Newsreels

Independent film studio Anthem Pictures (www.anthemdvd.com) now offers new releases and its catalog of library titles for download through the digital on-demand video service VUDU (www.vudu.com). Titles for purchase via VUDU include Mother Ghost, Truce, 911: In Plane Sight, and Judges.

Critical Video Editions™ (www.criticalvideoeditions.com), the Alexander Street (alexanderstreet. com) series of sharable, embeddable, semantically indexed, cross-searchable, streaming videos, now includes Dance in Video and Opera in Video, available either through one-time purchase of perpetual rights or through annual subscription. For pricing and institutionwide trial access, email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

With more Hollywood studios planning interactive content incorporating BD-Live features, Blu-ray may be getting red hot sooner than you think. Viewers of Disney's first-ever Blu-ray Disc animated classic, Sleeping Beauty (Oct.), e.g., will be able to play games, download updated trailers, and "chat" with friends onscreen. Viewers can also expect the upcoming 20th Century Fox rerelease of Alien vs. Predator to include an in-movie game that lets viewers stamp their image onto an avatar and engage in multiplayer combat.

Gale, part of Cengage Learning, recently unveiled a new web site, MovieRetriever.com, that offers users movie reviews and ratings from VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever franchise of more than 28,000 films, sharable movie lists, community recommendations, biographical information on 100,000-plus actors, directors, and screenwriters, and more.

Sisters in Law, a film about lawyer sisters in Cameroon (Women Make Movies, www.wmm.com; LJ 1/07), picked up a George Foster Peabody Award (www.peabody.uga.edu) for outstanding achievement in electronic media.

The flagship series of A&E Network, Biography® (www.biography.com) offers profiles of the Democratic and Republican presidential frontrunners through two exclusive programs: Biography®: John McCain; Election Update Edition (color & b/w. DVD ISBN 978-1-4229-1714-5) and Biography®: Barack Obama; Election Update Edition (color. DVD ISBN 978-1-4229-1328-4; ea. vol: 60 min. dist. by New Video, www.newvideo.com. Aug. 2008. $12.95).