If you go see Disney's new documentary, "Earth", you can also make the Earth a better place. If you buy a ticket ticket to "Earth", the first week it's in theaters, the studio will plant a tree in your name. That's pretty cool. The movie opens on Earth Day - April 22nd.

And, "Iron Man 2" is officially in production. The sequel to last year's blockbuster has begun filming in L.A. Robery Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow are back. As I told you in a previous blog several months ago, Don Creadle is replacing Terrence Howard as Iron Man's military ally.

Mickey Rourke, off his Academy Award nominated performance in "The Wrestler", gets to play a villian. Scarlett Johansson is also part of the cast, along with Samuel L. Jackson (no relation), who, you'll remember, had a cameo at the end of "Iron Man."

Director Jon Favreau is also back, and he's going to have to work very hard to make this as good as the original. 

"Iron Man 2" is scheduled to hit theaters May 7, 2010.

Disney/Pixar fans - mark you calendars now. Starting October 2nd, the studio will be releasing the classics "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" in a 3-D DOUBLE FEATURE! And the movies will only be out for 2-weeks. Before the double feature we'll all get to see the first preview of "Toy Story 3 3-D", which is schedule to open June 18, 2010.

The studio has also announced that "Beauty and the Beast", still the only animated film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, will be out in 3-D on February 12th, 2010.

And "Alice in Wonderland", from director Tim Burton, is set for a March 2010 release. "Alice" will be in 3-D and Imax 3-D.

Next year you might as well just keep a pair of 3-D glasses in your pocket because you're going to need them a lot.

In other news...

The Simpsons will soon be on stamps! To celebrate the 20th season of the TV show, the U. S. Postal Service will be issuing stamps of the family members beginning next January. But, you can get an online preview of what the stamps will look like starting this Tuesday. 

The 2009 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards were held on Saturday.

It appears that there will NOT be a Fall release from Dreamworks Animation this year. The studio's next scheduled film, "How To Train Your Dragon", has been pushed back to March 26, 2010. "Sherk Goes Fourth" will follow on May 21, 2010 with "MasterMind" set to be released on Novermber 5, 2010.

I don't understand why they're delaying "Dragon". A studio official says it to make sure the movie has a good audience. But this change ruins Dreamwork's tradition of a new film each fall. And it means that the studio will have only one movie this year, "Monsters vs. Aliens", which comes out this week (I saw it on Saturday - my review will out tomorrow).

In other news, according to Animation World Network, a live-action version of Mickey Mouse's classic short "The Sourcerers Apprentice" (from "Fantasia") will hit theaters July 16, 2010. The movie set in modern-day and will star Nicholas Cage.

Disney/Pixar's "Up" has been chosen to open the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on May 13th. It'll be the first time that an animated film or a 3-D film has been the first movie shown at Cannes. The rest of this year's film will be announced in April.

Meantime, on St. Patrick's Day, I saw the movie "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" for the first time. It's a bit odd. And it was odd seeing Sean Connery in a family film.

Also, there's a "Yogi Bear" movie in the works. It will be part live-action and part animation, and will be directed by the same guy who directed last year's "Journey to the Center of the Earth". No release date as yet.

And, finally, I'm very sad over the death of Natasha Richardson. The only movie I've ever seen her in is the 1998 remake of "The Parent Trap", in which she played the mom and was very good. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Did you ever get stopped by those people in the mall who's job it is to show you trailers for new movies and get your opinion on them? I did on Saturday. I got to see the trailer for the upcoming family film - "They Came From Upstairs."

The movie stars "High School Musical"'s Ashley Tisdale, plus Kevin Nealon and Doris Roberts. It's a comedy about aliens from space who attack a family that's staying at their summer home. At least that's what I got from the short trailer.

To be honest, the movie doesn't look too good. It's live-action with CGI aliens. Kinda corny. And in the trailer Doris, who's 78 years old, is doing martial arts scenes!

"They Came from Upstairs" is produced by Fox and Regency Enterprises, the same team that combined on my Worst Film of 2008 - "Meet Dave". It can't be as bad as that, though the fact that it was supposed to be out in February and got delayed to this summer probably isn't a good sign.

It looks like '09 is really going to be the year of the space alien: "Race to Witch Mountain", "Monsters vs. Aliens", "Star Trek", "Planet 51" and "Upstairs", not to mention the "Terminator" and "Transformer" sequels.

"They Came From Upstairs" opens July 31st.

It's time to unveil the winners of the 2nd Annual "L-C-J Family Film Awards", honoring the best in family films for 2008.

Best Actor: Jack Black - "Be Kind Rewind"      Best Actress - Dakota Fanning - "The Secret Life of Bees"

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - "The Dark Knight"    Best Supporting Actress: Queen Latifah - "The Secret Life of Bees"

Best Voice in an Animated Movie: Matthew Broderick - "The Tale of Despereaux"   Best Animated Film: "Kung Fu Panda"

Best Family Film of the Year: "Be Kind Rewind"

Congratulations to all of the winners!

Why did "Jonas Brothers: 3-D Concert Experience" do so poorly opening weekend? The movie only made $12.7M. That's less than half of what the Hannah Montana 3-D concert film took in in it's opening 3-days last year ($29M). And since the ticket prices for "Jonas" were so high ($15, $17.50), the box office should have been much better.

If you do the math (which is my favorite subject) an average of only 666 people per theater saw "Jonas" last weekend. That's shocking! Especially since these guys are so popular and sell millions of CD's.

I think the high ticket prices were the reason. I think we may have seen the last concert movie from Disney for awhile.

We haven't seen much from Johnny Depp since the last "Pirates" movie and now we know why: he's been hanging-out with SpongeBob! Depp is the voice of a character in a new "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode, which is out on DVD but has not aired on TV yet. Depp's next big screen appearance will be in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" with Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway.

According to The Hollywood Reporter. Ellen DeGeneres will be doing the lead voice in "Dog Show." The animated film, about a stray dog who gets involved in the world of fancy dog shows, will be produced by Warner Brothers. This will be Ellen's first work in a big screen, animated movie since she voiced Dory in "Finding Nemo" in 2003. No word on a release date, but this one should be worth waiting for.

The guys behind "Dog Show", Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons" are also the writing team for "Master Mind", DreamWorks 2010 animated super- hero movie. Ben Stiller is producing "Master Mind" and Robert Downey, Jr. and Tina Fey will be doing the voices of the lead characters.

And, the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards nominations are out. Here are the selections in the animated movies categories:

Best Animated Feature - "Bolt", "Kung Fu Panda", "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa", "WALL-E" 

Best Voice from an Animated Film - Ben Stiller ("Madagascar..."), Jack Black ("Kung Fu Panda"), Jim Carrey ("Horton Hears a Who!), Miley Cyrus ("Bolt")

Voting begins on March 8th. The winners will be announced on the KCA's, March 28th.

For the first time ever I stayed up to watch the entire Academy Awards show. I was pretty tired Monday morning, since I had to get-up early to go back to school following vacation. 

Here are some my thoughts on the show and the winners:

Tim Gunn did a nice job in the Red Carpet pre-show. I got to meet him last year at a fashion event at a local mall. He's a very nice guy.

I liked most of the changes to this year's ceremony, including the sparkly curtains and having the orchestra on stage.

Hugh Jackman did a good job as host. He showed off his musical talents in the production numbers. And who knew Anne Hathaway could sing?!

It was cool to see all of those former winners come-out on stage to present for the acting categories, but it did take a long time to get to the naming of this year's winners.

I liked all the comedy in the show. Favorite bits: Ben Stiller's Joaquin Phoenix imitation; Steve Martin and Tina Fey. It's usually the Golden Globes where everyone has so much fun. But that's changed, at least for this year.

Great idea doing the montages of clips from the comedy, romance, action and animated films of 2008, though they left a lot of good movies out.

As for the winners, the only one of the seven big categories that I got wrong was Best Supporting Actress (check-out my previous blog entry). Plus, I got all four of the predictions I made on TV correct and 12 of 24 overall, to win our family pool!

All in all, it was an excellent night and my favorite Oscars.

Next year I plan on hosting.