Just on the heels of the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, here comes more evidence that the domino theory was bunk (or, at least, that the dominoes fall easier in the other direction): Carl's Jr. has just opened its first outpost in Vietnam -- in Ho Chi Minh City to boot.
Although KFC and Pizza Hut have already successfully invaded territory formerly held by the Vietcong, this marks the first arrival of a U.S.-based burger joint, according to Carl's Jr. parent company, CKE Restaurants.
"We are happy to introduce real American-style charbroiled burgers to the [Vietnamese] mar...
I feel this!! Daniel and my phone has been acting up since upgrading! No worries, iPhone 4 tomorrow!!
Back when we outlined the iOS 4 features missing from iPhone 3G, we forgot one key bullet point: performance. As more and more two-year veterans of Apple’s phones have taken the plunge and upgraded to the latest firmware, slowdown and battery drain issues have become a common complaint, which is even more irksome when you think of just how little the update really adds to the UI. The Wall Street Journal reports speaking to anApple spokesperson who said the company is looking into the matter. That doesn’t necessarily mean a fix is coming anytime soon, but hey, at least you can hold the darn thing however you want
Exec producers Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec offered few spoilers when moderator Marcos Siega rattled off a list of questions he had about The CW’s genre soap “The Vampire Diaries.”
Responses ranged from “I’m not going to say” to “possibly,” but to quell the crowd’s disappointment in the lack of new information from the gatekeepers, a never-before-seen teaser of the Season 2 premiere — which wrapped shooting the day before — was shown, ending the lighthearted panel on an anticipatory note.
The highlight was Katherine (or Elena) admitting to Damon: “The truth is, I never loved you.” Then you see an unhappy Damon violently throw down a glass. A natural reaction if you were caught in his situation, wouldn’t you think?
Some plot points did surface, including one that could prove problematic.
When Siega asked about the possibility of seeing Stefan speaking to Katherine but believing she was Elena, Williamson revealed that “Katherine and Stefan [do] come face to face [in the first episode back].” Speaking of Katherine, according to Williamson, there’s more to her backstory: “There’s another part of the story we haven’t shown you.”
Plec shared some info on Jeremy’s fate. “He’s either going to wake up alive or he’s going to wake up dead. But he is going to wake up,” she said. Read into that what you will.
Williamson also made mention that Stefan would be accepting his identity. “One of the things that Stefan will come to terms with is the fact that he’s a vampire, and that includes drinking blood,” he said.
And like “Twilight” and “True Blood,” “Diaries” has a werewolf element crucial to the series. Now that things are progressing for Tyler, whose family (the Lockwoods) has a curse he isn’t yet aware of, the first werewolf image may be seen sooner than you think.
“It’ll happen [some time] in the first order,” Williamson said.
Much of the session catered to the fans and also showcased the cast and crew’s good rapport. When Siega asked about Stefan being “stuck in the closet,” the panelists couldn’t take the question seriously. Wesley went along with it to the amusement of the crowd and finally said, “I’m going to come out of the closet.”
“[Kevin just] said, ‘Marcos, thanks for ruining the big twist,’ ” Somerhalder said, laughing.
Who was most unlike their character, who had the best hair (Paul Wesley) and who was the better kisser (“I guess I’m the lucky one, I get to make out with them both,” Dobrev answered diplomatically) only scratched the surface.
“Earlier today, I wrote on both their hands. Team Elena [on Wesley's] and Team Katherine [on Somerhalder's],” Dobrev said, holding up their wrists as proof.
A fun moment during the panel was when Somerhalder shared that he could wear the vampire fangs and speak normally.
“I can recite the Gettysburg address [while wearing] mine,” he declared.
The panelists urged him to prove his statement (and intelligence) and Somerhalder obliged, “Four score and seven years …,” proving he wasn’t just a pretty face.
At the Comic-Con “Family Guy” panel, producers showed a nine-minute preview of its upcoming “Return of the Jedi” spoof — but ruled out spoofing the prequels.
“This last one almost killed us,” creator Seth MacFarlane said. “It would be too expensive. The problem is we try to be as faithful as possible to the look of those movies to do that with the prequels, I don’t think TV budgets have reached that level yet.”
Added Alex (“Lois”) Borstein: “That, and they sucked.”
MacFarlane also ruled out doing more big franchise movie spoofs … except, possibly, Indiana Jones.
“We may tackle Indiana Jones,” he said. “There’s no one quite like LucasFilm for allowing us to do what we do.”
The “Jedi” parody is titled “It’s a Trap!” and the nine-minute preview was hilarious, better than the show’s “Empire Strikes Back” spoof.
Episodes next season include:
– Stewie goes to the North Pole and tries to kill Santa
– We learn that Lois did a porn movie “and we get to see it”
– Brian sells out and writes a self-help book and is on Bill Maher’s show, which will mix live action and animation
– Meg takes out all her pent-up wrath on the family, while Brian is freaking out on shrooms
– The hour-long season premiere is a whodonit and is based on Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” which characters will be killed off throughout the show.
A fan asked if MacFarlane will bring back the Down Syndrome Girl who so famously annoyed Sarah Palin.
“My guess is that at some point we will … despite all the Palin business,” he said.
Added a writer on the show: “I wrote that episode. This season I decided I’d even things out and write something that would offend smart people.”
She can read minds, sling beers and toss back shots with werewolves. Not to mention work a pair of short-shorts across two states. No wonder True Blood‘s Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is the dream girl for three guys who put the super in supernatural.
So far she’s been loyal to her first love, Civil War-era vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), but a heartrending breach of trust will soon tear the two apart, leaving an opening for calculating Viking bloodsucker Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) and sensitive werewolf bodyguard Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello).
“It will shake the very core of their relationship,” says executive producer Alan Ball of the shocking incident that wounds the couple in Season 3. “Bill and Sookie’s love for each other is authentic and they want to make it work. But it might get harder and harder.”
Sookie’s love life is a huge reason viewers are sucking up True Blood by the gallon. The Emmy-nominated drama, based on the best-selling book series by Charlaine Harris, is HBO’s biggest hit since The Sopranos. Set in backwater Bon Temps, La., and surrounds, it’s a Southern Gothic gumbo of hot sex, deep love and vampire politics, with enough story lines to choke a gator.
But underneath it all is the battle for Sookie’s heart that’s been raging since Season 1. Fans have chosen sides, and it’s on for Team Bill versus Team Eric (unofficial team T-shirts are available online), with new rival Alcide now running as a dark horse, er, wolf.
Team Bill diehards held their breath in the Season 2 finale when Bill was kidnapped just after proposing to Sookie. This season kicked off with Bill being hauled away by werewolves working for vampire king of Mississippi Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare). Sookie’s search for her intended landed her in Russell’s clutches, too, and she might have died along the way if not for Alcide’s protection. Add to that the conniving Eric; Bill’s maker and ex, Lorena (Mariana Kleveno), who’s said she’d like to wear Sookie’s rib cage as a hat; the dangerous vampire queen Sophie-Anne (Evan Rachel Wood); and you’ve got one bloody mess.
Still, Moyer (Paquin’s real-life fiancé) believes that, when it comes to true love, all the mayhem is manageable. “I can’t get into slinging matches about who’s better for Sookie because it’s just ridiculous,” he laughs. “Bill is for Sookie, the love of her life.”
Moyer makes a good case for why on a moonless night in an outdoor scene that will air in the Aug. 8 episode. We won’t reveal too much, but we will say he’s ready to fight Russell, who has put Bill’s progeny, teenage vamp Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), in danger. Bill’s all passion and protectiveness, and definitely someone you want in your corner — or any room of the house. Score one for Team Bill.
But during the escape from Russell’s mansion that eventually leads to this moment, Moyer hints, “Sookie does something we haven’t seen her do yet for Bill. It being the roller-coaster ride that their relationship is, something happens immediately that makes things go awry.”
TV Guide Magazine: Your first season included so many great theme episodes — like the bloody Halloween party and the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Can we expect more of these events? Williamson: The CW is very event-oriented, but I was initially very resistant of it. Last season was all built around Founder’s Day. And this year we’re considering three events as our big lead-up to the season finale. Plec: We do have a carnival in our second episode, and in the third episode, Elena and Damon and Alaric travel together to Duke University, where Isobel, Alaric’s wife and Elena’s birth mother, met and lived together. She studied the paranormal and was an expert in the anthropology department which is how she disguised her vampire research. She had become obsessed with Mystic Falls and dug deep into the history of the town. So on their trip, they dig into her dusty files to see what she may have known that they don’t know.
TV Guide Magazine: What about another Halloween episode? Williamson: We’re not looking at the show as if a whole year has passed, but we will have an episode timed to Halloween, which will be a huge masquerade ball that we’re now thinking of as a possible two-parter. S–t will hit the fan.
TV Guide Magazine: There will be one big murder? Plec: Yes. At least. Williamson: It’s getting harder and harder to look at our wall of death where we have photos of people like Anna (Malese Jow) and Bonnie’s grandmother (Jasmine Guy). Plec: And Lexi (Arielle Kebbel)…
TV Guide Magazine: I was quite upset about Bonnie losing her Gran. Will we meet Bonnie’s parents? Plec: People ask, ‘Why doesn’t Bonnie have parents?’ Well, Bonnie does have parents. She lives with her father, who we have not met on camera, but she does not have a relationship with her mother. These are characters we may possibly explore this year. Bonnie comes from a long line of Bennett witches and mom is out there somewhere… Williamson:True Blood actually did with LaFayette’s mother (revealing her in a mental institution) what we wanted to do with Bonnie’s mother, even though we came up with that idea a year ago. Plec: That happens all the time. Williamson: Sometimes we’ll write dialogue and Nina Dobrev (Elena) will say, ‘You do realize that’s exactly what was said in Twilight, right?’ And I’ll tell her, ‘No, I had no idea.’ Vampire stories have been told for centuries so stories are going to overlap. I just don’t want to do it in the same way or too close to when the others do it.
TV Guide Magazine: Speaking of which, both Twilight and True Blood have plunged heavily into werewolf territory, which you are about to do in your new season. Plec: We actually talked about this a lot, because we didn’t want to be the third to bring something to the table. But it’s in the Vampire Diaries books and the character of Tyler Lockwood could not and should not exist without this werewolf arc. We started laying the groundwork for this story all last season, so to negate that genre element would have been to negate the entire Tyler character. Williamson: Every vampire story has a werewolf nearby. It’s just the way it is.
TV Guide Magazine: What will your werewolves look like? Williamson: Wolves, and we’ll show them transform. But not right away. And I think on True Blood their werewolves transform at will, whereas Tyler is bound by the full moon. Once a month he can’t control it.
TV Guide Magazine: And now it’s looking as though True Blood is about to introduce werepanthers. Williamson: Really? Well we’ll introduce were-armadillos!
TV Guide Magazine: One thing Elena hasn’t considered yet is her potentially having to sacrifice motherhood if she lives forever with a Salvatore vampire, because your vampires can’t conceive, can they? Plec: No they cannot. Williamson: One of the things we’ll see Elena deal with this year are mortality issues. She’s dating a guy who’s never going to get old and she’s never going to be able to have children.
TV Guide Magazine: There’s lots of gayness going on over at True Blood. It surprises me that there’s no suggestion of homosexuality on a Kevin Williamson show. Williamson: I’m happy to bring a gay character in when it fits the story. Caroline’s father is gay. He has a boyfriend. We’ve already set him up as a Founding Family member. Plec: And it’s quite possible we’ll be meeting Caroline’s dad this year. This is going to be a big season for Caroline’s relationship with her mom, the sheriff.
Sounds like some good stuff is planned. And it seems we can at least breath a sigh of relief that Caroline — last seen bleeding internally — will survive her emergency surgery. As for the other cliffhangers, we’ll all have to stay tuned until the Sept. 9 season premiere to find out if Jeremy becomes a vampire, if Uncle John survives and if Elena exposes Katherine as her scheming impostor.
Once Katherine returned to Mystic Falls inThe Vampire Diaries‘ season finale, it didn’t take her long to do some serious damage. Kissing Damon! Stabbing John!
Producers and cast say her tour of destruction has only just begun.
“I would like to see Elena take on Katherine. Elena’s gone a long way,” Nina Dobrev said at the show’s Comic-Con panel Saturday. Despite Elena’s evolution over the course of Season 1, Dobrev said it’s still nice to step into Katherine’s shoes. “She’s badass. She gets away with a lot.”
More important than a possible battle between Elena and Katherine, however, is the conflict ahead for Damon and Stefan, as Katherine tries to pit the Salvatore brothers against each other. In exclusive footage from the new season, Katherine tells Damon that she never loved him, despite their season-finale lip-lock, and tells Stefan that she came back for him.
“This little switcheroo thing is kind of interesting. Katherine fooled Damon, but it will be really interesting to see Katherine and Stefan come face to face,” creator and executive producerKevin Williamson said, noting that the confrontation will take place in the first episode.
Katherine’s return may also lead to changes in Damon and Stefan’s distinct personalities. That means seeing more of “nice Damon” and the increasingly dark side of Stefan.
“I think it’s a thing that will never escape him,” Williamson said. “He’s going to have to come to terms with being a vampire and accepting himself for who he is. Part of accepting himself may just be drinking blood.”
But no matter how dark Stefan or other characters may get this season, executive producerJulie Plec promises the change isn’t necessarily permanent.
“We like to think that the darker a character goes, the closer we get to a window to the light,” she said.
Things can’t get much darker for Katherine, who murdered John in the final moments of the season finale. Will there be further bloodshed in Mystic Falls at her hands? Williamson would only say there would be more deaths ahead.
“It has to fit for the story,” Williamson said of the upcoming fatalities. “It has to come from a place of good storytelling.”
Viewers can also expect to learn more about Katherine’s origins via flashbacks.
“There’s another part of the story we haven’t shown you,” Williamson said. “It’s Chapter 2, but it’s also the other side. That’s sort of the mystery: Where has she been? What has she been up to?”
For the Fringe team, meeting their alternate selves in the series’ second season finale was only the beginning. The tug-of-war between this world and the other world will be even further explored as Season 3 deals with the themes of duality, duplicity and the road not taken. “We want to see how our universe would have evolved had different choices been made along the way,” executive producer J.H. Wyman said at the series’ Comic-Con panel Saturday. “People are really interested in possibilities and choices that you’ve made or could have made that would take your life in a very different direction.” So now that viewers will be spending more time in the alternate universe, we thought we’d make a handy guide to navigating that world with clues and teases from the cast.
1. Don’t underestimate the other universe: John Noble tells TVGuide.com that the alternate universe will play a bigger role this season. Episodes will alternate between showcasing primarily the other world and our world, but with a small hook from the opposite place. Additionally, producers said this season will go back and forth between mythology-heavy episodes and myth-alone episodes with cases.
2. Don’t assume you have Nolivia all figured out: She may be very much in love with her boyfriend, but her mission is to keep an eye on Peter and Walter and she’s sticking to it. “I think Nolivia and Peter are a more natural personality match than our Olivia and alternate Peter … they just have sort of a more animal understanding of each other,” Joshua Jacksonsaid. “I think they’re almost going to get along too well and then the inevitable wrecking comes and it will tear everything up again.”
3. Which means … Olivia is not to be underestimated: First off, don’t expect to stay in confinement for very long, according to Anna Torv. Exclusive new footage from Season 3 not only previewed a steamy kiss between Nolivia and Peter, but a big brawl between the two Olivias. “I always think our Olivia really wants to kind of be the best, whereas [alternate] Olivia just wants to win,” Torv said. “That’s the swagger to her and the earnestness to Olivia.” (Torv’s biggest complaint about her alternate self? “It’s exhausting getting the wig on and off.”)
4. Don’t expect to see Peter over there anytime soon: Joshua Jackson says he’s been able to appreciate the show in a new way thanks to his lack of screen time over there. Plus, Peter has plenty of his own emotional baggage to deal with this year. “He’s in a really bewildered state,” Jackson said. “He doesn’t know who to trust or where to go.”
5. Alternate Broyles is not to be trusted … maybe: Lance Reddick has no doubt his character has “enormous respect” for Walternate, but maybe that’s not enough. “At the same time, Broyles is a bit of a maverick, so I guess we’ll see just how that loyalty plays out.”
6. Nina is ready to cut loose in the other world: Viewers will get to see much more than just alternate Nina’s arm this year, Blair Brown said. “If she’s about control in this world, she’s about a lack of control in that world,” Brown said, who also added there is still a lot to discover this year about Nina and Peter’s relationship.
7. And more alternate Astrid!: Alternate Astrid will appear heavily in the first episodes of the new season, according to Jasika Nicole, who describes the other Astrid as machine-like. “Astrid doesn’t have the emotional communication in the alternative universe which she does in this one,” she said. “She’s kind of a loner.”
8. Fans of that world (and this one!) may not have seen the last of William Bell just yet: Despite Leonard Nimoy‘s retirement after Season 2, the producers think there’s a possibility he could return. “Should we be able to convince him to come out of retirement, we have another story to tell,” executive producer Jeff Pinker said.
Fringe returns to Fox on Thursday, Sept. 23 at 9/8c.
ABC’s forthcoming fall drama No Ordinary Family is one part Heroes,one part The Incredibles— but don’t expect starMichael Chiklis to don any capes or costumes.
“You don’t want to see me in Lycra, believe me. I’m just glad I don’t have 60 pounds of orange latex on,” Chiklis said, alluding to his last superhero job as The Thing in the Fantastic Four films.
The first episode of No Ordinary Family, which was screened for audiences at Comic-Con on Saturday,revolves around a family at its breaking point. After their vacation ends prematurely when the plane they’re on goes down in mysteriously infected waters, the Powells emerge with some extraordinary abilities. (It’s an origin story that owes a debt to that of the Fantastic Four, but Chiklis’ presence should buy the show a pass from fans of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johhny Storm, and Ben Grimm.)
When Jim (Chiklis), a police artist, returns to work, he discovers he has more or less become Superman — minus the flying. Stephanie (Julie Benz), his over-achieving but stretched-thin wife, gains super speed.
Executive producers Greg Berlanti and Jon Harmon Feldman said they liked the idea of melding a traditional family drama with genre elements. Between them, the pair has worked on such dysfunctional family dramas as Dirty Sexy Money and Brothers & Sisters. Berlanti said he was in the middle of writing the script for Green Lantern, the upcoming action film starring Ryan Reynolds, when Feldman pitched him the idea.
“I loved the idea of melding worlds. I love that this is a show where you can have two great actors who can have really powerful scenes together in the bedroom… and also have the guy leap off buildings,” Berlanti said.
“He is powerful in the bedroom,” Benz said. “Super strong.”
Meanwhile, daughter Daphne (Kay Panabaker) finds herself suddenly able to read people’s minds, and son JJ (Jimmy Bennett) becomes super smart.
The show will quickly delve into the mythology of how and why the family came into its powers. In the first episode, Jim fights what seems to be a common criminal, only to discover the crook’s got some extraordinary moves of his own. And Feldman said a new scene will be inserted at the end of the first episode which hints that something, or someone, with less than good intentions may be behind it all.
No Ordinary Family premieres at 8/7c Sept. 28 on ABC.
Without Twilight here to compete at Comic-Con, the most in-demand vampires are those living in Bon Temps. CreatorAlan Ball and the cast from HBO’s True Bloodwere met with the accordant shrieks at the show’s Friday panel. And they were plenty talkative about this season (witches!), behind-the-scenes antics (socks that aren’t for the feet!) and the future (Sookie and Bill 4ever!)
How do the menfolk on True Blood handle all that nudity? Joe Manganiello(Alcide) said there are a few options: “Sock with a draw string, a plastic-backed thong, which apparently breaks if you’re running fast, or the man panty, or manty, which reduces you to a Ken doll.”
Did Alexander Skarsgard come off a little two-dimensional during the panel? Yes, but he had a good excuse. Skarsgard had said he wouldn’t be there because he’s busy shooting a movie, but Anna Paquin and Steven Moyer carried out a cut-out of the actor on stage. The ladies in the audience screamed anyway, and Paquin lovingly caressed 1-D Skarsgard. Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason, was also missing from this year’s lineup.
Hasn’t Tara suffered enough? One would think so. But things aren’t going to get any easier, to hear it from Rutina Wesley (Tara) and Ball. Asked about her bad taste in men, Wesley began singing “looking for love in the all the wrong places,” before explaining. “When Tara gets close to loving someone, she immediately runs away… She’s unstable right now but I’m hoping for stability in the future.” Ball added, “There will be a brief break for her at the end of the season, but it won’t last.” And there you have it, Tara fans.
Will fans will ever learn why Franklin is a bit, er, off? Ball said no, he just is. “He does care [about Tara] in his own twisted way. Unfortunately, he is also a psychopath.”
What’s more challenging for the cast, the sex scenes or the violence? “Well, you have to fake the violence,” Paquin said. Also, she prefers to get naked earlier in the day and kill people later, “that way you’re not all messy for lunch.”
We heard there was a porn version of True Blood. True? Ball said not only is there a porn version of, but the Sookettes in the Snoop Dogg music video — an ode to Sookie, which you can view here — wore the same wig that Porn Eric wore.
What’s up with Sookie’s all-mighty microwave fingers? Paquin said viewers will find out what’s behind her other power before the season’s end. She added that she’s enjoying getting to do more of the ass-kicking this season. “I never got any action in X-Men… I wore some really hot gloves.”
How long are fans going to wait to see Jessica and Hoyt reunited? Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica) hinted that it might be awhile. “You have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else,” she said. “With the confusion of becoming a vampire I don’t know if Jessica loves herself enough, so we have to wait for that first.”
Any celebrity fans we don’t know about? Elizabeth Taylor, according to Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam), who’s friend is Taylor’s lawyer. Harris also said Anne Rice is a big fan. Did we hear the word “cameos” just now?
Which is Bauer van Straten’s favorite live animal on set? “Skarsgard’s not so bad once you get used to him,” she dead-panned.
Is there any character who Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, is most excited for viewers to meet? Sookie’s great-grand father. Harris gave no further details.
What is Paquin’s favorite gross-out moment? With so many to choose from, it must be like choosing a favorite child. But she settled on the scene in Season 2 in which Sookie enters Gran’s house after it has been run over by neighbors under Marianne’s spell. “There was a small naked man in my sink doing something quite intimate with what looked like intestines… that was pretty interesting,” she said.
Is there any hope that Bill and Sookie will end up together? Ball is rooting for the couple. “I do believe they’re soulmates,” he said. “I believe their love is genuine and it really is true,” he said. Harris’s books on the other hand? Relationships may not end up the same way. “I think [the books and the series] are separate entertainment experiences,” she said. “I’ve had my ending in mind for the past 8 or 9 years.”
“It’s so much fun to see our animated characters come to life,” Marjorie Cohn, Nickelodeon’s programming president, said in a statement. “And who better to bring grown up Timmy Turner to life than Drake Bell, who himself grew up on our air and still remains one of our most popular Nick stars ever.”
The animated series focused on 10-year-old Timmy’s refusal to grow up, so he could keep his fairy godparents. In the movie, an older Timmy is still in the fifth grade and living at home, but all that changes when he begins to have feelings for Tootie (Victorious‘ Daniella Monet), a nerdy girl who has grown into a beautiful woman and returned to town. Timmy must make a choice between his godparents or growing up and being in love.
“I think fans of the series will love seeing the characters in this new way,” creator and executive producer Butch Hartman said. “Our mix of live-action and special effects animation will make them look ‘hyper-real’ and our goal is to make this movie as visually exciting as it will be funny.”
Steven Weber (Wings, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) also stars as a larger-than-life oil tycoon, who turns his attention to capturing Timmy’s fairies and using their power to fuel his maniacal ambition.
Move over, Jason Stackhouse. There’s a new set of abs on True Blood.
Joe Manganiello, who plays werewolf Alcide Herveaux, has been promoted to be a series regular for Season 4, a show rep confirms to TVGuide.com.
The One Tree Hill alum was originally brought on to appear in few episodes, but has impressed producers with his performance during Season 3. Manganiello’s character plays a substantial role in The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels, on which True Blood is based.
TORONTO – Canadians will have another way to watch movies this fall when popular California-based Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq:NFLX) launches its streaming video services for the first time outside the United States.
The company, famous for revolutionizing the way Americans rent DVDs by sending them through the mail, announced Monday that it will start offering movies and television shows in Canada for a flat-rate monthly fee.
However, Netflix says its services will not include shipping DVDs through the mail like it does in the U.S.
Instead, the company hopes to build its Canadian presence by streaming movies through the Internet to computers and other devices like the Xbox 360, iPads and the PlayStation 3.
“Netflix members in the U.S. are showing us that streaming is more and more popular and a greater convenience,” said Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey in a phone interview.
The company didn’t say how much it will charge for the service, though it offers tiered packages in the U.S. that allow more programming options for a higher price.
Competition has been heating up in the past few years for Canadians’ entertainment dollars, particularly in the home entertainment market.
Similar on-demand Internet online programming services are being rolled out by several Canadian companies, particularly Quebecor’s Videotron (TSX:QBR.B) and Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B).
The cable operators have built elaborate on-demand services on TVs , and to a lesser extent online, that aim to bring new release movies to homes on the same day as video stores, while offering an extensive back catalogue of television and movies.
Earlier this month, Sony Canada launched a new section of its PlayStation store that allows users to rent or buy movies through the PlayStation 3, similar to how Apple’s iTunes store sells movies and TV shows.
Zip.ca operates a mail-order DVD service similar to Netflix in the U.S., and has promised to launch its own streaming video services in the near future.
The growing number of options has put the pinch on more traditional DVD retailers like Blockbuster Video and Rogers, which a few years ago rebranded its DVD and video games stores as Rogers Plus to accommodate a stronger focus on mobile phone products and cable services.
Netflix says Canada will be the first international market for its Internet subscription service. The company had planned to test the water in the U.K., but backed out before the service launched.
If you haven’t had your fill of vampires between Eclipse and True Blood, then the international trailer for Let Me In provides even more bloodsucking action – albeit, in pint-sized form.
Based on the critically acclaimed Swedish film Let the Right One In, the movie centers on a bullied social outcast (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who becomes curious when young Abby (Chloe Moretz) moves into his building with her guardian (Richard Jenkins). The two form a complicated friendship – complicated in that she’s a vampire. I’m sure devotees of the original may have beef with a remake, but this preview looks promising (and, of course,Moretz is utterly creepy)
Fox comedy starring perennial favorite Will Arnett, Running Wilde.
Who’s in it: Will Arnett and Keri Russell.
What it’s about: An obnoxious billionaire (Arnett) reunites with his earth-crunchy old flame (Russell) and her daughter.
Why it caught my attention: The Arrested Development pedigree. Obviously star Arnett is an alum, plus AD‘s creator Mitch Hurwitz is also behind Running Wilde.
Show most likely to: Make you wish Arrested Development was still on.
There is this youtube video that reinacts lindsay’s court hearing and adds interactivity to it. Like those “choose your own ending” adventure books. It’s really cool.
The video won’t let me embed it so just go here.
Happy Friday manjoyment! Taylor Lautner stripped off his shirt to film Abduction in Pennsylvania yesterday. His washboard abs were made famous by his Twilight saga character Jacob Black’s many shirtless scenes, and it looks like he’s not slacking on the workouts beforeBreaking Dawn. While promoting Eclipse, Taylor joked to us that he’d be keeping his six-pack covered up in his next roles, but it seems like the script calls for this amazing view after all — no complaints here.
That’s the question in Montreal where Pamela Anderson has been denied a permit to launch a spicy new ad campaign promoting vegetarianism.
The campaign, sponsored by the animal rights group PETA, shows the curvaceous former Baywatch star in a bikini with her body marked up like a butcher’s diagram.
Her body is stencilled with labels like “breast,” “round,” and “rump.”
The caption reads: “All animals have the same parts. Have a heart — Go vegetarian.”
Anderson, who’s in Montreal to perform at the Just for Laughs festival, had hoped to launch the campaign today in front of city hall.
But a city official has told PETA that Montreal can’t endorse an advertisement it considers “sexist” — so no permit.
PETA’s Dave Mathews says the city is confusing “sexy with sexist,” while Anderson calls the move surprisingly puritanical for a city whose strip clubs are known globally.
PETA says it’s now considering whether to reschedule its big public unveil.
Argentina became the first Latin American country on Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage.
Lawmakers in the Senate passed the bill after 14 hours of debate that began Wednesday and carried well into early Thursday morning, the state-run Telam news agency reported.
The bill had already passed the lower chamber of Congress.
It gives same-sex couples equal marriage rights, including the ability to adopt children.
The law was backed by the center-left government of President Cristina Kirchner, who has said she will sign it.
The majority Roman Catholic country follows a few others around the world where same-sex marriage is legal. Among them are the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
Last month’s congressional vote and Wednesday’s Senate vote are the latest moves in a pro-gay marriage trend in Argentine politics.
Last year, a judge in Buenos Aires ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was illegal, paving the way for such marriages in the capital of Argentina.
An injunction by another judge stopped what would have been the first same-sex marriage there.
Ultimately, Latin America’s first same-sex marriage happened in Argentina in a southern state with a pro-gay marriage governor.
When Siega asked about the possibility of seeing Stefan speaking to Katherine but believing she was Elena, Williamson revealed that “Katherine and Stefan [do] come face to face [in the first episode back].” Speaking of Katherine, according to Williamson, there’s more to her backstory: “There’s another part of the story we haven’t shown you.”
