film

Wal-Mart Stores debuted a service today that executives say will encourage DVD ownership while also giving consumers ubiquitous access to their film libraries via the cloud.

The megaretailer announced that customers can bring their DVDs into their local Wal-Mart, and pay $2 to get access to each title via Walmart.com's cloud service, powered by the UltraViolet platform. The $2 only supplies a user with access to a copy in standard definition; a high-definition copy will cost $5.

Dan Rayburn, an analyst who has covered streaming media for more than a decade, broke the news about Wal-Mart's announcement … Read more

Google can't seem to get the hang of selling music and movies over the Internet--a goal that has similarly befuddled Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, and others.

Google TV was dead on arrival. YouTube's video-rental service is at best an also-ran, and that service also faces a possible exodus of major record labels to rival Facebook sometime next year. Google Music no longer exists as a standalone service. Last week, the search company folded the three-month-old music store into the newly revamped Android Market.

Google's misfires illustrate just how hard it is to become a major media player. In … Read more

Roger Ebert, perhaps the country's best-known film critic, has posted a note to Twitter that says Netflix has "largely stopped buying streaming rights to indie films."

Ebert, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who was also part of the long-running TV show "Siskel and Ebert and The Movies," began tweeting about Netflix's lack of independent films on Friday. Ebert's Twitter posts were first spotted by Hackingnetflix.com.

The first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ebert is well-sourced in Hollywood, but he did not offer any other details to support his claim. … Read more

Abound Solar, a startup that received a Department of Energy loan, said this week that it will shut down one of its production lines and accelerate plans to make a more competitive solar panel.

As part of the change, the company will cut 180 jobs in Colorado, where it is based. Abound Solar makes solar panels with thin film cells made from cadmium telluride, the same material used by First Solar and General Electric.

In late 2010, Abound Solar secured a $400 million loan guarantee from the DOE to boost its production in Longmont, Colo., and build a new factory … Read more

If there's been one thing you could count on every year since the Academy Awards started honoring animated features, it's that Pixar would walk away with the Oscar. Through last year, six of the studio's eight films won golden statuettes.

But Pixar's 2011 entry, "Cars 2," a box office success but a critical failure, not only didn't win on Sunday, it wasn't even nominated. And that meant a golden opportunity for a slew of other animated filmmakers.

In the end, it was "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski's &… Read more

Foreclosures, bankruptcies, eviction notices, and tears.

That's the picture painted Thursday in a New York Times op-ed piece about a Hollywood film industry that is supposedly "contracting."

Hilary De Vries, a screenwriter and book author, writes about how Hollywood's middle class is hurting. We're not talking Brad and Angelina or Martin Scorsese. We're talking about the guy you might remember from a soap opera or the writing team for a lesser-known sitcom. De Vries offered anecdotes about how her neighbors--several cash-strapped actors and screenwriters--have lost homes to foreclosure. She described how popular eateries are … Read more

BodyGuardz has been around for a while, providing customers with an extra layer of protection for their device. In the past, the installation methods were cumbersome, if not impossible. The new application gel used when applying a BodyGuardz protective film makes installation a breeze.

Watch the video above as I apply the protective skin to my iPhone 4S. The entire process took less than 10 minutes, including talking throughout the entire process. In each kit you get two sets of skins, should you need to reapply a skin down the road. You will also get skins for the side of … Read more

Flixlab is a free app for iPhone that lets you quickly make movies and share them with your Facebook friends without a lot of hassle. A recent feature update includes a cooperative movie-making mode: you'll now be able to take pictures and videos of an event with your friend and then quickly share and combine the content from both of your iPhones into one video.

Flixlab takes all the busywork out of making good-looking movies by adding all the effects, transitions, and music automatically before you share them with your Facebook friends. Simply follow the app's step-by-step process … Read more

Google+ finally allows nicknames, Priceline is killing Shatner, and a solar radiation storm crashes communication systems.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded: