Netflix recently awarded their $1 million prize to a seven person group of statisticians and computer scientists for improving the accuracy of customer movie recommendations by ten percent.

Fans of three dimensional flicks rejoice, the immersive experience is headed towards home television. Satellite-TV operator British Sky Broadcasting is taking steps to launch an entirely 3D channel in the U.K. sometime next year. It will be the largest push for three dimensional television yet with the company brainstorming content ideas beyond pure “gimmicks.”
Price will initially remain a hurdle for the technology to become widely adopted. To view Sky’s content, expensive 3D ready television sets are necessary. The cost of the subscription service itself has not yet been specified.
3D television shows are nothing new. Ever since NBC’s 1989 Super Bowl [...]

The Guerilla Drive-In is an organization that projects 16MM movies in interesting locations in and around the West Chester, Pennsylvania area. Since 2007 the group has staged secret film viewings in settings that match the theme of the movie being screened. For example: Caddyshack was shown at a golf course, Meatballs at a canoe rental company and Ghostbusters at the supposedly haunted Fort Mifflin.

Wired recently interviewed Shane Meadows, the British film-maker, about shooting his new project named Le Donk in only five days.  Meadows hopes the short shooting schedule will enable the film to focus on more minute details of the story and force the production team to come up with crazier ideas.  Meadows teamed up with Warp Films producer, Mark Herbert for this project and they are looking to create a “5-Day-Feature” manifesto that encourages anyone to submit their movie for professional distribution.
This particular ode to spontaneous film-making follows burgeoning British rapper, Le Donk, on his quest to become a star.  The [...]

Deciding when to skip out to the restroom during a new movie can be tough – you don’t want to miss anything crucial. But website RunPee aims to help you know the exact right time to go. The page has time-lines for popular movies, that list suggested points throughout the film when you can leave without missing an important scene. It also tells you how much time you have to get back, and has a scrambled re-cap, that can be revealed and reviewed when you return.
Although it’s a useful idea, RunPee uses Flash, which would not make it a good [...]

Where The Wild Things Are director Spike Jonze tested the scare-factor of each character’s mask on children.  The video below was posted on Jonze’s blog We Love You So.

[via Pedestrian TV

The movies aren’t usually considered a sensory experience, despite several historical attempts at scented cinema dating back to 1916. But soon you may be able to actually feel what’s going on in the movies – perhaps a Michael Bay explosion or an Angelina Jolie drop kick…or even better, to experience a real emotional reaction based not just on what you’re seeing in a movie, but on on actual physical stimulus.
Researchers at Phillips Electronics just debuted a jacket lined with 64 vibration motors at the 2009 World Haptics Conference. As described by Paul Lemmens, a Philips senior scientist, the jacket is [...]

ISO50 has shared a great inspirational resource for fans of film, graphic design and motion graphics. Art of the Title is a blog highlighting the beginnings of films. High quality videos of the title sequences are posted along with stills and occasionally interviews with the title creators.
Art of the Title
[via ISO50]

Savvy Boomer shares some interesting observations about a new, trend bucking film titled Last Chance Harvey. It’s a romantic movie that stars Dustin Hoffman as 60-something man, who in the midst of dealing with a storm of personal problems, falls for Emma Thompson’s character. Savvy Boomer views this kind of story, one which focuses on the details and ups and downs of a baby boomer’s life is a genre that will be expanding in popularity.
They explain:
This genre of movie is probably going to become more popular as the industry realizes that boomers have their favorite actors who are aging as [...]

Burnwater, a Philippine-based design firm, has teamed up with a lifestyle magazine (Rogue), a literary publication (Story), a recording studio (Wombworks) and a bookstore chain (Fully Booked) to produce a streaming HD video site called Pelicola.tv (”pelikula” is Tagalog for “movie”). The site aims to be an insider’s guide to the country’s cultural hotspots, influential tastemakers and local music scene.
The site’s adfilm revenue model notably follows the growing trend of quality content as advertising, and was admittedly inspired by BMW’s “The Hire” series and the Cartier Love campaign. Other companies can get involved by working with Story to create sponsored short films that will be featured [...]