CinemaBUZZ - Week of 7 June 2013

Disney Goes It Alone



Disney Studios will open the Disney Digital Copy Plus (DDCP) website on June 11th, the DVD release date of Oz - The Great and Powerful.  Disney's goal is to have buyers of their DVD and BluRay discs access a digital copy of the film directly from the DDCP website instead of actually receiving a 'hard copy' disc of the movie.

Upon accessing DDCP the movie is delivered to the purchaser's media provider of choice: iTunes, Amazon, or Vudu - thus eliminating the need for a digital copy (disc).
According to Disney, DDCP was designed to make it easier for the consumer as it works across all browsers and allows for the capability to redeem the digital version of the purchased movie on any connected device - home-based or mobile.

Bucking the trend, Disney is going it alone with DDCP and is not joining all of the other major studios in the use of  UltraViolet, a digital rights management system that lets consumers buy a movie and access the content through the cloud at any time, on any device.  Warners and Sony offer only UltraViolet access with their discs, while Fox, Universal, Paramount, and Lionsgate offer both UltraViolet access and a traditionally downloaded digital copy of their movies.  Fox is the only studio that still includes a hard-copy disc, embedding access to UltraViolet on the disc.


The Hollywood/Moscow/Washington Connection

I have always liked Steven Seagal's films (what you see is what you get). He has starred in over 45 features that span a 25 year Hollywood career and he seemed to have a knack for picking great co-stars - from Sharon Stone to Michael Caine, Tommy Lee Jones to Katherine Heigl.  He is now taken on the role as spokesman for a Russian arms manufacturer. On Tuesday, during a tour of a Russian weapons factory in Kovrov, a city approx. 160 miles from Moscow, Seagal had this to say, "My friend, Igor Kesayev invited me here. On his request I have agreed to be featured in advertisements for Kovrov weapons for the US".  Igor Kesayev, is the owner of the weapons factory, and is reported by Forbes Magazine to be worth over $2 billion.

For some time, Seagal has been chumming around with Russian President Vad Putin (see photo insert) and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.  Putin is a judo expert, holding a black belt in that art. Seagal is also a big fan of the martial arts, holding a 7th degree black belt in Aikido.  Putin recently made public that he and Seagal were long time friends that share an interest is supporting and promoting martial arts in school athletic programs.

The oddest thing is that Seagal is becoming a defacto go-between for Russian and US officials.  In March, the Russian government asked Seagal to lobby US legislators to abolish restrictions on the sale of  Russian weapons in the US. And recently Seagal helped arrange a meeting with senior Russian officials for a group of US Congressmen visiting Russia in the hopes of boosting counter-terrorism ties between the two countries given the Chechen tie-in with the terrorists responsible for the recent Boston bombings.

Hollywood ceases to amaze. As quasi ambassador to Russia Seagal is starring in his biggest role ever. Best of luck Steven!

Who Would Have Thunk It 


If you thought the Seagal story was odd than Michael Douglas' revelation that oral sex caused his throat cancer is even weirder, but probably true. Last week, during an interview to promote his new movie, Behind The Candelabra (a biopic about Liberace) Douglas revealed that his near fatal bout with cancer was due to having oral sex and not caused by years of smoking and boozing. "No, because without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV (human papillomavirus) which actually comes about from oral sex"  stated the 68 year old who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2010 and underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatment - he is now free of cancer.

HPV is a sexually transmitted virus which is thought to be responsible for the relatively recent  increase in detected oral cancers.  There are more than 100 variants of HPV, and while some are spread by skin-to-skin contact most are typically spread during oral sex. HPV is common, by the age of 25, 90% of sexually active people will have been exposed to some form of HPV. It is responsible for 30% of all oral cancers, and is most common in heterosexual men in their 40s and 50s.  Teenage girls, in most developed countries, are vaccinated against HPV which protects them from cervical cancer - and now, it appears, also protects their future partners from HPV related oral cancers.

As for Douglas, his interview went weird when he stated that " Yeah, it's a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer. And if you have it, oral sex is also the best cure for it".  Wow, or just keep things out of your mouth, Mike.

Best and Happy Movie Going!
Jim Lavorato