movies

Microsoft on Wednesday said it is ready with a new update to its Windows Live suite of applications.

The so-called Wave 3 releases include updated versions of Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live Writer, as well as a new online movie making tool (as it hinted it might). Windows Live Movie Maker brings some, but not all of the features found in the movie-making application built into Windows, adding the ability to post videos to Microsoft's Soapbox video-sharing site, but notably not to Google's much larger rival YouTube. (The update to Windows Live Writer, however, … Read more

After 12 solid hours in a coma-like sleep, Wilson has been miraculously cured of consumption. It's a good thing, too, as we discuss Bill Gates' Apple ad counterattack and Michael Moore's insatiable appetite for junk food and justice, all while dodging giant cheeseburger-eating mantises!

Dan the Mantern here. At a caller's suggestion, the guys led the show off with a discussion of the new Microsoft ad featuring Bill Gates, Jerry Seinfeld and a strip mall. Apparently the 'soft spent $250 million on this ad, $249 million of which went to Seinfeld for one day of shooting. If … Read more

Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to premiere his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free, forgoing the traditional theatrical release.

Slacker Uprising , which documents Moore's 62-city tour through swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election to rally young voters, will be available for download for three weeks, beginning September 23. A DVD of the 97-minute film will be released on October 7 through Amazon.com and Netflix.

"This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans," Moore said in a statement Thursday. "The only return any of us are hoping for is … Read more

Amazon.com on Thursday made available to the general public its video-on-demand service, through which ad-free movies and TV shows can be streamed on Macs, PCs, and Sony Bravia flat-screen TVs.

The broader release of the Amazon Video on Demand service comes two months after the online-retailing giant began offering the service to a limited number of its users.

Amazon's service aims to enable users to instantly watch movies or TV shows via a Web browser on their Mac OS or Windows machine. The online retailer is also teaming up with Sony to enable users to purchase or rent … Read more

Fridays at The 404 are awesome, especially before a holiday weekend and especially when Justin gets his panties in a bundle over the term "hipster." With news like Brett Ratner's dream to make a Guitar Hero movie, the world's greatest hacker releasing an autobiography, and even more heartwarming "Calls from the public," how could you not love Fridays?

So it's official: David Duchovny has officially admitted his powerlessness over his addiction to lovemaking and has checked into rehab. Sounds like his next project with Gillian Anderson could be the SeX-Files. Isn't every … Read more

If an anonymous source is correct, the confirmed screenplay-in-the-works about Facebook's origins by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is tied to a forthcoming book about the social network by Bringing Down The House author Ben Mezrich.

Independent Harvard alumni publication 02138 reported on Friday that the film rights to Mezrich's book had been acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment and producer Scott Rubin, who have been confirmed as the backers of Sorkin's screenplay.

Here's the backstory: A partial book proposal from Mezrich, who has come under scrutiny for allegedly exaggerating details in his nonfiction works, leaked to … Read more

If a recently created group on Facebook is to be believed, entertainment stalwart Aaron Sorkin--creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men--is working on penning a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about the origins of Facebook. Someone claiming to be Sorkin's researcher created the group so that he can learn more about the site, and several hundred Facebook members have already joined.

So maybe it's real and maybe it isn't real. But let's start asking the really important questions: which young actor should play founder Mark Zuckerberg?

I say Jason Schwartzman. He'… Read more

Netflix has traced the causes of a lengthy system outage this month that prevented the online movie rental service from shipping for several days to a hardware glitch.

The good news for the company is that it received lots of help from vendors to determine that the cause of the outage, which hobbled the company's ability to ship DVDs from August 11 to August 15, was a "key faulty hardware component." Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said the company's "strongest aspiration is to safeguard this from ever happening again."

The bad news for the … Read more

Do you want a simple way to bring life to your photos? Photo to Movie is a fairly basic concept which adds drama to average photographs. Once you have your chosen photo, use the intuitive tool set to choose your starting and ending frames to create a camera path across the image. The end result is a slow motion pan across a photograph or several photographs, making for excellent slide shows with extremely smooth animations. You can even add music to make it more dramatic. If you're looking for a way to make a photo DVD, a personalized screensaver, … Read more