Netflix's Speedy Secrets Revealed

Service may come built-in to electronics

(NEWSER) - Best Buy plans to join the digital movie market this summer to offset declining DVD sales, Variety reports. The retailer is in talks with film providers such as CinemaNow—also Blockbuster's supplier—and may market TVs or Blu-ray players with built-in access to the movie library. That would put Best Buy in direct competition with Netflix and Amazon. More»

Billy Crystal brings the same old stuff

(NEWSER) - Last night's Oscars, like its Best Picture, was a throwback to a different time in film history. And though the show may have topped last year's Anne Hathaway-James Franco fiasco, it was boring and tired throughout:

• "The whole night looked like an AARP pep rally," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times . "For a town that prides itself on tinsel and titillation, the night was pretty tame." "It all looked very familiar," but that "is perhaps necessary when so few of the nominated films are."

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.

Reed Hastings explains recent price hike, but many still not happy

(NEWSER) - Netflix’s recent price hike caused rampant backlash , cost the movie rental service one million subscribers , and sent the company’s stock tumbling. Last night, CEO Reed Hastings admitted in a blog post , “I messed up.” But he’s not offering a reversal on the price hike, simply an explanation that, he admits, should have come earlier: Netflix is spinning off its classic DVD-by-mail service; it'll now be a distinct entity known as Qwikster, while Netflix itself will become streaming-only. The Wall Street Journal notes that while Qwikster will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netflix, the two websites (including movie queues and ratings and account information) will not be integrated. More»

Salon offers up a mid-year list

(NEWSER) - Now that we're more than halfway through 2011, the Salon staff compiled the best books, movies, music, and TV of the year so far. Among its recommendations:

• Film: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is quite good—but Lee Chang-dong's Poetry, about a 66-year-old woman who may have Alzheimer's, is a masterpiece. Another surprising inclusion: Matthew McConaughey-vehicle The Lincoln Lawyer, directed by Brad Furman.
• Books: You'd never know The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's third and last novel, was actually unfinished at the time of his death and pieced together by his longtime editor. Also worth checking out: novelist Andre Dubus III's memoir, Townie.