Movie: Toy Story 3 – Some Assembly Required

Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3 is an extremely mixed movie, offering a very touching closing scene, but is preceded by what is mostly a horror movie and may be inappropriate for children.

In this installment of Toy Story, Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the whole cast of toys are faced with the inevitable: their owner, Andy, has grown up, and he is leaving the house to go off to college. Naturally, the toys are worried, since it seems they are destined for the attic–or worse. Continue reading

Report: $1 DVD Rentals Could Save Customers $1 Billion

A recent article in Home Media Magazine headlined that “$1 DVD Rentals Could Cost Industry $1 Billion,” according to an industry report. The report argues that lower revenue as a result of lower prices will lead to less movie production activity, hurting the economy as a whole.

What about the customer in all of this? Let’s re-write the article’s headline from his point of view: “$1 DVD Rentals Could Save Customers $1 Billion.” Continue reading

Netflix: Note Up Your Queues

netflix_logo2If your Netflix queue is well over 100 movies, it could take a year or longer before that just-added title arrives in your mailbox. This creates the problem of having to remember the reason you wanted to watch something. How many times have you opened that red envelope only to discover a movie you’ve never heard of and have no interest in seeing? It’s time to put an end to these situations. Continue reading

Eight Reasons to Quit Cable TV

Two years ago I canceled my cable TV subscription and never regretted it, and you should consider doing it too, for the following eight reasons:

1. Cable is too expensive. At $60-$100 per month, depending on what you subscribe to, that money can be put to better use — and I don’t mean on something other than entertainment. With this budget at your discretion each month, subscribe to Netflix ($10-$30), go to the movie theater ($20-$40) and have enough left over to buy/rent a TV show or movies from iTunes, Amazon or the local video store. Sure, you can’t get everything that’s on TV that way, but once you shut off access to cable, you soon forget about what you might have had if you had it, and focus on enjoying the shows you do have access to. Continue reading