Many thanks to Travis Hopson and John Nolan for including me on their wonderful “Punch Drunk Critics” podcast on Blog Talk Radio. Along with my dear friend Tim Gordon, we had a great discussion of the best — and worst — of 2011 so far. What would you pick?

I’m thrilled to be one of the judges in Beliefnet’s competition to find a new blogger!   I can tell you from experience, being a Beliefnet blogger is a fabulous adventure, so come join me!  I look forward to reading your entries.

Today, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (TCFHE) pledged to donate one million moments from its catalog of DVDs to community investment partners across the country. The initiative is part of its “Year of a Millions Moments” campaign celebrating movies made memorable, quotable, and unforgettable by the people who watch and embrace them. Working in conjunction with Fox Gives, the company’s philanthropic arm, the GREAT MOMENTS, GREAT CAUSES 18-city, 14-week mobile van tour will donate DVDs to selected community investment partners in each market with the ultimate goal of donating 1 million discs.

The tour will also give film fanatics and consumers nationwide the opportunity to recreate their favorite scenes from beloved Fox movies, filmed against a green screen. The tour van will double as a dressing room trailer, complete with hair, makeup and wardrobe, giving participants the feel of really being on a movie set. Once filmed, the clips will be uploaded to the Million Moments website  for downloading and will be one-click sharable across all social networks.  The site also has details about a contest with prizes.  One lucky winner will become an instant millionaire.

The tour kicks off today in Los Angeles from the famous Twentieth Century Fox lot and will wind its way across the United States over the course of 14 weeks ending in New York City. In addition to events in Los Angeles and New York, consumer events will take place in markets nationwide including San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Philadelphia and Boston. There will be media-only stops in Portland, Las Vegas and Baltimore.

Each month Fox will spotlight films that reflect a specific theme with moments… to shine (January), you love (February), to laugh about (March), kids love (April), for mom (May), for heroes (June), to sing about (July), to remember (August), that are unforgettable (September), that terrify (October) and classic holiday moments (November/December).  Each month 16 films face off for the title of “Best Movie Moment.” Consumers can vote each month for their favorite moment and enter for a chance to win a package of some of the most iconic and memorable movies from Fox.

Hurray for the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater for standing up for the rights of movie-goers by kicking out a woman who was texting in the theater.   The Alamo’s policy is clear.  Since 1997 it has had a strict no-talking policy amended over the years to include other annoying and distracting behavior made possible by electronic devices.  After two warnings, a woman who persisted was ejected from the theater without a refund.

She then demonstrated the class and dignity one might expect from someone so ignorant and inconsiderate by leaving an hilariously piggish and downright idiotic voicemail with her views on the way she was treated and, in what I am sure was considered good news by Alamo’s managers and audiences, vowed never to return.  Alamo has turned this lemon into lemonade with a short played before their feature films.  Here is the censored version.

It’s the Princess and the Pauper with Disney star Selena Gomez and two Gossip Girls in a story about a Texas waitress who takes the place of a selfish heiress in the glamorous title city. There’s also a touch of Cinderella (though the fairy godmother is unwitting). And it is filled with flouncy pretty dresses and bouncy pop songs to delight tween Disney channel fangirls.

Gomez plays Grace, a high school senior in Texas. She and her best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy) have been saving the tips from their waitress jobs and finally have enough to go to Paris. At the last minute, her mother and her new step-father insist that her step-sister Meg (Leighton Meester) go along. Grace and Meg have a strained relationship that quickly gets much more strained once they arrive. The hotel is dingy and cramped and the tour is brusque and rushed.

The girls are enjoying the top of the Eiffel Tower when they miss the tour bus and get caught in a downpour. When they duck into a luxury hotel for shelter, Grace is mistaken for a spoiled British heiress named Cordelia Winthrop Scott (also Gomez, clearly having much more fun as the imperious young woman with an accent like a “mean Mary Poppins”). Cordelia is supposed to be on her way to Monte Carlo for a fund-raiser to repair her reputation as a party girl. The girls overhear her telling a friend she will leave the hotel without checking out and decide Grace should take her place for one night, rationalizing that the room is already paid for. But one thing leads to another and soon the girls are in Monte Carlo, selecting designer clothes from Cordelia’s luggage so they can go to the ball and meeting charming princes.  Well, one is a prince and two are charming.

There’s also a zillion-dollar diamond and sapphire necklace that is not always where it is supposed to be.  And it turns out that Cordelia is scheduled to play polo.

“I like the way they come down the stairs,” sighed the 9-year old girl sitting next to me.  It doesn’t take much more to enchant the target audience than seeing the girls in their party dresses coming down the steps in slow motion on the way to the ball.  But this movie, thankfully gives us a little bit more. The girls each have enough of a personality and story to keep it from getting too silly but not enough to keep it from being a fairy tale, at least the kind that will make dreams come true for some tweens who are too often neglected by the people who make movies.