We’ve Moved the Blog
We’ve rolled The Digital Download into a blog that covers all news from New Video and Docurama Films.
The New Video Download is alive and well at blog.newvideo.com.
Please visit us!
Goodbye to a passionate, curious filmmaker
Our most heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Christian Bauer, the German producer and versatile director of “The Ritchie Boys,” “Missing Allen” and countless inspired productions. It has been our honor to share “The Ritchie Boys” with the world, and we know his work will continue to influence many documentary and narrative filmmakers of tomorrow.
Comic Con Mania: Felicia, Farscape & Dr. Horrible
Congrats to Felicia Day for ranking #5 in the geekdom’s popularity contest at Comic Con. She beat James Cameron’s movie handily for most buzz. We are thrilled to hear Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: Next Generation, Stand by Me) is joining the cast of The Guild for Season 3. The first 2 seasons will come to iPod + DVD on September 29.
Ms. Day and her Disney entourage
Our panel on the upcoming Farscape DVD release packed in nearly 2,000 fans. Brian Henson (executive producer), Rockne O’Bannon (the show’s creator) as well as stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black brought the crowd.
We were awed as ever by the studio’s investments in this wee comic book convention. Notable booths were AMC’s for THE PRISONER remake, Warner Bros.’ interactive displays for WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, and of course Funimation’s unstoppable DOCTOR HORRIBLE. More photos after the break.
The New Route to Hollywood
Think way back to 2006 – when Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was ‘You’ – this was perhaps the dawn of the digital era, and a new page for Hollywood. YouTube was the new darling of the web and each of us played a supporting role… almost Oscar-worthy. Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi are two such noteworthy stars of Web 2.0 with 1,248,653 YouTube subscribers of their spoofs. As a reward for parodying some of Hollywood’s biggest hits and stars, this dynamic duo got a chance to star in their own film: “Ryan and Sean’s Not So Excellent Adventure,” now the #9 Comedy on iTunes, and #22 in overall movie sales, surpassing The Simpsons Movie, Pineapple Express, and closing in on Harry Potter. While these two Hollywood outsiders may be the first true web-celeb pioneers to parlay a successful movie, Emmy®-winner Lisa Kudrow and ‘friends’ are also blazing the trail with the series “Web Therapy” – not to mention the online juggernaut releases “Dr. Horrible” and “The Guild.”
Also now available on iTunes: A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms // Horatio Hornblower: The Mutiny // Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything // A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms // Waiting for Dublin // The Federation of Black Cowboys // Other Voices, Other Rooms // Rudy Ray Moore: Live At Wetlands N.Y.C.
Happy Birthday, Mandiba
Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday was feted at Radio City Music Hall with a performance by Carla Bruni, the first since she became first lady of France, as well as Lil’Kim and Cyndi Lauper. In “Senator Obama Goes to Africa,” the current U.S. President makes a humbling visit to the former South African President’s cell on Robben Island where he spent many of his 27 years in prison. Nick Broomfield gets up close and personal with the face of the white supremacist movement in South Africa in “His Big White Self.” May Mandela Day, the new holiday in his honor, raise awareness for all humanitarian efforts, such as those of fellow Nobel Peace laureate James Orbinski, movingly documented in the film “Triage.” Watch on iTunes: Senator Obama Goes to Africa // His Big White Self // Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma
N.Y.C. Prep: Baby Edition
The lifestyles of New York’s privileged kids has been under the spotlight of late, from Bravo’s NYC Prep to Real Housewives of New York’ to the CW’s Gossip Girl. This week on iTunes, Nursery University, spotlights a somewhat younger set of Silver Spooners. 
These toddler’s parents have their eye on the prize: New York City’s schools have produced the likes of Bobby Darin (Bronx H.S. of Science), Barbara Streisand (Erasmus), Truman Capote (Dwight), Gwyneth Paltrow (Spence), and John McEnroe (Trinity), to name a few.
Spotted: New parents in Gotham, elbowing for the ivy-track nursery school for their newborns. How will this mommy & daddy version of ‘Lord of the Flies’ pan out? Who will score front-row seats to a Harvard commencement in 20 years, and who will be ironing blue-collar shirts? Good luck to all. XOXO.
Also new on iTunes: Garrison Keillor: The Man On the Radio In the Red Shoes // The Wind In the Willows: The Movie // Poirot: Lord Edgware Dies // Peace! // Horatio Hornblower: The Dutchess and the Devil // Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within // Dark Chamber // Brakhage // Horatio Hornblower: The Fire Ships // Countdown: Armageddon // The First Turn-On! // Burning Down the House // Camjackers
In defense of collectability: Michael Jackson style
Much has been written of late on the success of Netflix and Redbox–with speculation on the demise of the DVD within 4 to 9 years. ‘Dead,’ and ‘obsolete,’ are hot-button words when hypothesizing DVD’s fate. As someone who has sold DVD to retail for the past decade, the debate over the half life of the format has long been in question. Inevitably someone will discuss the collector, a personality the film industry has courted since its origins. Slim and book-like, the DVD trounced the clunky VHS tape, and was shined up with a lower SRP, special features, liner notes, booklets. DVD will always appeal to the collector, and there are more collectors in the world than we may think, as the week of Michael Jackson reminded us. The cultural moment of his death caused a sales explosion of CDs. Album sales through Sunday reportedly hit 422,000, up from 10,000 the week prior, in tandem with digital track downloads spiking to 2.3 million, a lesser number in terms of individual tracks, spread over a greater number of purchasers. The collector wants a piece of a legacy, a tangible tribute to an idol or their own history. As in the realms of music and books, there is room for coexistence of the physical and the ephemeral video formats, at least for a good long while.
Fiendish Heritage
The blood-thirsty genre is alive and well – so to speak, in the similarly vampiric world of entertainment. Enjoying a second year of feasting, franchises like the ‘Twilight’ sequel and HBO’s second season of ‘True Blood‘ trace their genetic makeup to Abraham “Bram” Stoker, who wrote novels in the late 19th century to make extra money. Stoker’s regular 
job was as a business manager for the world renowned Lyceum Theater in London. When one of his novels, ‘Dracula,’ was published in 1897, it was not the first book to talk about vampires, but it would easily become the best. Like today’s ‘Twilight’ sensation, ‘Dracula’ was put to film in the classic silent film ‘Nosferatu‘ – copyright issues and an absence of Hollywood lawyers caused names and details to change a bit. From Béla Lugosi to Blade to Buffy, vampires have shown their preference for the limelight over the sunlight since Stoker’s passing in 1912. With the influence of his work still evident in popular lexicon, it’s safe to say that Bram Stoker will remain an immortal for years to come. In commemoration of all characters ambiguously deceased, please enjoy two of the latest releases to reach iTunes: Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Curse and Witchouse, joining other spawn of the genre, 1st Bite and Dracula: The True Story.
Also new on iTunes this week: Horatio Hornblower: The Duel // Poirot: Murder In Mesopotamia // Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd // Shackleton // Jane White Is Sick and Twisted // Nobody the Great // Little Red Riding Hood // Laserblast // The Dead Hate the Living! // This Is the Life // Ernest In the Army // Man of the Year // Kicking the Dog // Rock Fresh // Class of Nuke ‘Em High // Def By Temptation // Mad Dog Morgan // Interstate // Altered By Elvis
Pinball Wizards
The endless launch of new cell phone models and gaming platforms in the battle royal for your leisure hours leaves a consumer to play Simon Cowell to the auditioning product du jour. In the quest for portable and interactive entertainment, arcade and pinball machines are indeed from another century. Pac-Man is gone from the arcade, but lives somewhere in a downloadable format. A great deal of nostalgia exists for that bygone era of brands like Atari, Coleco and Sega to name just a few. The documentary Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball, now on iTunes, chronicles the glory days of pinball and tells the tale of a last-ditch effort to save the industry. This one will have you reaching in your pocket for more quarters.
New and browsable on iTunes: Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman: The Movie // Saints and Soldiers // Michael Winslow: Live // Poetry In Motion // InSearchOf
E3 Reverb: Video Downloads for all
At this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, consoles began showing signs of serious momentum as video pipelines into the living room. Sony has a new technology that downloads movies and TV directly the PSP portable console wirelessly.
In the future, your mother may use a game console
Console makers are broadening their content offerings, to branch out from the tried and true 80-90% young male demographic. To that point, Don Mattrick, Microsoft’s SVP of Interactive Entertainment, said, “This E3 is about breaking down barriers — between generations, between games and entertainment, and most important, between video game players and everyone else.”
One player notably absent from this particular game: Nintendo, which has no comparable video download service in the US, and seems somewhat lackluster on the propects – President Satoru Iwata told the LA Times, “We are hopeful that we launch a similar service in America someday. But we do not have anything to announce today.”
