Gary Costango and Dan Malenki are our winners for the giveaway to help promote an awesome new site called SundanceNOW. Gary and Dan are our lucky winners of a code that is good for one free movie on SundanceNOW.

Gary says, “I always watch Sundance on cable TV. It’s great.  Dan agrees, “[I'm] always willing to watch an indie flick.”

SundanceNOW offers you the choice to rent or own the best of independent cinema with the click of a mouse. The SundanceNOW library encompasses classic titles and the newest releases from around the globe.

I think this is an awesome opportunity for you to experience a new way to view independent and classic movies online.

The idea for SundanceNOW came from the lack of a single online destination where real independent film fans could find, watch instantly and discuss a broad range of independent, hard to find films from around the globe. We believe that SundanceNow fills that void by bringing hundreds of films to your computer screen. You can watch them immediately (and legally) and find several films from the same director or of the same genre quickly and easily. In addition, new films are constantly being added to the service so there’s always a reason to come back.

Get the behind the scenes scoop on X-Men: First Class from the filmmakers and cast of the film by checking out the X-PERTS tab on the official Facebook page.

Last week was super exciting when Bryan Singer answered fans questions about the film, cast, and stepping into the role of producer. You can check out the latest responses to questions from the X-PERTS answered by Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy / Beast) about portraying a younger version of the character that Kelsey Grammer made iconic.

What I am really excited about is until June 1, 2011, you can submit your questions to the cast and filmmakers of X-Men: First Class via Twitter and Facebook, and each week a new cast member or filmmaker will answer them on the X-PERTs page.

Fans can submit questions two ways:

- Tweet @XMenMovies
- Post on the wall of Facebook.com/XMenMovies

Next week, Oliver Platt (Man in Black) and Rose Byrne (Dr. Moira McTaggert) will be answering the X-PERTS questions, so be sure to submit your questions now.

Video: Exclusive: ‘Your Highness’ Trailer (Mature Audiences)

Your Highness looks gaggingly funny. Sure, its raunchy and over the top, but I like it.

The movie isn’t about tales of chivalry or legends of brave, handsome knights, who rescue fair damsels, slay dragons and conquer evil. No, it’s a raunchy story full of laughs about a hero who is a good-for-nothing younger brother trying just to stay out of the way of those dragons, evil and trouble in general.

Danny McBride and James Franco team up for an epic comedy adventure set in a fantastical world—Your Highness. As two princes on a daring mission to save their land, they must rescue the heir apparent’s fiancee before their kingdom is destroyed. Together Thadeous (McBride) his older brother Fabious (Franco) embark upon a valiant journey to save the Kingdom.

Please note that you have to be old enough to watch the restricted trailer, so please “tell the truth and shame the devil.”

Lions Gate has been, in the past, a substantial source of direct to video horror titles. And while the number of these films has somewhat fallen off in recent months, it’s good to see they’re still trying to keep up the trend. And that’s what we’ll be tackling today with Siren, a copy of which Lions Gate sent out for us to review.

Siren follows a group of friends who’ve set off on a boating adventure that starts to go badly wrong when they try to rescue a girl who’s waving for help on an island off the coast of where they’re doing their boating. This young lady is pretty much everything a guy could want to run into on a secluded island…the problem, of course, is that she’s also a lot more than any guy would want to run into. And we’ll all find out  just how much more when the group of friends starts abruptly dying off. Now the group will have to risk it all to get off the island in one piece.

And yes, before you start wondering, this is a modern-era psuedo-monster movie retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey. This actually makes it just a bit more endearing, to see what they do with one of the great literary classics of Western literature by putting it in a setting better suited for direct to video horror.

The interesting thing about Siren is that it’s actually a lot more subtle than you might expect. This doesn’t turn into some kind of SyFy monster movie slop–this actually works more like a series of ends playing against the middle, and it’s fairly interesting. We don’t even really know just what’s going on for most of the first hour of the movie, though we can make some reasonable inferences and it will turn out that most of these inferences aren’t too far off from the truth.

Even up until the last few minutes, it’s going to stay pretty subtle, with some interesting mind games going on, and that keeps this one in the level of the, at least as far as direct to video horror film goes, fairly cerebral.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Lions Gate a real tip of the hat in terms of effort for Siren, which will garner it an eight out of ten. It’s not quite scary enough to really get the top marks, but it will make the effort to be at least somewhat original, and frankly, I call that pretty good.

Trailer

On behalf of 20th Century Fox and Rovio, I am pleased to announce that Angry Birds Rio is now available worldwide!

The Angry Birds find themselves in the magical city of Rio where they must save their friends Blu and Jewel – two rare macaws and the stars of the upcoming Fox motion picture, Rio.

Right now, the game can be downloaded from the App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, from the Mac App Store for Mac computers, and for Android devices in the Amazon Appstore. The game was developed in conjunction with Twentieth Century Fox, and features the animated stars of the studio’s upcoming film, Rio.

Enjoy the wonderful song sung by a bird:

Rio Angry Bird

Rio opens nationwide on April 15, 2011.

This film clip is funny, and now I am interested in the movie and want to see it. From the makers of the hit Ice Age series, Rio is a comedy-adventure, in 3D.

Blu is a domesticated Macaw who never learned to fly, living a comfortable life with his owner and best friend Linda in the small town of Moose Lake, Minnesota. Blu and Linda think he’s the last of his kind, but when they learn about another Macaw who lives in Rio de Janeiro, they head to the faraway and exotic land to find Jewel, Blu’s female counterpart.

Not long after they arrive, Blu and Jewel are kidnapped by a group of bungling animal smugglers. With the help of street smart Jewel, and a group of wise-cracking and smooth-talking city birds, Blu escapes.

I was checking out one of the hot racing cars from Cars 2 when I noticed “Learn more about Nomanisan Island” to the right on Disney-Pixar YouTube page.

So, as a curious blogger I clicked on the video and look at what I found, unbeknownst to me! I showed the reel to my daughter and she giggled and laughed. She also pointed out to me that the narrator in this YouTube clip is the same voice as the computer voice on the plane in The Incredibles, “Would you like more cocktail sauce?”

Adventure awaits you and your entire family at Hero Headquarters on Nomanisan Island! Once the secret base of notorious super villain Syndrome, Nomanisan Island has a new look thanks to the Vanquished Villains Redevelopment Fund!

Yes, it is a commercial for The Incredibles, available for the first time, on Four-Disc Blu-ray and DVD Combo Pack with digital copy.

Sure, this isn’t a blockbuster nor an action-packed movie. To Catch a Dollar is a wonderful documentary that, hopefully, will enlighten people on a simple yet effective way to help those who are productive but are financial stricken. They just need a lucky break. On March 31, theaters across the country will host a special one night only film event featuring the educational and inspirational film To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on American.

The film will introduce American audiences to the potential for microfinance in the United States, and the magic of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank. The film chronicles the inspiring story of Yunus’ idea to bring his model of micro-lending to the United States and depicts the millions of lives it has changed in the process.

The special event will feature Suze Orman, Maria Bartiromo and Robert De Niro, and include special video appearances by Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon and more.

I thought I’d share this trailer with you in hopes it will help someone who deserves a decent break.

With all this rain we have been having in northern California, I am ready for a Holi Ceremony to bring on the spring! I want to throw colorful power and celebrate with a multi-colored face. Featuring The Holi Scene from the film, the cast describes their experience participating in the Hindu festival which celebrates the beginning of Spring.

The romantic-comedy is directed by Nayan Padrai with a young and festive cast that includes Rahul Rai, Freishia Bomanbehram and Stefanie Estes.

In When Harry Tries to Marry we discover a cross-cultural romantic comedy about a young Indian-born bachelor who lives in New York City. Harry’s handsome and charming, but he’s cynical about love. He’s never really gotten over his parents’ divorce — they were a modern Indian couple who married for love and it didn’t last.

So to improve his odds of living “happily ever after,” Harry decides to have an arranged marriage, and asks his uncle back home in India to assist him in arranging the introduction to an appropriate Indian woman. To the dismay of his parents and friends, Harry finds the perfect girl and embarks on a long-distance courtship with an unexpected friendship with Theresa, a fun and sexy American student.

The movie opens April 22, 2011.

There are a lot of people out there who are big World War II buffs. And why not? This was a major portion of twentieth century history, a major portion that shaped the world for years to come even after its completion. This is where the twenty-first century got its start, and from the straightforward to the bizarre, World War II had everything a historian could ever ask for. So that’s why I was glad when the folks out at Entertainment One sent out a copy of their huge new box set, Apocalypse: World War II, for us to review for you guys fully a week before you can even find it in stores.

Apocalypse: World War II is the massive, three disc documentary that takes us through the second World War in all its many horrors and wonders. Using original footage–some of it not even seen on places like the History Channel–you’ll get a full, and occasionally downright horrifying, look at just what all was going on during those amazing, fascinating, and nightmarish times during one of the biggest events the twentieth century had to offer.

Seriously, this sucker’s a monster. This is a three DVD set, measuring in at just under five and a third hours. But at the same time, it’s a surprisingly well put together documentary–massive, well-edited, smoothly flowing. It covers huge amounts of material and presents it in an incredible fashion.

It’s powerful stuff, this is. Trying to watch it all at once may actually prove entirely too much for most people, and frankly, I don’t recommend you try.  It’s a really well put together documentary, but it’s just entirely too much to take on all at once. Split it up over a couple days, though, and you’ll do pretty nicely.

What’s particularly impressive about Apocalypse: World War II is the video quality. Considering you’re dealing with what amounts to recovered footage, there’s not a whole lot of it with artifacts in the video (at least not that I noticed) and precious little black and white. They even go so far as to tell you that the black and white film has been colorized, and maybe one time in a hundred, you can tell that some doctoring has occurred. Most of this film looks exceedingly natural. Old–it’s from seventy years ago, after all–but natural nonetheless.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this impressive and extensive documentary of World War II a ten out of ten for taking found footage, cobbling it together, and still managing to produce an extensive and truly well done whole.

Morgan Spurlock’s docu-comedy Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold released a new official trailer on the cusp of the announcement that the documentary will open the 18th annual Hot Docs festival.

Pom Wonderful is scheduled for an April 22, 2011 limited North American release and was financed entirely by product placement, marketing and ads.

Variety reports that Hot Docs director of programming Sean Farnel noted the irony of movies high-profile slot. Every sponsor of the movie will be at the opening “It’s like an intervention.”

I love how Spurlock charges the ramparts and tackles brands to promote his film. Though, promotion is not new for Hollywood, it certainly is new territory for the documentary format. Spurlock exploits the phenomenon to new heights, with everything from branded pizza boxes and in-flight film promotions to branded-everything in-film.

Each of the brands represented in the film have sponsorship arrangements with Spurlock, placing him front and center in their brand campaigns and advertisements, both on and off-line. Partners have the unique right to promote themselves in association with Spurlock and the film as “The Greatest.” The agreements also stipulate that Spurlock maintains creative control of the film’s content and final edit.