I don’t know about you but I’m pretty much obsessed with the game Angry Birds. Before I started playing it people would tell me how addictive it is and I would laugh, certain they were just exaggerating.

Well, it turns out they weren’t and the game has become something to do just about anytime I have a spare few minutes. It’s just that fun.

Now, just in time for Easter, Rovio has released the latest episodic update to the insanely popular Angry Birds franchise. After taking a break in Angry Birds Rio, it seems the green pigs are back — and some are sporting Easter bunny hats. Which means, of course, they must die.

In Angry Birds Seasons: Easter Eggs you still launch birds in an effort to destroy the pigs. In this Easter-themed version, you also pick up extra points by collecting Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies.

The update, which features 15 new levels, is available for iOS devices for $0.99 in the iTunes App Store and is free for Android smartphones from the Android Market.

Click through for a video highlighting all the fun with this new update.

Continue Reading →

Tim Harrison is an animal advocate and police officer in Ohio who spends his days responding to calls about exotic animals that have escaped or have become unmanageable. We’ve all heard the stories about escaped chimpanzees, snakes, alligators, and other pets, and rarely do they end well. As Harrison says, “There are no happy endings.”

The mere fact that Harrison stays busy in Ohio, of all places, is alarming. However, exotic pet ownership and trade is largely unregulated, and many states don’t require any type of license to own a potentially lethal pet.

Director Michael Webber tackles the emotionally charged issue of exotic pet ownership in the United States. He takes us undercover at an exotic pet auction where monkeys, cubs, poisonous snakes and other exotics are casually obtained by anyone who has the money to purchase the animals. Plenty of children were in attendance.

Many people don’t think about the consequences of buying a cute lion cub that will eventually weigh close to 600 pounds when fully grown. Often the owner simply lets the pet go in the wild. There have been so many pythons let loose in Florida that entire ecosystems are changing due to unfettered breeding and overpopulation.

Continue Reading →

If you haven’t been watching HBO’s series Treme, you’re really missing something. The show is very well done, features an outstanding cast and comes from the creative team behind one of the greatest shows ever to grace our television screens: The Wire.

Treme deals with the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As season two begins it’s more than a year since Katrina and its aftermath. The national spotlight on the Crescent City has dimmed, and residents are finding it harder than ever to rebuild their lives.

Some have become expatriates in distant cities. The insurance checks that never arrived for homeowners were followed by the bureaucratic nightmare that was the Road Home program, and a land-grab is underway as developers and disaster capitalists press their advantage. Crime and drug use are up, and corruption and graft are endemic, with civic institutions unable to counter any of it.

And yet the culture of New Orleans somehow endures. To help you get ready for the new season of the show we’ve got a preview video for it as well as a recap video of what happened last season.

Check out both videos after the jump. Treme returns to HBO for season two on Sunday, April 24th at 10/9C.

Continue Reading →

As much pressure as a movie game has on it, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is getting an extra added dose as it is the first video game based on the DC comic book property as well. While various Green Lanterns have been featured as supporting cast in other games such as Justice League Heroes, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and DC Universe Online , this will be the first time Hal Jordan will be taking the starring role.

More important than the game’s graphics, story or even voice acting comes the question, will the game make a player feel like the Green Lantern? Some games recently have done a great job putting players in to the role of their headline hero and let players blissfully experience the super hero feel that they expect like Batman: Arkham Asylum or Wolverine: Origins.

Others haven’t been so successful, with the notable example being pretty much any Superman game ever created as the invincible Man of Steel seems to always constantly be in danger of dying.

When it comes to the Green Lantern, especially Hal Jordan, the use of the ring to create solid light constructs is paramount. While some Lanterns just shoot bolts of light, Hal has the creativity of someone from planet Earth backing him, resulting in everything from baseball bats to machine guns.

Take a peek below at how Warner Bros. Interactive has incorporated these concepts in to the in game combat of Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters. While we haven’t gotten our hands on the title yet, seeing these images gives us hope that they understand the excitement behind the prospect of playing as Hal Jordan.

Continue Reading →

3D is obviously taking over Hollywood right now. So rather than kick and scream because a film like Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods is sitting in production hell due to the 3D conversion, we might as well sit and enjoy some of the more lowbrow 3D films that are hitting the screen this year.

One of those very films is Relativity Media’s upcoming Shark Night 3D, directed by Snakes on a Plane helmer David R. Ellis, and starring some of Hollywood’s younger all-stars like Sarah Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack, and Joel David Moore.

The film is a tongue-in-cheek thriller in the vain of Snakes or more recently Piranha 3D which, if you remember correctly, had a piranha chomping on a man’s severed genitals.

We’ve got a brand new look at the film in the form of a horrifying picture for you to feast your eyes on after the jump. Check it out, and join us on the media journey as we welcome Shark Night 3D to theaters on September 2.

Continue Reading →

Doctor Who is an institution, for nearly 50 years the Doctor and his Tardis have been entertaining kids and nerds alike. Thankfully I recently forced myself to give the Doctor a try and have since discovered the “New Who” era is some of the best television I have ever seen.

Two new clips have popped up online giving us an idea of what to expect in the season premiere. The first clip is a mod setter, showcasing the fact that for the first time ever Doctor Who shot principle photography in America.

In the second clip we get some serious meat to gnaw on. The tone is darker than we’ve seen recently, and we get to see the Doctor finally asking the questions we fans have been wondering for years. Who exactly is River Song?

Ever since Stephen Moffat and Matt Smith took over, as show runner and The Doctor respectively, the show has maintained an extremely high level of quality and so far their next season looks to continue that trend.

Interesting to note, this season of Doctor Who marks the first time ever the show is aired day and date in America, and for the first time in the “New Who” era we are heading into a season with the same Doctor and companion. Gather your fez and sonic screwdriver, the new season starts April 23rd on BBC America.

Check out both new clips after the jump!

Continue Reading →

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• Getting ready to wrestle with the Gods this May in Thor? This Behind-the-scenes featurette should help you get ready for battle.

• As if we needed another reason to pick up Portal 2 next week, we can now spend an extra to get some sweet gear upgrades, like special boots that won’t let you die!

• Remember ElfQuest? We kind of do, too. A few die-hard hotties decided to stop waiting for a film and make their own by prancing in the woods wearing very little clothing and tons of makeup. We approve.

• This one has been surfing around the net all week, and is proof that given the chance, the next generation of kids will, in fact, choose the Dark Side.

Continue Reading →

Maybe I’m biased, but Amy Poehler gets cuter and cuter each episode (something about those devilish eyebrows); Jerry gets more pathetic; and Ron is more and more of a badass.

First off, this may be my favorite cold open so far—though it’s in close competition with the one where Leslie goes up the dreaded fourth floor of Pawnee’s City Hall (“POPCORN?”)—it’s nice to see the twistedly playful side of Ron and even nicer to see that he’s almost aware of how the rest of the parks department perceives him.

He almost fooled me, too, but then my Ron Sense is calibrated enough (or at least more than Tom’s) to figure out that even he wouldn’t perform an impromptu tooth removal in the middle of a meeting.

The episode lives up to that open as well; it keeps the humor coming but also injects some character development that ranks right up there with the best of The Office’s second season: Ben’s crush on Leslie is getting more overt; Donna’s finally getting more face-time; the writers deliver a great moment from Chris; and, oh, April and Andy get married.

Continue Reading →

Harry Potter fans, listen up! Or, at the very least read carefully as we’re doing a giveaway to celebrate Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 coming to On Demand, download and on Blu-ray today. And believe us, you want to win.

Just be ready on our Twitter feed sometime this afternoon and able to correctly answer a Harry Potter trivia question. Two lucky winners who answer the trivia questions correctly will get all this amazing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 swag:

• iTunes download of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
• T-shirt (adult size)
• Keychain
• iPhone sticker skin

Amazing, right? So be ready and glued to our Twitter feed for your chance to win. Also, be sure to check out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 available today via On Demand, download at iTunes and other places and on Blu-ray.

Plus, don’t forget the official Harry Potter podcast, available via iTunes right here.

Also, in case you’ve forgotten (but how could you?) here’s the official synopsis of the film and a clip to get you even more excited. After the break, of course.

Continue Reading →

This may be a tough one to summarize because it’s not so much a plot-oriented installment, but more a series of skits featuring Will Ferrell interacting with everyone else around the office—Andy, Jim & Pam, Erin, Kevin, and, naturally Michael. That’s pretty much the recap right there.

But that won’t suffice, so here’s some more details: Ferrell, whose guest appearance for a few episodes has been in The Office news for what seems like the past three seasons, plays Deangelo Vickers (which sounds like a name Ferrell chose for himself), the guy brought in to replace Michael. After a surprisingly long cold open in which he ingratiates himself to Michael, Deangelo hits it off with the rest of the office, talking kids with Jim & Pam, immediately spotting/assigning the role of office clown to Andy, and earning the respect and admiration of the rest of the gang (especially Kelly, who orchestrates her own “meet cute” to nab his attention).

For those of you who’ve seen the original BBC Office, this is the long-awaited arrival of the “Neil” character, someone I never thought they’d get to—particularly seven seasons in. And, like Neil, Deangelo is great with first impressions but turns out to be a shallow, humorless jerk.

Continue Reading →

DC Entertainment has been losing ground to Marvel at the multiplex over the last few years, but during that same time their animated movie department has reigned as undisputed king. Bruce Timm started crafting animated DC stories with Batman: The Animated Series in the early 90s, and has been virtually flawless ever since.

Now Bleeding Cool is reporting that the seminal comic ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ is going to be given it’s time to shine as an animated epic.

Bleeding Cool have heard from multiple sources (enough with the multiples already) that work is underway on a movie adaptation of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s classic The Dark Knight Returns. As you might have guessed, however, this is to be an animated adaptation, much like the recent All Star Superman or in-the-works Year One.

This won’t be the first time Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ has been animated. The classic Batman: The Animated Series episode Legends of the Dark Knight, where different era’s of Batman were lovingly homaged, including a segment modeled after ‘The Dark Knight Returns.’

Batman regular Kevin Conroy has had time to age into a great voice for this role. So hopefully the trend of keeping actors from the original series carries forward into this project.

I don’t have much experience reviewing children’s movies, so, before writing this, I did some research to glean a few of the points prescient to their reviews. Fortunately the standard kid-flick critique doesn’t differ much from your standard, well, non-kid-flick review. The only theme uniting them all is to note whether adults will enjoy it as much as their brood (or whether either audience will enjoy it).

So let’s get that out of the way: The kids will probably enjoy it (the ones invited to my screening didn’t make too much noise, but that may have been due to the iron fists of their handlers); adults won’t mind it. Rio isn’t particularly sophisticated and comes with your basic (and I use this term only because it does very much apply here) cookie-cutter plot in which you already know everything that’s going to happen within the first 12 minutes, and, beyond that, there’s not a whole lot else—save for the location shots, which I’ll get to in a moment.

The story is that Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a rare Spix macaw, taken from his homeland of Brazil when he was a chick and shipped to Moose Lake, Minnesota, where his crate falls off the back of the truck and he’s adopted by Linda (Leslie Mann), a bookish girl who raises him over the next 15 years. Linda doesn’t make many friends in that time, but she does open a bookstore, and the story proper begins when Tulio (Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro), a bird scientist, drops by to inform Linda that Blu is one of the last of his species and must go to Brazil to mate with Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the other last of the species.

Continue Reading →