There’s a thoughtful new film out called "Food Stamped." I haven’t seen it yet, but my friend Sarah Henry reviewed it on her blog, Lettuce Eat Kale.

Sarah writes, "Who knew that a documentary on the food stamp program could be funny, infuriating, informative, and entertaining all at once?"

"Food Stamped" follows a couple’s attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. The filmmakers are nutrition educator Shira Potash, who teaches nutrition-based cooking classes to elementary school students in low-income neighborhoods, and her documentary filmmaker husband, Yoav.

As Sarah writes, "Let’s face it: Money and time is tight and fast food is cheap. Why not load up the shopping cart, as one food stamp recipient does, with pallets of Top Ramen noodle packets? … But as we learn, the price is right — for all the wrong reasons. Junk food cranked out by industrial food producers costs less because of government subsidies for big agriculture that small organic farmers simply don’t get."

Read Sarah’s great review of the film on Lettuce Eat Kale, and check out the trailer below.

If you missed the actual Woodstock concert 40 years ago, and need a good dose of peace and love (remastered, at that!), this giveaway is for you.

“Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music 2-Disc Anniversary Edition” will hit store shelves on June 9, 2009, but here’s your chance to win it for free!

Read my review and watch clips here, and leave a comment below to enter the giveaway.

THE GIVEAWAY: Three (3) copies of “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director’s Cut, 2-Disc 40th Anniversary Edition.”

TO ENTER: To enter the contest, simply leave a comment on this post by midnight on Saturday, June 20, 2009. Be sure to include a valid email address. Winners will be drawn randomly. I’ll email the winners for their snail-mail address after the contest ends. Good luck!

Image: Amazon.com

Need some Jimi Hendrix in your life? Hankering to hear Joan Baez?

It’s been 40 years since the first “Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music” was released, and now they’re releasing some cool new anniversary editions on June 9, 2009. And I’ve got giveaways for you!

Read my review and watch clips here, and leave a comment below to enter the giveaway.

THE GIVEAWAY: One (1) Blu-Ray Collector’s Edition box set - “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director’s Cut” (40th Anniversary).

TO ENTER: To enter the contest, simply leave a comment on this post by midnight on Saturday, June 20, 2009. Be sure to include a valid email address. A winner will be drawn randomly. I’ll email the winner for their snail-mail address after the contest ends. Good luck!

Image: Amazon.com

Last week, I received a groovy new 2-disc DVD set celebrating the 40th anniversary of the pop culture, history-changing concert.

"Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music – The Director’s Cut" will hit store shelves on June 9, 2009. It’s the four-hour director’s cut of the 1970 Oscar®-winning documentary about the landmark music event featuring some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll performers in history. Check out the DVD and Blu-ray at the official "Woodstock on DVD" site.

In case you missed the concert 40 years ago, featured on the DVD are Joan Baez; Canned Heat; Joe Cocker and the Grease Band; Country Joe McDonald; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Arlo Guthrie; Jimi Hendrix; Richie Havens; Ten Years After; The Who; and many others.

More after the jump, including clips…

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Master of the documentary Michael Moore has another one due out Oct. 2, 2009.

It doesn’t have a title yet, but distributors Overture and Paramount Vantage said it’s about the collapse of the world economy. I’m sure Moore will sink his teeth into that one!

The film will delve into the "root causes of the economic meltdown," as well as the "corporate and political shenanigans" that resulted in the financial crisis.

In a statement, Moore said, "The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth. So they systematically set out to fleece the American people."

Moore’s most recent doc was 2007’s "Sicko," an expose on health care. Any Michael Moore fans out there? Whatever is in his films, I appreciate the effort he’s put into founding and maintaining the Traverse City Film Festival (my home town!).

Image: INF

My friend, Rachel Dickinson, has a wonderful new book out called "Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West." Check it out on Amazon.com.

The book tells the story of falconer Steve Chindgren, as well as the fascinating subculture of falconry and the people who participate in it. Rachel also goes into the forces that threaten this ancient sport: mining, gas industries, and agriculture.

Of course, all this has me thinking of movies about birds. Here are five that spring to mind. Tell me YOUR favorite bird movies in the comments below.

1. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003). This award-winning documentary features Mark Bittner, the self appointed caretaker of San Francisco’s flock of wild Cherry-Headed Conures. It tells the story of his journey to preserve the flock and its home. Buy it on Amazon.

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Even if you’re not familiar with the Sherman Brothers, I’m 110 percent sure you’ve heard their music.

Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman wrote some of the most memorable tunes in movie history, including “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins,” “I Wanna Be Like You” from “The Jungle Book,” and the most translated song ever written in the history of the world, “It’s a Small World (After All).”

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Movie: Earth * Trailer * Official Site	In Theaters: April 22, 2009
Runtime: 96 minutes	Directed by: Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield
MPAA Rating: G	Gecko Rating:

If you’re old enough to remember "The Wonderful World of Disney," which used to air every Sunday night and featured the likes of "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar" and other furry and feathered friends, then you’ll get a kick out of "Earth."

Disney is resurrecting the concept of documenting animals in the wild (or maybe they never stopped). There’s another feature film coming in 2010 called "Oceans."

The trailer for "Earth" said the movie would follow the lives and migration paths of four animal families, and I guess it did. I saw it with my two kids – 11 and 14 – and we came out of the theater going, "Ok, now which were the four families they followed?" The reason is because while it did focus on specific families, there was a lot of content about the other animals and plant life in the family’s particular region of the world.

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In my continuing quest to find all the free movies online, I posted last week about a new deal YouTube was offering. It’s definitely come to pass, because YouTube has a movie channel set up and rockin’. Check it out here.

There’s some pretty cool movies there, too – “Cliffhanger,” “The Film Crew: Killers from Space” (that’s the MST3K crew), and “The Mod Squad” among them. And they’re even letting me embed them here! Watch Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me”: 

The movie "Earth" looks so sweet, and it arrived in a few U.S. theaters today, to coincide with Earth Day.

The G-rated Walt Disney film follows a year in the life of four animal families. Directed by Alastair Fothergill, it’s narrated by James Earl Jones (Patrick Stewart for the English version, and Ulrich Tukur for the German version). The trailer is so beautiful – it just makes you want to go see it. Or maybe go into the wild and see the animals for real.

Plus it reminds me of those "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar" shows I used to watch on Sunday night when I was a kid.