Man, but the folks at Lions Gate have been putting out a lot of terrific titles of late, and though there’s a fair chance you’ve already seen a couple of these, with Halloween coming out, it’s a great time to cover some of the stuff that makes for a great party. And the crew out at Lions Gate sent over copies of Scary Movie 2, Scary Movie 3, and The Crow for us to cover.

Scary Movie 2 rejoins the crew from the original Scary Movie, and this time they’re off to college. And while they’re there, they’ve enrolled in a study geared toward studying sleep patterns. But the study turns out to be of something entirely different, and this is going to put the crew in some reasonably deep trouble at the hands of a sociopathic professor and his belligerently-abled disabled assistant.

If you have a tolerance for–or enjoyment of–movie parodies laden with dick and fart jokes, then you may rest assured that you will be very, very well taken care of here. In fact, it’s safe to say that your enjoyment of Scary Movie 2 will largely hinge on your tolerance for or enjoyment of dick and fart jokes because that’s primarily what’s in here. Of course, horror buffs should have a pleasant time spotting all the in-jokes and subreferences–the bit with Ray and the clown doll is a riot–but there’s going to be plenty in the crass and juvenile department for anyone.

Scary Movie 3 follows the events of Scary Movie 2, sufficiently so to put them in the working world. And while some of the cast has found jobs and is out to set up their lives, larger events in the world threaten to take them away before they can actually begin. There’s a lot more going on than meets the eye, and by the time we find out what’s going on, we find out, in the grandest Scary Movie tradition, how little of it makes sense.

The thing about Scary Movie 3 is that it’s probably the biggest of the series so far, even beating out Scary Movie 4. Any time you bring in Leslie Nielsen to a comedy title, well, you know you’re going for full on over the top. However, in their rush to take refuge in sheer audacity, they lost a lot of what was good about the previous two, notably the depth of parody (this one seemed lighter), and the jokes (lighter here too, it seemed). Still, it’s not without its laughs, just not near so many as you might expect.

Lastly, The Crow takes us out to a world that seems significantly Darker and Edgier than our own–thank you TV Tropes for coining that wonder of a concept–and nudges a bit toward the Crapsack. As a rock star and his fiancee were killed by a gang of thugs, the rock star returns from the dead, aided and abetted by a crow who keeps his spirit tethered to the mortal plane. Kill the crow, and by extension, you kill The Crow. And while The Crow is up and operating, there’s going to be plenty of killing to go around.

If you were around when this movie first came out, you know a whole lot of disaffected high-school loners went totally bughouse nuts over this movie, and as a history lesson (or if you just want to remember what all the fuss was about), you’ll be able to get it in full digital remastering. And yes, this is indeed Brandon Lee’s last film, as he was killed in an on-set accident involving a prop handgun. The end result is rather gritty and stylized, but the story itself is actually pretty well done if you don’t mind a colossal downer in the middle of your day.

So there you go, a fresh set of three titles that ought to put a little extra jump in your Halloween viewing.

Kids and their families from coast-to-coast are in for literally a “howling” good time with The Dog Who Saved Halloween. It’s a true Halloween story released on DVD from the hit Dog Who Saved… original movie series.

Mayim Bialik of “The Big Bang Theory” and Joey Lawrence of “Melissa & Joey” share the screen as they join the film’s pack of top talent as the voices of “ruff” and tough Bernese Mountain Dog Medusa and beloved Labrador Retriever Zeus.

The DVD is now available at all retail stores nationwide. “This latest installment of the ‘Dog’ film series, featuring recognizable talent and filled with engaging magic and mystery is sure to be a hit with families for years to come,” explained Erin Carter, Executive Director of Brand Marketing for Anchor Bay Entertainment.

My daughter finds her favorite four-legged friend Zeus (voiced by Joey Lawrence) and the Bannisters as fun and entertaining as ever in The Dog Who Saved Halloween, an all-new adventure jam-packed with family-friendly thrills and chills!

When George, Belinda and their kids Kara and Ben Bannister move into a new house – just in time for Halloween! – everything seems to be fine…until they notice eerie glowing lights and strange sounds coming from their neighbor’s house where creepy Mr. Cole (Lance Henriksen) lives with his protective pooch Medusa (voiced by Mayim Bialik).

A black cat suddenly goes missing and George Bannister (Gary Valentine) insists on investigating the matter himself – and ultimately enlists an odd yet familiar pair (Dean Cain, Joey Diaz) to help. But after the trio and Belinda Bannister (Elisa Donovan) get trapped inside the spooky house, it’s once again up to Zeus to save the day!

We have one copy of The Dog Who Saved Halloween available as a giveaway.

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner October 21, 2011 – just in time for Halloween.

The movie is actually pretty entertaining, and it is cool to see Dean Cain as a foolish or inept person.

You know, I didn’t feel old until I discovered that this year, 2011, represents the 25th anniversary of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And as part of the celebration around this, the folks at Image Entertainment sent out a copy of The Pee-Wee Herman Show On Broadway for us to review, and if this looks familiar to you, well, you’ve probably recognized it from a variety of previous selections. But we’ll also get plenty of new features too.

Once again, we go back out to the place that can only be described as where we go when we want to go to do what we want–or possibly as a gigantic but largely benign insane asylum–where Pee-Wee Herman, his various friends (some old and some new) and various animated chunks of furniture and giant puppets alike, have a variety of adventures and just plain bizarre occurrences.

You might notice some differences, if you’ve been keeping up with Pee-Wee for any length of time. For instance, you might notice that for some reason Cowboy Curtis (played more than ably by Phil Lamaar) is doing most of the lines that would have been done by Captain Carl (formerly done by Phil Hartman), up to and including the subplot in which Miss Yvonne and Cowboy Curtis fall for each other. But much of the original work is still in tact. Yes, all the greatest parts of Pee-Wee Herman lore are still in effect, from the Secret Word (when anyone says the Secret Word, scream real loud) to a Penny cartoon. But there will be some new stuff going on here, like the reaction of Pee-Wee’s various puppet friends to Pee-Wee’s intention to get a computer into the playhouse.

And the combination of old and new mixes surprisingly well into a larger whole that’s pretty much as funny and as thoroughly preposterous as you’d likely expect from a guy who’s been playing an overgrown six year old for the last twenty five years. In fact, it’s amazing that Paul Reubens–still playing Pee-Wee–can still put up a presentation with this kind of energy and sheer vivaciousness even after twenty five years.

But either way, you’re still going to get a thoroughly bang-up time with this one, and a ton of laughs here. Some jokes will fall flat, but some will be an absolute delight. I had a great time with this one, and chances are you will too.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Pee-Wee Herman Show On Broadway an eight out of ten for being packed with laughs, even if they are somewhat unoriginal laughs, especially if you’ve been around for a while. But for an unquestioned shot of nostalgia, well, you’ll definitely be in for a great time.

Untitled Snow White does not have a title yet. Why? I don’t know.  The movie looks whimsical and enchanting – though a little silly. The movie is directed by Tarsem Singh (Immortal) and written by Melissa Wallack, Jason Keller. The cast is wonderful with Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Mare Winningham, Sean Bean and Michael Lerner.

The movie opens March 12, 2011 but is not rate yet. I guess they are waiting on the title of the movie first. Alas!

However, the studio just released a bunch of pictures from the movie. The pictures look like the movie is a fairy tale. The studio is calling the movie spectacular with reimagining of the classic fairy tale with Julia Roberts as the Queen, Lily Collins as Snow White, Armie Hammer as Prince Alcott, Sean Bean as the King and Nathan Lane as the Queen’s hapless and bungling servant, Brighton.

The evil queen steals control of a kingdom and an exiled princess enlists the help of seven resourceful rebels to win back her birthright in a spirited adventure comedy filled with jealousy, romance and betrayal.

Rescued by a band of diminutive highway robbers, Snow White grows into an indomitable young woman determined to take back her realm from the treacherous Queen. With the support of her subjects, she roars into action in an epic battle that blends spectacle, magic and contemporary humor in Singh’s signature, jaw-dropping visual style.

The Heart Specialist has hit the streets and is now available wherever DVDs are sold. I happen to have an extra copy of the DVD for a giveaway.

Smooth-talking lothario* Ray Howard (Brian J. White), a young Harvard Medical School graduate, arrives for his internship at a hospital in South Florida to pursue his ex-girlfriend Valerie (Grammy Award®-winner Mya) who can’t forgive his womanizing ways.

When his supervisor, Dr. Sidney Zachary (Wood Harris), discovers that Ray has put the moves on his own girlfriend, nurse Donna (Zoe Saldana), the two conspire with the rest of the hospital staff, patients, and friends to teach Ray a lesson—not just about medicine, but also about true love.

The Heart Specialist features stellar supporting performances from Marla Gibbs, Leon Robinson, Method Man, Thomas ‘Nephew Tommy’ Miles, Jasmine Guy, Scott Paulin, Kenneth Choi, Terrence J and comic legend Ed Asner.

*a man who obsessively seduces and deceives women

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner October 20, 2011.

When a new television series announces that it’s “from the team behind Arrested Development”, I get skeptical. After all, Arrested Development was easily one of my favorite shows, and anything trying to capitalize on that is a low blow. But then, when you get a former actor from Arrested Development, Will Arnett, otherwise known as Gob Bluth, to play the lead, well, now I don’t know whether to be amazed or skeptical. But that was what I was going to find out with Running Wilde: Season One, a copy of which the folks at Lions Gate sent out for review. And thankfully, my skepticism was wholly unwarranted, because this is some terrifically funny stuff.

Running Wilde follows Steve Wilde, self-centered rich dullard, who’s decided to try and recover his childhood sweetheart’s affection. Trouble is, said childhood sweetheart is a dirt-poor econaut out to save the world who’s sufficiently econaut to name her daughter Puddle. Oh, and did I mention old Steve’s family made their fortune in oil? That’s going to be quite the comic mismatch, or so the series hopes.

The thing about Running Wilde is that it only lasted thirteen episodes, and on Fox, the network that was dumb enough to shut down Arrested Development in the first place. And frankly, Running Wilde will be every inch as hilarious as Arrested Development, largely because of the Arrested Development alums involved here. It’s not just Will Arnett, but also David Cross (the former never-nude Dr. Tobias Funke) shows up. The sheer amount of great comedy here, in the grandest Arrested Development tradition, is enough to get anybody interested. Frankly, I laughed on a variety of occasions, and when a DVD makes me laugh, I know it’s going to be a big deal indeed.

It’s a shame it didn’t last longer, and I can only hope that this will one day get the Futurama treatment and be brought back elsewhere. It’s probably the closest thing you’re going to get to new episodes of Arrested Development. There are more than enough wild situations here that revolve around Steve’s relative naivete and his massive ego despite same to make most anyone laugh. David Cross and Will Arnett’s interactions are also terrific fun.

The Screenhead Ten Scale can hardly believe it’s doing this, but for the second time this week, Running Wilde gets a full ten out of ten. It’s simply too funny to pass up.

The folks out at Acorn Media sent over a magnificent slice of Canadian television for us in the form of The Red Green Show: The Geezer Years, some of the later episodes of the series, and as is par for the course (as represented by the last time we reviewed one) this will prove to be some delightfully hilarious stuff.

Once again we go back to Possum Lodge, where the thoroughly daffy Possum Lodge brethren regularly assemble to engage in a variety of strange misadventures. And when I say “variety”, that’s exactly what I mean. You’ll get all sorts of events, from the Possum Lodge Fast Food Drive Through restaurant to the Possum Lodge attempt at hosting an air show, plus a regularly recurring series of events in which Harold meets a girl on the internet, dates, and gets engaged to her. Will the wedding come off without a hitch? No. This is Possum Lodge we’re talking about, why would you even ask such a question? But no matter how badly things go wrong, they will always be funny.

That’s the great thing about the Red Green Show. There’s always something to laugh at, as long as you’re into slapstick and otherwise stupid comedy in general. There will be lots of people getting kicked or blown up or punched or occasionally set on fire, and all in the name of good classic Three Stooges style comedy. And they will once again be interspersed with lots of small short-form stuff of even more various misadventures at the lodge. So not only will you get a larger story that runs through the entire episode, but you’ll also get a whole collection of B-stories in which Red builds something preposterous partially involving duct tape, or where Bill goes off on some crazy stunt of his own usually involving something outdoorsy, or any of a dozen other possibilities, including the usually seen Possum Lodge Word Game in which players attempt to get someone to guess a word for any of a variety of allegedly valuable prizes like a free pony from the Screaming Pony Breeding Centre (where every pony is a little hoarse).

It’s delightfully funny stuff, and for those of you who enjoy the more guy-style humor, then this is going to be the show for you. And the Screenhead Ten Scale is going to respond accordingly by handing The Red Green Show: The Geezer Years a full ten out of ten–the constant hilarity and endless variety will prove to be entertaining for the whole twenty hours you’ll be watching this.

Animated sequels…ah, these are their own little animal, and the crew out at Anchor Bay sent over a copy of Hoodwinked Too: Hood Vs. Evil for us to cover, and this one will be entirely in a league of its own. Whether or not you’ll want to stick around for this one, though, you’ll find largely dependent on your tolerance for sequels and all that encompasses.

Following the events of the first Hoodwinked, which was less a children’s movie so much as it was Rashomon in fairy tale garb, Hoodwinked Too: Hood Vs. Evil takes us back to rejoin our cast of four heroes–Red, her Granny Abigail Puckett, the Big Bad Wolf, and for some reason, a squirrel with a serious caffeine dependency by the all too reasonable name of Twitchy–as they’ve signed on with the HEA, or Happily Ever After, agency, an outfit devoted to ensuring happy endings for various fairy tale characters. The team has seen better days, with Red off in special training and the rest of the team notably undermanned…and underpowered. But when Granny gets kidnapped by the witch holding Hansel and Gretel hostage, Red’s going to have to rejoin the team and try to make up for the lost Granny.

There are some significant differences between the first and the second. While I find it spectacularly gauche that they’d kick off the movie with a rundown of the cast, it’s not hard to see the appeal in something like this. Sure, it’s not as understated as the first film (frankly, putting Rashomon in fairy tale is the kind of unique thing that you don’t see just any day), but it’s still got a pleasant sort of style to it. While the first Hoodwinked was an impressive multi-pronged mystery sort of affair, its sequel instead decides to go the animated action movie route. And of course, they’ll throw a few good laughs in for a little extra value.

Much like many other cases, the sequel will be bigger, louder, and more predictable than the original.  This is kind of a shame in a way, because they’ve thrown off the unique quality of the matter in favor of more explosions and action movie fodder. It’s fun, sure, don’t get me wrong there, but it seems like having the ability to do a sequel came at the cost of large swathes of their original unique quality and sheer, well, originality.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives Hoodwinked Too: Hood Vs. Evil a six out of ten. It’s very much a sequel, and has lost a lot of its original charm in the process, but has still managed to hang on to sufficient fun to make it at least a worthwhile rental if nothing else.

Chalet Girl, the new British comedy starring Felicity Jones and Ed Westwick, is now available on SundanceNOW.com and cable VOD via Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, Time Warner, and Bright House before it is available in theaters!

We just picked the winner for our giveaway.  Auriette is the winner, and she says, “British comedies tend to be smarter and better written than most American comedies, and that’s why I’d love the chance to see this.”

Well, Auriette that is a valid point and you get to see this funny British movie. Enjoy!

Pretty tomboy Kim (Felicity Jones) used to be a champion skateboarder, but now she flips burgers to support herself and her dad. Opportunity comes knocking when she flukes a winter-long catering job in one of the plushest ski chalets in the Alps. At first, Kim is baffled by this bizarre new world of posh people, vintage champagne, epic mountains and waist deep powder.

Then Kim discovers snowboarding, and her natural talent soon sees her training for the end-of-season competition, with a chance to win major prize money. But before she can become a champion again, Kim needs to overcome her deepest fears – and figure out what’s going on with Jonny (Ed Westwick), her boss’ handsome but apparently unavailable son.

He’s done the time, now he might as well do the crime. Acclaimed indie filmmaker Malcolm Venville (44 Inch Chest) directs an all-star cast in the outrageous crime caper, Henry’s Crime, is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

I have picked the two winners for the giveaway. They are Cody and Jennifer Jenkins. They both answered the question correctly and were picked as the winners.

“With a terrific cast led by Keanu Reeves (The Matrix Trilogy), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) and a splendid James Caan (Misery), Henry’s Crime is a fun comedy with irresistible heist and heart” (Boxoffice Magazine). Reeves stars as Henry Torne, a wrongly accused man who winds up behind bars for a bank robbery he didn’t commit. After befriending a charismatic lifer (Caan) in prison, Henry finds his purpose — having done the time, he decides he may as well do the crime. But his outlandish plan to rob the very same bank spins wildly out of control, as he finds himself performing in a stage play and falling in love with the production’s seductive leading lady (Farmiga).