The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Want to learn our top eco-kinky tips for ‘greening up’ your sex life? How about the top 10 ways to take action against AIDS?  Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie:

Annie Lennox & Top 10 Ways to Take Action Against AIDS

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: American Idol & Yip Harburg

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Nicole:

Top 10 Ways to ‘Green Up’ Your Sex Life

Top 10 Global Warming Myths Debunked

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Giulia:

Mortified Makes Movies

What a Bunch of Boobs

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Gina:

Top 10 Immigration Films

Boarding Gate’s Empty Adventure of Capitalism

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Say Hello to Our Guest Bloggers!

Jon Popham wrote:

Young At Heart Hits the Silver Screen

Death and the River

Andy Kondrat wrote:

Top 5 Things You’ll Love About Planet Green

Leonardo DiCaprio Does Everything For the Environment, Ever

Young@Heart, a new release from Fox Searchlight Pictures, is set to kick off in theaters April 9th. A recent hit at the SXSW Film Conference & Festival, the film tells the tale of the Young@Heart Chorus, an ensemble of singing Senior Citizens formed at a retirement home in Northampton, MA in 1982, whose taste in material run irrepressibly toward contemporary pop and rock. The group, whose membership ranges from 73 through 92 years of age, performs choral renditions of songs by Outkast, Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Radiohead, just to name a few.

But Young@Heart isn’t just about having kitschy fun watching the elderly sing the music of a younger generation. The film also shows the illness and loss experienced within the group, which frames the music they create in a whole new light - such as the video clip of “I Will Survive” below - and gives us a portrait of Seniors refusing to give in to the cruel demands of age by making music with their friends and having a great time doing it.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. This week we celebrated some of our own favorite top 10 bloggers who work night and day to provide us up-to-date info on films, literature, and feminist news. Don’t miss these exciting and informative blogs, as well as some of our most popular stories of the week.

Katie:

“La Misma Luna Under the Same Moon,” Not the Same Old Movie

Top 5 Eco-Friendly Gadgets for Under $50

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Nicole:

Top 10 Literary and Book Blogs

NBC11 First Wind Powered TV Station

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Giulia:

Top 10 Feminist Blogs

Horton: The New Mascot for Pro-Life

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Gina:

Top 10 Film Blogs

Top 10 Films I Would See If I Was At SXSW

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Kerry:

Our Pharmaceutically Fouled Water Supply

Top 7 New Sins Against God’s Green Earth

Alas, I am not in Austin but in New York City - but if I was there at SXSW, these are 10 films I would be seeing. They’re all TakePart friendly (advocate social change and action) in their own particular way - even if it isn’t obvious right up front.

Check out the entire SXSW line-up HERE and to keep up to date on festival action.

1. Mister Lonely
Director: Harmony Korine. Writers: Avi Korine & Harmony Korine. Starring: Werner Herzog, Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant.
A Michael Jackson impersonator lives alone in Paris and performs on the streets to make ends meet. At a performance in a retirement home, Michael falls for a beautiful Marilyn Monroe look-alike who suggests he move to a commune of impersonators in the Scottish Highlands. (U.S. Premiere)

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Julian Schnabel, the man who prefers to be called a painter and not a film directer, is having a film career that most who call themselves directors would die for. He’s nominated for an Oscar for directing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I loved!!!), his Lou Reed documentary will play at SXSW in March and his next project is starting to come together:

The painter/director will try to bring peace to the Mideast. Schnabel is headed to Israel in June to scout locations for a movie he’ll shoot next year. “It’s based on a book by a woman named Rula Jebreal, who is an Israeli Palestinian,”

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It was just announced that Kimberly Pierce’s follow-up film to Boys Don’t Cry, called Stop Loss will play at the SXSW film festival later this Spring. The film is about a young man who returns from war in Iraq, only to be told he has to go back and the new trailer is already fueling conversations in the blogosphere about it’s anti-war message and whether it goes too far.  

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