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Frankly My Dear...

    Frankly My Dear...

    Dish Network/Blockbuster team up for a Netflix buster

    Posted: 21 Sep 2011 03:59 AM PDT

    Netflix killed Blockbuster, pretty much. After Blockbuster had killed most independent neighborhood video stores, it’s worth remembering.

    But now the Block is back, or it could be. A Blockbuster branded streaming service is to be announced Friday by Dish Networks, leaping into the hole that fleeing Netflix customers might rush into.

    Few details are out on how that would work. I am NOT signing up and getting another dish. Not that practical in Florida, where frequent rain showers interrupt service. I don’t love sports enough to put up with that. But I am intrigued.

    Netflix stock has been in free-fall since it changed its pricing and it became obvious that its sweetheart deals with content providers were expiring, not to be renewed at such bargain basement prices.

    The “vanishing instant queue” is proof of and a consequence of that.

    The steep overall drop in the DVD side of the movie/TV/content business plays into this, too. People stopped buying DVDs. And they’re in the process of getting out of renting them. Streaming is the future — no storage issues, no permanent purchase of a commodity you watch once or twice.

    Nothing will bring back the brick and mortar stores that were Blockbuster’s bread and butter. Having teamed or tried to team with electronics stores (Circuit City went belly up), Tivo and others in a desperate bid to survive, this could be Blockbuster’s last chance to have relevance as a brand.

    Smoking movies ‘for adults only” — The Brits are considering it.

    Posted: 21 Sep 2011 03:51 AM PDT

    The MPAA made characters smoking an automatic PG-13 in this country. But in the UK, an advisory board has suggested going a step further. If there’s smoking in the film, it gets their “adults only” rating.

    They’ve always been more strict on the violence thing, and their ratings seem more comprehensive for that reason, and others.

    But this is a new one. Don’t let kids be exposed to images of smokers until they’re old enough to know better.

    EXCLUSIVE: Anna Kendrick on Taylor Lautner, the end of ‘Twilight,’ and singing

    Posted: 20 Sep 2011 10:10 AM PDT

    Anna Kendrick co-stars in “50/50,” which opens Sept. 30. Formerly titled “I’m With Cancer,” it’s a dramatic comedy about a young guy (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who learns he has it and the reaction of his friends, lovers and family. And the reaction of a naive young therapist, played by Kendrick.

    She won great acclaim and an Oscar nomination for her turn in “Up in the Air,” playing a corporate layoff specialist in training. But her first claim to screen fame was being part of the cast of “Twilight,” a saga she just finished filming.

    “You know, when we finished, it felt celebratory. It didn't feel maudlin. We'd made it through these crazy movies without losing any fingers or toes to frostbite. It felt like Mission: Accomplished.”

    On one of her dreamy co-stars, who has a movie, “Abduction,” in theaters Friday:” Taylor Lautner is a more responsible adult than anybody I've ever met. At one point, during Oscar season, he saw me at a party with a friend, both of us older than Taylor. And as he leaves, he says 'You kids have fun tonight.' I was like, 'You need to be president, someday, sir.' I marvel at his maturity.”

    On what is rumored to be her next role, the college a capella singing competition comedy “Pitch Perfect.” Kendrick, 25, got her start on the stage in musicals.

    “I'm not allowed to talk about it yet, don't want to jinx it. I feel like I should be seeing a voice coach. I've let it slide. But now that you mention it, I'm going to get right on that.

    ‘True Blood’ star lands ‘Bonnie’ role in new ‘Bonnie & Clyde’

    Posted: 20 Sep 2011 05:24 AM PDT

    I was sorry to hear Hilary Duff was out of the new indie version of “Bonnie & Clyde,” long-discussed, yet to roll camera. She’s trying to get a foothold in indie film and being a former child star, it’s not going to be easy.

    But Duff’s bad news is good news for Lindsay Pulsipher, who looks a lot more like Bonnie Parker anyway. I met the “True Blood” star when we were both on the jury of a film festival last spring — smart, pretty, with a hint of Depression Era Okie about her, and I mean that in the nicest way. Haunted and rural. It’s why she’s currently filming a “Hatfields & McCoys” TV miniseries with Kevin Costner. She looks like someone from another era.

    She’s landed half of the top billing in writer-director Tonya Holly’s “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.”

    They lost Duff to her new pregnancy earlier in the summer, and they lost their Clyde Barrow to the string of delays that have dogged this enterprise. Who will replace him?