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For those of you who saw and enjoyed Paranormal Activity, how does the sound of a Paranormal Activity II sound? Not so bad, right? Well apparently you're going to get just that, in Oren Peli's upcoming film, Area 51.

Based on the top-secret military Naval Base in Nevada, the movie plays off the idea that Area 51 personnel have been harboring extraterrestrial life behind all those securely locked doors. That doesn't sound so bad either, right?

Avon Barksdale, Detective Jimmy McNulty and everyone's favorite dope fiend, Bubbles will soon be moving from the poverty-stricken streets of inner-city Baltimore to the affluent, ivy-covered walls of Harvard University.  No, HBO hasn't announced plans for a spin-off of The Wire set in Cambridge, Massachusetts (though how awesome would it be to see students of our country's top 1% awkwardly fumble through interactions with Omar Little and his sawed-off or be propositioned for tall tees at the Bubbles push cart market?).  Instead, the arguably best television show in history will soon be taught as a class at Harvard University according to the school's student newspaper, The Crimson.

"Boys and girls of every age, wouldn't you like to see something strange?  Come with us and you will see, this our town of Halloween."

In case you haven't heard, things are not all sunshine and rainbows in Hollywood.  This year's economic recession has hit the film industry just as hard, if not harder, than every other industry despite another record-breaking summer box office.  Recent high-profile shakeups at Disney and Universal have made headlines and shocked industry insiders, but the even bigger story is the ominous uncertainty of what will become of the independent film model.  In the past year, we've seen the shutting down of Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, both owned by Warner Bros., the absorption of Paramount Vantage into its parent company, Paramount Pictures, as well as a major slimming down of staff at Miramax Films and persistent rumors of a financial collapse of The Weinstein Company.  It seems to be a bleak time for independent film.  Or is it?  Maybe it's a live and well - in one for or another.

Vampires, vampires, vampires. It seems they do in fact exist and, according to the ratings, it looks like they're here to stay. 

The CW (formerly known as the network that just 'Can't Win') has a new hit. Their show, Vampire Diaries, topped the charts in September sucking in 4.8 million viewers as CW's most-watched series premiere to date. Note: 3.1 million of those were women ages 18-34. 

It's a good thing too because with Melrose Place losing viewers by the minute, 90210 being a way worse carbon copy of the original and Gossip Girl not counting (okay fine, it counts), CW execs can finally relax for awhile.

Hey there filmmakers! Want to show off your chops and compete for a chance to win some great gear?

Grass Valley, the go-to company for broadcast and production equipment, is hosting a contest for an opportunity to win a free filmmaking kit.  All you have to do is create a commercial no longer than 60 seconds for EDIUS, Grass Valley's nonlinear editing program. The grand-prize winner will receive:

-HP ProBook Laptop Loaded with EDIUS Nonlinear Editing Software

-Panasonic HDC-HS250K Videocamera

-LaCie d2 Quadra External Drive (1 TB)

Cowabunga! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming! 

By 2012, you'll be able to relive the era of your favorite heroes in a half shell in CG-animated form. Nickelodeon recently bought the rights to the popular TV show, which made its syndicated series debut in 1987. 

Yesterday morning, New York Times critic, A.O. Scott, read off the 19th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards nominees via live webcast for the first time ever.

One of the big winners (nomination-wise) was Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, which scored noms for Best Feature, Best Ensemble Performance and Breakthrough Actor for Jeremy Renner.  The Hurt Locker was the major pickup at last year's Toronto Film Festival where the declining economic state of the independent film industry put a virtual freeze on film buying.

We here at Zoom In Online realize that you probably spend so much time perusing our site that you may occasionally look up from your web browsing and notice that multiple days have passed.  We appreciate that.  While we can't make up for your lost days of work or missing your spouse's/friend's/relative's/child's birthday, we can update you on what you're missing in the outside world - what DVDs are being released, for instance.  Check Zoom In Online every Tuesday to keep tabs on all the DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week.

This blog has been contributed by Film & TV Channel assistant Kristen Berke.

Children's book turned hipster movie, Where the Wild Things Are beat out Law Abiding Citizen at the box office this past weekend. Wild Things grossed a total of $32.5 million, while Citizen brought in a respectable $21.3 million.

Meanwhile, Paramount's Paranormal Activity is still going strong in its fourth week, coming in third place with $20.2 million after opening in additional theaters across the country. On Friday the movie plans to expand even further, hoping to surpass its impressive cume of $33.7 million so far. 

This blog has been contributed by Film & TV Channel assistant Kristen Berke.

It's Friday again and that means there's a whole new crop of movies on which you can dump your money.  You've no doubt worked hard this week tilling the fields and weaning your young and you wish to take in a film that won't leave you mourning the loss of funds you could've spent on booze.  Choosing what film to see without any information is a bit like a round of "Press Your Luck," except landing on a Whammy won't leave you feeling insulted, robbed of your dignity, or wishing for physical harm to come about on another human being.  Bad movies can do that to you.  Here at Zoom In Online, we're your friends and we want to prove it by providing you with as much information as we can before you attempt to wade through a potential cinematic mine field.  Consider us your cinematic D.A.R.E., except funnier and without all the poor results.

This blog has been contributed by Film & TV Channel assistant Kristen Berke.

It's geeky. It's chic. And it's daily. Otherwise known as GeekChicDaily.com. Just like DailyCandy created a multimillion dollar franchise out of poorly researched snippets of writing (or what they refer to as "newsletters"), GeekChicDaily will strive to do the same.

For those of you who don't know (the Amish, perhaps), tonight marks the premiere of the fourth season of NBC's award-winning 30 Rock.  My feelings on the show have been well-documented on this site (in short, it's the greatest show on television right now), so it comes as no surprise that I'm highly encouring everyone to tune in tonight at 9:30 p.m. EST to watch season four's first episode, "Season Four." 

This blog has been contributed by Film and TV Channel assistant Kristen Berke.

Sumner Redstone, chairman of both Viacom and CBS, plans to sell around a total of $945 million in stocks to help eliminate the massive debt of his family holding company, National Amusements, once and for all.  NAI hopes that the sale will help pay off all of its current creditors while still allowing it control over its major sub-divisions, CBS and Viacom.

According to Variety, 3% of the total Class B stocks (16.3 million to be exact), are being considered expendable, while Class A stocks will only be sold once they've been coverted to Class B and dealt with on a one-for-one basis.

This blog has been contributed by Film & TV Channel assistant Kristen Berke.

Guten tag, CBS!

So, following in the footsteps of some minor competitors—Disney, Sony, and Universal to name a few—you've finally made it to Germany, eh?

CBS recently opened up a new office in Munich, bringing popular American shows such as CSI, Criminal Minds, Cold Case and The Mentalist with it.