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A Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from Everyone at FirstShowing

Joyeux Noel! Gledelig Jul! Froehliche Weihnachten! Mele Kalikimaka! From all of us at FirstShowing.net, we want to wish every one our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays! Whether you're with your family or with friends or whether it's snowing or sunny, we hope you have a wonderful weekend. For those that follow the tradition of seeing a movie on Christmas Day, like myself, I hope we've at the least helped you make the right choice. I'm planning on catching War Horse with my family this year. News and trailers always slow down quite a bit during the holidays, but we'll be back at full speed once 2012 arrives!

Enjoy a Thanksgiving Feast of Great Movies Now on Netflix Instant!

Now is the time for families to get together and enjoy food, football, fun and hopefully films. How's that for a feast full of alliteration? Therefore, we thought now would be a good time to also bring back our Netflix Instant feature so that you and your family and friends might enjoy some good movies across all sorts of different genres. Most of the featured films you'll find below are from this year or last year and include everything from documentaries (both musical and Sundance selected) to foreign films, a British comedy, an animated take on Shakespeare for the whole family, plus even a list of some old favorites. Check them out!

Fandango's Mobile Phone Ticketing System Launching This Weekend

They seem a little behind in catching up with this technology, as airlines already have it, but Fandango is finally opening mobile ticketing to the public this weekend. We first wrote about mobile phone movie tickets coming through Fandango in March of 2010, quite a while ago, and its taken this long to officially launch. Regal has partnered with Fandango for this week's opening of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and will be rolling out the ticketing program to more than 1,000 screens in the Regal circuit this weekend. The system simplifies ticketing to a barcode you pull up on a phone and show as a ticket, that's it!

Visionary Apple & Pixar Co-Founder Steve Jobs Has Passed Away at 56

Very sad news to report today. The AP/NY Times are reporting, with confirmation from Apple, that Apple co-founder, Pixar co-founder, businessman, vanguard and father of four & family man Steven P. Jobs has died today. Steve Jobs, as he was better known, passed away at the age of 56, shortly after resigning from Apple CEO in August. While I know Jobs is known more in the tech world, I thought it important to write something about his death, as his help with Pixar early on and influence on Hollywood is certainly evident. He was a great innovator, a great leader and businessman, and will certainly be missed, but never forgotten.

In Los Angeles: Outdoor Cinema Food Fest Last Month of Screenings

We're admittedly a little late on this one, but barely we just found out about it this week while at a food truck! Running throughout this summer in Los Angeles has been a series of outdoor screenings of movies at various venues/parks that come complete with food trucks, pre-show live music and more. It's called the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest (official website) and they've been running since May, but the good news is that some of the best movies are yet to come, so listen up. Tomorrow is LA Confidential, then they've got Fargo, Fight Club, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters all coming up the next few weeks.

Comic-Con 2011: Our Live Coverage Schedule + Other Con Details

It's back inside the doors of Hall H we go for another round at the world famous Comic-Con. As a primer to our Comic-Con 2011 coverage this week, I thought I'd run down the basic details including our schedule for live blogging some of the upcoming Hall H panels, from 20th Century Fox to Steven Spielberg's Tintin to The Amazing Spider-Man and Sony's panel. This year we're using a nifty bit of technology to bring you live blog updates live, without need for a refresh, so be sure to check that out once things start up this week. As always, we'll be posting updates on here and on twitter all throughout the week directly from San Diego.

On Sale Now: 'Lord of the Rings' Extended Editions Blu-Ray Box Set

Let's pause for just a moment so I can remind everyone that on sale today is the long-awaited Blu-Ray box set of The Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions. Ever since the series finished in 2003, fans have been anxiously awaiting high def, Blu-Ray copies of the movies, and not just the theatrical editions, but the true fan-favorite Extended Editions. The best place to pick up a copy is on Amazon for $69.99 (click to support FS.net!) - that's where I got mine! I'm an all-out, die-hard Lord of the Rings fanboy and will be in a theater in Burbank tonight watching all four hours of Return of the King, so be sure to get your copy if you haven't.

Kick the Tires and Light the Fires - FirstShowing.net is 5 Years Old!

It's almost hard for me to believe that its been this long, but it is indeed true, this month marks the 5 year anniversary of FirstShowing.net, a website I started with my friend Josh out of a love for movies in hopes of spreading and sharing that love. Our first post was written on June 3rd, 2006, aptly announcing the sale of tickets for Superman Returns and Cars that summer. Now we're two weeks from seeing Pixar's Cars 2, so we've nearly come full circle. I'm happy to say that I'm still here, still in love with movies, and still proud of this website and the opportunity I have to share the cinematic experience with fans and friends worldwide.

Worth Watching: A Few of the Best Cinematic Trailers from E3 2011

With video game convention E3 coming to a close today in Los Angeles, I asked my friend Kent Lundblad of gaming blog The 72 Pins to drop by FS.net today with a brief commentary and good selection of cinematic game trailers that would be the best to feature on a movie blog like this. So to compliment that Star Trek 2012 game trailer we featured earlier in the week, here's a few more cinematics from E3 2011 to check out.

Ubisoft has been making a lot of headlines lately when they revealed that they wish to pursue making their own films based on their AAA gaming titles. I've always said that the best people to adapt a story from one

Alex is Heading Back to the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Once Again!

Round Three! I'm currently at the airport waiting to board my flights to Nice, France where I'll then catch a bus down to the very south of France to attend my third Cannes Film Festival in a row. It's a particularly exciting year thanks to The Tree of Life and Melancholia, but after a mediocre reaction to the films from last year, the line-up for 2011 looks like it might be a truly amazing year. Only time will tell, but as always, I wanted to let you guys know that for the next two weeks I'll be covering the fest and running this website from France. The fest runs from May 11th to 22nd and I'll be there the entire time. We'll see you in France!

Website Update: New Text Buttons Revealed Today on FirstShowing

As many of you have probably already noticed, we just launched a new series of buttons today at the top of FirstShowing.net to replace the old ones (that we've had for years). It may seem odd that I'm writing a post about this change, but the reason I am is because we're using the latest HTML/CSS code possible with these new buttons to make sure everything looks as fantastic as it possibly can. However, this means that the new font won't work in old browsers, so I'm writing this to strongly encourage and emphasize that the website won't look right unless you use modern browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera.

Jeremy Heads Down to Cover the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX

I love Austin, Texas. There, does that show my geek hand enough? It's such an energetic town without the abrasiveness of a Las Vegas. The people in Austin are easy-going but there's a shared kinetic vibe about everyone that makes you want to be a part of any group. The food is extraordinary. And none of that has to do with the film scene. If you ever heard of the Alamo Drafthouse, if you know of half the people who live here who are connected to film in a professional sense, you probably have a good idea what I'm getting at.

So when the South by Southwest Film Festival roles around every year down in sunny Austin, TX,

Introducing Our Newest Writer on FirstShowing - Cate Hahneman!

It has been a while since we introduced a new writer, but that changes today as we're excited to introduce a new member of our team - Cate Hahneman! Cate is a film student at Boston University whose passion for screenwriting makes her a stickler for a good story. She has been an avid reader and fan of FirstShowing since being introduced to the site by a colleague on a feature film set several years ago. Before returning to college, Cate labored on several indie films, working as an assistant for producers, directors, and production designers, as well as in the Art Department of the Coen Brother's A Serious Man. Her posting begins today!

FS.net Update: New Comment System Implemented - Feedback?

As you might have already noticed, we just switched our commenting system on FirstShowing.net from the WordPress system to the Disqus system that's now running. Disqus is a popular commenting system that almost everyone currently uses, which is why we made the switch and why it's good news for you guys. This means that you can login and comment on FS.net using existing logins for Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo or OpenID, or you can use your Disqus account (which you can create directly in the system). Your comments are linked, you can follow other people, and it's a lot easier to comment on all kinds of sites around the web.