Best Buy Joining Digital Movie Biz

Both Battleground and Lilyhammer get mixed reviews, as streaming services branch out

(NEWSER) - Online streaming sites Hulu and Netflix both launched original series this week, as both services take baby steps toward competing with regular television, reports Gigaom . A look at each:

• Hulu's Battleground is the more conventional of the two, a 13-episode comedy about a Senate campaign in Wisconsin that started today, with a new 22-minute episode airing each Tuesday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has solid praise for Battleground, saying it is "a smart, well-written comedy series you might find on a premium cable network." The AP is less kind, however, calling it "a light, watered-down knockoff of The Office," while the New York Daily News comes down somewhere in-between.

Movie reviews: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum can't save amnesia romance

(NEWSER) - In The Vow, Rachel McAdams plays a woman who must learn to love her husband again after amnesia wipes her memory. It's no surprise it was released ahead of Valentine's Day: It's pure mushiness, critics say.

• In the New York Daily News , Elizabeth Weitzman calls the film a "down-the-middle, by-the-numbers fantasy, in which no one is too quirky or interesting or challenging in any way." Still, "there’s no shortage of viewers ready to embrace an old-fashioned, guilty-pleasure romance."

Peter King thinks White House gave too much access to Hollywood

(NEWSER) - The Defense Department is investigating claims that the White House gave classified information about the Osama bin Laden raid ... to Hollywood. GOP Rep. Peter King sought the investigation following allegations that the administration provided Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow with privileged information for her upcoming film on the raid, reports CNN . (It's due out in December 2012.) King charges that the White House gave Bigelow access because it expects a glowing portrayal of its actions on film. More»

Helps redeem otherwise mediocre film

(NEWSER) - As a biopic, The Iron Lady is nothing to write home about—but critics are blown away by Meryl Streep's typically excellent performance as Margaret Thatcher:

• The film contains "little sense of the outside world, the human cost, or the ripple effect of divisive government policies. It is a movie that gives us Thatcher without Thatcherism," writes Xan Brooks in the Guardian . But Streep "is the one great weapon of this often silly and suspect picture." She offers "a masterpiece of mimicry."

Movie may be Sandler's worst ever, prompts call for his retirement

(NEWSER) - Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, in which he plays his own twin sister, is mind-numbingly bad, reviewers say—so poor, in fact, that it languished at a remarkable 0% on Rotten Tomatoes , which calls it “impossible to recommend on any level whatsoever," for most of the morning:

• “More than 24 hours has passed since I watched the new Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill and I am still dead inside,” writes Mary Pols in Time . “It made me feel as if comedy itself were a dirty thing, mainly practiced by people eager to express ugly feelings toward everyone from homely women to Mexican immigrants.”