Poor Mojo's Newswire

Today is sad day for Netflix customers. The online video rental supplier has just announced an agreement with Warner Bros. that will forever alter your online rental experience. Now should you wish to rent a Warner Bros. flick you’ll have to wait out a 28-day holding period after the film’s initial DVD release date. Of course the partnership rooted in money-making greed — Warner Bros. wants you to buy the DVD instead of rent it —was to be expected. But the new deal is a first of its kind, and we could soon see several other studios follow in Warner Bros. footsteps. Both companies would like you to know that the deal also guarantees that Warner Bros. will add more direct-to-video and streaming titles to the Netflix collection.

Sports broadcasting will enter a new dimension in 2010 ... the third dimension, as ESPN will unveil the industry's first 3-D network. ESPN 3D will showcase a minimum of 85 live sporting events during its first year, beginning June 11 with the first 2010 FIFA World Cup match, featuring South Africa versus Mexico, ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer announced. Other events to be produced in 3-D include the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, college basketball and football contests, up to 25 World Cup matches and the Summer X Games. Additional events will be announced at a later date. "ESPN's commitment to 3-D is a win for fans and our business partners," Bodenheimer said in a statement. "ESPN 3D marries great content with new technology to enhance the fan's viewing experience and puts ESPN at the forefront of the next big advance for TV viewing."

The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has threatened to kill any potential sequel to the hit film Sherlock Holmes if it suggests that the famous detective and his associate Dr. Watson were secretly gay lovers. In a recent appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, Sherlock Holmes star Robert Downey Jr. suggested there might be a "homoerotic subtext" in the relationship between Holmes and Watson, played in the movie by Jude Law. He also asked the audience whether or not Holmes was in fact "a very butch homosexual." The comments may have been nothing more than the sort of light-hearted back-and-forth commonplace on late-night talk shows, but they still didn't go over well with Andrea Plunket, who controls the U.S. copyrights on Sir Arthur's famous detective tales. She took Downey's words seriously enough that she issued a warning to director Guy Ritchie: If he pursues that angle in the next film, she'll pull the rights to the property.

1.) Up In The Air. Up until last week I thought my #2 had this in the bag, and then Jason Reitman had to come along and be brilliant and shit. Way to go, Jason Reitman, fucking up my list and making me have to juggle shit around! Anyway, George Clooney (who is undoubtedly the Actor of the Decade, incidentally – there just isn’t any goddamn competition for the title and you have to recognize that fact sooner rather than later) leads off a collection of nigh-perfect performances strung together by a narrative that shouldn’t work but in context seems not only believable but indeed natural. Illuminating and thought-provoking, and underrated by many critics simply because Reitman is comfortable with comedy and most critics have issues with that. . . . 3.) The Hurt Locker. Winning a shitload of critical acclaim, because Serious Movie Critics, deep down, love to see shit blow up like everybody else, but this is finally the movie they’ve been waiting for all along: a movie that blows shit up but does so to assist the development of complex characters. A limited budget gave Kathryn Bigelow the perverse freedom to avoid name actors and instead hire Jeremy Renner, who delivers a blistering performance as the lead bomb tech/thrill junkie, but it didn’t stop her from blowing shit up real good. Making an Iraq war movie seems like an invitation to disaster with all the terrible ones that have come out in the last few years; this movie is proof that it’s not the setting that’s the flaw. . . . 19.) The Invention of Lying. Incredibly underrated movie – it’s frequently extremely clever and goes places one wouldn’t expect it to go. (Hint: religious satire of the most vicious variety imaginable, which likely has something to do with its abject box-office failure.) It’s very, very funny, and has a lot of good performances in it, and deserves to be slotted up with Ricky Gervais’ other accomplishments; it stands alongside them very well.