Daily Call Sheet: Six Masterpieces Set for Blu-ray Release, 'Avatar' Sequels Delayed, YouTube Set To 'Redefine TV'

DVD RELEASE DELAYS LEAVE RETAILERS UNFAZED

This is why Hollywood hates the free market:

Netflix appeared to shrug off the latest announcement from Warner Bros. Home Video that it will double the delay — to 56 days — between the time it releases its DVDs to retailers and the time it makes them available at wholesale prices to online renters and kiosk operators. Warner Bros. was not allowing those DVDs to be streamed anyway, and since Netflix is focusing on its streaming business and apparently attempting to phase out its DVD-by-mail business, the new delay would seem to have little impact on its overall strategy. B. Riley & Co. analyst Eric Wold told Bloomberg News that while Netflix may seem unaffected by the move, for kiosk operators like Redbox and Blockbuster Express, where new releases dominate their rentals, “that kind of delay would really hurt them.” Both kiosk operators are expected to begin buying new releases at retail discounters like Wal-Mart and Best Buy and making them available on a next-day basis.

The customers are just as willing to wait, and by the time those 56 days roll around, we’ll probably have forgotten all about these stupid movies.

AVATAR’ SEQUELS MAY BE FURTHER AWAY THAN YOU EXPECTED

Is that a promise?

Bleeding Cool recently caught up with AVATAR producer Jon Landau, who told them that the first of James Cameron’s sequels is “four years away”, which potentially puts AVATAR 2 in theaters around 2015 or 2016.

I’ll be 50 in 2016. That’s kinda freaking me out.

YOUTUBE SPENDS $100 MILLION TO REDEFINE TV

This is just another form of streaming:

That bet goes both ways. Beginning this month, YouTube is gambling $100 million that by seeding professional production firms such as Young Hollywood — whose slate of YouTube-only programming premieres Monday — it will draw more eyeballs for longer viewing sessions.

Williams calls the online video giant’s move a “game-changer” and argues that the growing number of stars who sit on his white sofa — Cruz came to see Williams straight from Jay Leno’s Tonight Show couch — spotlights the emerging clout of Web-only shows.

The Old Guard and very few who controlled distribution are losing their grip, and that’s a great thing for America.

‘REWIND THIS’ TRAILER: THE VHS REVOLUTION MAY NOT BE QUITE OVER

Some nostalgia I get, but even when they were the only game in town, I hated VHS. Clunky, lousy quality, and a lousy quality that only degrades over time.

UPCOMING BLU-RAY RELEASES: SIX MASTERPIECES

Available From Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment January 24:

THE APARTMENT: COLLECTOR’S EDITION: Winner of five 1960 ACADEMY AWARDS , including Best Picture, The Apartment is legendary director Billy Wilder at his most scathing and satirical best. With audio commentary from film producer and AFI member Bruce Block and two featurettes– including a loving tribute to actor Jack Lemmon–this special Collector’s Edition is your chance to own one of “the finest comedies Hollywood has turned out” (Newsweek)!

SPELLBOUND: “The secret recesses of the mind are explored with brilliant and terrifying effect” (New York Herald Tribune) in this fascinating psychological thriller from Alfred Hitchcock. Featuring powerful performances from Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, this masterpiece of mystery, romance and suspense boasts an ACADEMY AWARD -Winning score by Miklos Rozsa and a haunting dream sequence by Salvador Dalí.

REBECCA: For his first American film, Alfred Hitchcock teamed up with producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind) to create a “spine-tingling” (LA Weekly) romantic thriller that Won the ACADEMY AWARD for Best Picture. Based on Daphne Du Maurier’s timeless novel, this dark, atmospheric tale of fatal obsession features Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson, as well as a “haunting score by Franz Waxman” (Leonard Maltin).

NOTORIOUS: From legendary director Alfred Hitchcock comes this “torrid, tense, tinglingly suspenseful” (Cosmopolitan) film that ranks as one of his best. ACADEMY AWARD Winner Ingrid Bergman* “is literally ravishing” (Pauline Kael), and Cary Grant and Claude Rains give “excellent performances” (Variety) in this “taut spy movie that delivers a romantic punch” (The New Yorker).

MANHATTAN: Nominated for two ACADEMY AWARDS ,and considered “one of [Woody] Allen’s most enduring accomplishments” (Boxoffice), Manhattan is a wry, touching and finely rendered portrait of modern relationships set against the backdrop of urban alienation. Sumptuously photographed in black and white and accompanied by a magnificent Gershwin score, Allen’s aesthetic triumph is a “prismatic portrait of a time and a place that may be studied decades hence” (Time).

ANNIE HALL: Considered to be “Woody Allen’s breakthrough movie” (Time), Annie Hall won four ACADEMY AWARDS including Best Picture and established Allen as the premier auteur filmmaker. Thought by many critics to be Allen’s magnum opus, Annie Hall confirmed that Allen had “completed the journey from comic to humorist, from comedy writer to wit [and] from inventive moviemaker to creative artist” (Saturday Review).

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Killer Elite (2011) — Review coming.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

WHERE WAS DAVID CROSS WHEN THESE OTHER MOVIES HE DID NEEDED TO BE BASHED?

THREE NEW PHOTOS FROM ‘THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

RELATIVITY MEDIA TO PROMOTE ‘ACT OF VALOR’ WITH 4 SUPER BOWL SPOTS

‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 5’ SCRIPT BEING REWRITTEN

OSCARS SET TO MOVE FROM HOLLYWOOD TO DOWNTOWN L.A.?

ANCHOR BAY HAS PICKED UP MICHAEL BIEHN’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, ‘THE VICTIM

ROBERT DOWNEY JR DISCUSSES PLANS FOR ‘IRON MAN 3

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO’: THE BOOK VS. THE FILM VS. THE FILM (SPOILERS)

THE DEVIL INSIDE’ DUO WILLIAM BRENT BELL, MATTHEW PETERMAN PREP NEW HORROR PROJECT

A LOOK AT ‘THE ARTIST’ IN THE CONTEXT OF FILM HISTORY

WILLIAM SHATNER TO STAR IN ONE-MAN BROADWAY SHOW

NEW ‘SHOWTIME ANYTIME’ APP BRINGS SHOWTIME MOVIES AND SHOWS TO THE IPAD

SIX OF THE BEST – LITTLE-SEEN GEMS

HOW MR. ROGERS SAVED THE VCR

TIVO STUDY: PEOPLE WITH DVR’S WATCH FEW SHOWS LIVE

COOL VIDEO: ‘BOARDWALK EMPIRE’ VISUAL EFFECTS REEL

JAMIE FOXX SAYS TARANTINO MOVIE WILL BE ‘HISTORIC’

WHEN WILL THE FOUND FOOTAGE HORROR FAD END?

STALLONE AND SCHWARZENEGGER MAY REUNITE FOR ‘THE TOMB’

SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND’ AND 9 OTHER UNSUNG SCI-FI TV CLASSICS

‘BREAKING BAD’ SEASON 5: WALTER WHITE’S FATE REVEALED?

THE 10 MOST OBNOXIOUSLY OVER-IMITATED MOVIE CHARACTERS

14 VARIATIONS OF STUDIO LOGOS

SPACED AND THE MECHANICS OF THE PERFECT COMEDY TEAM

5 SURPRISINGLY TOUCHING ‘FUTURAMA’ EPISODES (SPOILERS)

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY, JANUARY 13

TCM:

5:30 PM EST: Tender Trap, The (1955) — A swinging bachelor finds love when he meets a girl immune to his line. Dir: Charles Walters Cast: Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, David Wayne. C-111 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format.

The gorgeous widescreen cinematography alone is worth a look, not to mention the stars.

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