Red Box is mainly filled with the newest releases.  Any restrictions could jeopardize the company and slowly push them into being extinct which would be bad for the consumer.  Hopefully Rex box could push through and figure out a way to stay afloat and successful and grow their name in the marketplace.

Do you use Red Box?  What do you think about the restrictions limit on new releases?

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Sundance is currently going on in Utah, and we at themoviebanter are sadly not there. However, that does not mean we are not aware of what’s going on there.

On Monday, the independent picture “The Kids Are All Right” was screened for the first time. The film is about a lesbian couple (Annette Bening & Julianne Moore) and their dealings with introducing their child to his sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo).  Apparently the film drew a large applause after its screening on Monday, and is being very well received. Well, Focus Features, Universal’s mini-major studio, bought the rights to the movie for approximately $5 million. This purchase is the biggest film acquisition thus far at Sundance 2010.

Focus has a long track record with gay-themed films (i.e. Milk and Brokeback Mountain). Both Milk and Brokeback were major players during their respective awards seasons and turned out to be huge successes at the box office. Focus has not purchased a film at Sundance since it spent $10 million on “Hamlet 2,” which turned out to be a box office failure.  However, the studio does have a pretty solid batting average when it comes to these character driven movies.

Focus apparently outbid Summit for the rights to this film.

Some of the most successful films that have premiered at Sundance over the years include The Blair Witch Project, Little Miss Sunshine, Saw, Shine, Boiler Room, and The Usual Suspects. There are also plenty others that debuted at Sundance but did not hit big until being released on DVD (i.e. Donnie Darko).

It will be interesting to see how the investment in “The Children Are All Right” pays off.  Keep your eyes open for when this film hits a theater near you.

Are you interested in seeing this?