TV, Movies & Home Theatre - Page 42

Netflix is finally beginning to hit the PC with 4K content, but you're going to be locked to using Windows 10, and more horribly - Microsoft's not-so-popular Edge browser.

It's a massive limitation, and unlike the source of this news - The Next Web, which report that it could be Microsoft made this move to "ensure battery efficiency", as not every person has a laptop with a 4K display. The problem is, the current limitation of Netflix resolution support is 1080p, with the next step being 4K.

Worse yet, you'll require Intel's next-gen Kaby Lake processor to play 4K content for now. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Microsoft must have paid a considerable sum to Netflix for this stupid exclusive crap, and so did Intel. Microsoft's expensive new, super-awesome Surface Studio rocks a gorgeous 4500x3000 display... and thanks to it not rocking Intel's 7th-gen Kaby Lake architecture, 4K streams aren't going to work with Netflix.

The best cinema experience I've ever had was seeing Interstellar in IMAX, thanks to Christopher Nolan shooting the movie in 70mm - so the news that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow shooting Star Wars: Episode 9 in 65mm has me beyond excited, and I'm not even a Star Wars fan.

Shooting movies in 65mm provides an IMAX level of quality and resolution, so the final product is a crisper look when played through projectors and on massive TVs. The grain from 35mm was present in J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens, but that won't be the case in Episode 9 - as 65mm will result in hyper-realistic detail.

Chief Marketing Officer and President of Kodak's Consumer and Film Division, Steve Overman, said that as more directors are taking advantages from the technology available, better and higher quality films are being made. There are large advantages to using traditional film over digital, with Interstellar from Christopher Nolan and his upcoming work on Dunkirk to impress thanks to Nolan's love of film.

Netflix is splashing around some big money for its upcoming 1970s hip-hop drama 'The Get Down', with costs of around $16 million per episode - and with the 12-episode order, we're looking at a total of $190 million for the show.

Baz Luhrmann is behind the project, as he has co-created the musical drama that is set in New York during the 70s, with iconic musicians like Nas and Grandmaster Flash thrown into the mix, and Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin, and Pulitzer-winning writer Stephen Adly Guirgis, as well as the massive sets and huge cast, as Slashfilm reports: "there was no way this show was ever going to be cheap".

Deadline is reporting from their sources that Netflix is paying around $16 million per episode, and if we compare this to the $10 million per episode of Game of Thrones in S6, HBO wins by a long shot. Variety reports that The Get Down was originally budgeted with $7.5 million per episode, but Lurhmann pushed for more and more, leading to the $16 million per episode number. But are the numbers on Netflix's side?

I'm a fan of The Walking Dead, don't get me wrong - but an 88-episode marathon? AMC needs to team with Red Bull and maybe the guys behind Limitless for this, with the 88-hour marathon kicking off on October 16 at 7AM with the entire first season being shown, as well as the first half of season two.

It'll be finished off with a two-hour retrospective of the series on Sunday night, with the marathon continuing each night at 6PM for the rest of the week. Season 6's finale will air just before the S7 premiere on Sunday, October 23 at 9/8c. Throughout its six seasons, there have been 83 episodes of The Walking Dead, with some episodes running over the usual one-hour runtime.

AMC is kicking off its annual FearFest with the 88-hour marathon of The Walking Dead, where the network will air horror films like Carrie, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, Alien, and Chucky as well as their respective sequels, prequels, spinoffs and/or reboots, reports Slashfilm.

If you were bored with your weekend and wanted to see something maybe a little unexpected, then you'll be glad to know we have the official trailer for the upcoming Power Rangers movie to cheer you up.

As you can see, it looks like a Transformers-like movie with a massive injection of teenage drama and angst... but director Dean Israelite explains his ideas behind Lionsgate's adaption of the TV series: "I grew up on Power Rangers in South Africa and what was important to me from the beginning was making a movie about growing up".

He continued: "I wanted to make this a grounded, character driven origin story that was always set to the backdrop of this adventure. Always at the center was making these characters real with real problems that people can find relatable. I wanted to remain true to the spirit of the franchise that I grew up on and loved. And I wanted really hard to reimagine it and reinvent it for a 2017 audience".

When the expected support for the 4K UltraHD Blu-ray format didn't eventuate with the PS4 pro, Microsoft were quick to burn PlayStation fans with a well-timed tweet. And while Sony have continued to dig their heels in regarding a video streaming future, Microsoft have doubled down on the rhetoric.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Microsoft's Product Management and Planning head Albert Penello revealed that the decision to include a 4K Blu-ray drive was driven by "a personal belief in 4K" with the decision "locked a long time ago". Penello continued to explain his strong personal belief in the format, saying: "I think it's as meaningful an upgrade as it was going from SD to HD, when you start seeing the native 4K content. And so we were just really bullish on it. We wanted to make sure we delivered when we said 4K, that we had streaming, up-scaling and physical media as part of the 4K story for Xbox One S. So I think it's fair to say I'm a fan.... For the high-end enthusiast, 4K Blu-rays look amazing. "

And just in case it wasn't clear Penello echoed the feelings of upset PlayStation fans in "We have good differentiation between the PS4 slim and us." Ain't that the truth.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was mashed together in a response to the money-making Marvel Cinematic Universe and the mega success of The Avengers, but too many chefs were in the kitchen and the movie was mostly a mess. The 3-hour 'Ultimate Edition' was a much better put-together movie, but it still failed to be a massive box office success.

Well, now we have Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes coming out and saying Batman v Superman underperforming, and Suicide Squad doing solid business, both were critically ripped apart. He recognises something is wrong, and when he sat down with Variety, he said: "We do think there's a little room for improvement. We can do a little bit better on the creative".

He continued: "The DC Comics characters have a little more lightness in them than maybe what you saw in those movies, so we're thinking about that. The strategy worked. The execution did deliver what we wanted to do. We're right on course or better. The main thing was to launch DC and reinvigorate it with the fan base. The reboot of Batman with Ben Affleck was a big success".

Netflix has completely changed itself over the last few years, and that change isn't stopping with company CFO David Wells saying during the week that there is a big change in the balance between licensed content and Netflix's own original shows.

The company was already "one-third to halfway" towards reaching this goal, but Wells explained that it was all part of a "multiyear transition and evolution toward more of our own content". Netflix is now on a path towards its half-original goals, while reducing the cost of production, and increasing the number of bidders in the streaming business make it both cheaper, and easier to take bigger chances on shows and movies versus traditional TV networks.

Wells explained: "You have supply and demand settling out. We don't necessarily have to have home runs. We can also live with singles, doubles and triples especially commensurate with their cost".

Begin rant: I'm sitting in front of my computer looking at the price of the Xbox One S console, as I'm about to buy my first console since the PS3. I never owned an Xbox 360, Xbox One or PS4, but the new Xbox One S has me convinced. I'm moving back to consoles for a very big thing: 4K Blu-ray, which doesn't exist on the PC right now - the mightiest platform of them all.

Seriously, it doesn't make sense.

Years later, I went to a PC store in my state and purchased a Pioneer DVDROM with an MPEG2 decoder card, and getting The Matrix on DVD right after. That night, I launched into the next generation of entertainment, with my PC at the center of it. The quality was on another level, but having my PC power by DVD drive was really something else for entertainment at my desk.

Jurassic World stomped through the box office last year, pulling in over $650 million in the US, and over $1 billion in foreign box office numbers for a total of $1.67 billion - all done on a budget of around $150 million.

Now there are reports that Jurassic World 2 will have an even bigger budget of $260 million, an additional $110 million over the original. Considering Paramount would've made a hefty profit on the original Jurassic World movie, the sequel is set to be even bigger - and remember, this is the second movie in a planned trilogy, so expect Jurassic World 3 to have a similar, if not bigger budget than Jurassic World 2.

Jurassic World is currently the third biggest movie to hit cinemas with its $1.67 billion haul, with Jurassic World 2 dropping into cinemas on June 22, 2018.

While 65 inch is fast becoming the defacto size for large screen TV's for those that require just a little bigger, LG's OLED series can help fill that demand... But only if you've got the budget to spare.

According to The Verge, LG have now released their top-end Signature series 77" inch to the U.S. market for a grand total of $20K which not only gets you a huge display, but cutting edge features such as an insane black level, HDR, Dolby Vision and 4K to boot. The cash also gets you access to LG's "24/7 VIP service" tech support, as well as a bonus LG G Pad tablet. So all in all, you can't afford to not get one!

When the expected inclusion of a 4K UltraHD Blu-ray drive in the forthcoming PlayStation Neo didn't come to pass, Sony execs blamed lack of demand for its exclusion. But that hasn't stopped the company from announcing plans to release a stand-alone 4K player early next year.

According to Digital Trends, Sony's UBP-X1000ES maiden 4K UltraHD Blu-ray player will be positioned as a high-end device capable of playing HD Blu-ray, DVD, CD and SA-CD discs and will play friendly with custom installations. Sony Electronics director of home entertainment systems Yukio Ishikawa said the player was "specifically designed to deliver the highest quality video and audio possible and will excite the most demanding A/V enthusiasts", but a more comprehensive set of specifications, including whether the player will be one of the first to hit the market equipped with Dolby Vision playback were not immediately forthcoming.

Sony's UBP-X1000ES is due to hit the market in the first quarter of 2017.

Netflix has just released a bunch of new trailers for their upcoming shows, with trailers for Easy, Chef's Table: France, and even a time travel movie called ARQ - as well as teasing a new clip for Narcos: Season 2. As for details on the new shows, here's what we're looking at:

Suicide Squad has been hit with a slew of negative reviews, and personally, I just didn't like the movie - that hasn't had any effect on box office numbers, with Suicide Squad passing over $500 million worldwide.

As of August 18, the movie has pulled in $509 million - just 13 days after its debut. Deadpool took around the same amount of time to hit the $500 million mark, but I don't think Suicide Squad will have the same legs as Deadpool. Suicide Squad is the highest-grossing August film in US history, taking the previous record-holder down - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Suicide Squad is doing well overseas, pulling in $271 million overseas while in the US it has made $238 million. Check out our review on Suicide Squad right here.

While Stranger Things fans are freaking out of Netflix downtime, HBO fans are going to explode in tears with the news that Game of Thrones will be ending in 2018.

During the Television Critics Association press tour, HBO boss Casey Bloys said that the 8th season of Game of Thrones will be the last. During a chat with Entertainment Weekly, Blows said that the Game of Thrones showrunners had planned for 8 seasons, and was happy to reach the end without continuing it past the agreed upon 8 seasons.

There will be two shortened seasons released in 2017 and 2018, with 13 episodes in total - but we don't know how many episodes will make it into season 8. Bloys said that HBO isn't against a spinoff of Game of Thrones, teasing: "It's something I'm not opposed to, but of course it has to make sense creatively". I think with the success of Better Call Saul after Breaking Bad ended, HBO could continue its run with a Game of Thrones spinoff - what do you think?

Stranger Things is one of the best TV shows of the last couple of years, with the Netflix exclusive set in the 80s with a constant reminder of Steven Spielberg movies - and it has some rabid fans already with my wife and myself, as well as my of my friends across the world in love with it.

Well, Netflix had an outage recently and it interrupted people during their binge on Stranger Things - with them taking their rage out to an 11/10 on Twitter. Netflix ANZ (Australian and New Zealand) social media team was on point, tweeting out to @amy_stevenson5 who said she was "having mom jeans withdrawals" that here is "a little something to keep you going. Be Strong. Be strong like Barb" - with Barb being an integral part of Stranger Things' storyline.

Some fans were completely broken, and it's understandable - Stranger Things is fantastic.

Disney has made some changes to its release schedule, something I like to think is in retaliation to the teases of Justice League - even while Zack Snyder might not have the same grip on Justice League as Patty Jenkins does with Wonder Woman, which looks phenomenal, by the way.

The changes to Disney's revised schedule sees Avengers: Infinity War as a single movie, instead of the planned two-part series that would've been Infinity War - Part 1, and Infinity War - Part 2. The Wrap reports that there's now a new movie known as "Untitled Avengers", but now it makes the new Marvel movies much more interesting to think about.

The Russo Brothers are behind Avengers: Infinity War, the same directors who handled Captain America: Civil War - but the now scrapped second Infinity War movie will be rolled into something else. Avengers: Infinity War is scheduled for May 4, 2018 while the new Untitled Avengers movie will be released on May 3, 2019.

This year's San Diego Comic-Con has been huge, with some massive movie trailer reveals - including Justice League and Wonder Woman. Plenty of TV shows are also teasing trailers at SDCC, so we've collected a bunch of the best trailers for your viewing pleasure.

Starting off with the follow up to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the larger movie, Justice League.

Zack Snyder is back - and while I loved Man of Steel, I didn't like Batman v Superman so much, so I have very mixed feelings with Snyder taking on Justice League after the mess of BvS - but, in saying that, the trailer looks good.

AMC debuted the trailer for the 7th season of The Walking Dead during San Diego Comic-Con, and boy does it look good.

The Walking Dead S7 will see the introduction of King Ezekiel, who is played by Khary Payton - with most of the trailer focusing on the scary new character, Negan. Negan is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan of everything fame - for me, he was the father of the Winchester's in Supernatural.

In the S6 finale, Negan killed someone with his handy weapon and companion, but we don't know who - as it was done in not-so-traditional The Walking Dead fashion. The reveal of who died in the S6 finale will be revealed in the S7 premiere, according to Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes in the show. Lincoln said during The Walking Dead panel at SDCC: "It's a really shitty start to the season".

I still remember The Blair Witch Project, watching it when I was a teenager in the world of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and all of the rebirth of horror movies at the time - but it was The Blair Witch Project that had a profound effect on me. It is the movie that started viral marketing, and it worked incredibly well - just not so much for its sequel.

Well, the Blair Witch is coming back with a sequel to the original, and not the mess that was Book of Shadows. Lionsgate commited to the new Blair Witch early, marketing the movie as 'The Woods' so that people wouldn't know it was Blair Witch, and whether they would see if it was after watching the movie. Once the screenings began, it was hard to keep that secret.

Blair Witch uses "advances in camera technology and selfie culture, there are many more cameras involved than the three angles Heather, Josh and Mike offered. There's plenty of coverage, and more fun to be had with body cameras", reports Slashfilm.