The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. In celebration of Earth Day 2008, we made ‘green’ the major theme on the TakePart blog this week - green documentaries and television programs, Earth Day quotes and action activities, as well as some great film reviews. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

Top 10 Earth Day Videos From the Hub

Joanne Herring Invites You to “Charlie Wilson’s War” Screening Discussion - Free DVD!

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Nicole Hughes:

Top 10 Documentaries About the Environment

Top 10 Ways to Take Action On Earth Day 2008!

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Andy Kondrat:

Top 10 Quotes About the Environment

Disney Launches DisneyNature to Make Documentaries - I Freak Out

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Jon Popham:

B Corporation Takes the Guesswork Out of Going Green

Sea Level Rise Explorer

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Giulia Rozzi:

Oprah and My Mom Going Green

Green It. Mean It.

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Gina Telaroli:

Taking Part In the Blogsphere With “The Visitor” and “Standard Operating Procedure”

“The Soloist” Explores the Homeless and Mentally Ill With Grace and Music

I’m a pretty happy TakePart blogger these days. Not only does Participant Productions have an awesome movie in theaters (Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor) and another one on the way (Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure) but great interviews with the directors and actors keep popping up all over the blogosphere.

Here are some of the pieces I spotted yesterday:

Errol Morris Fixes His Gaze on Abu Ghraib (The New York Sun)

THE VISITOR“The Evening Class Interview With Richard Jenkins (The Evening Class)

THE VISITOR“The Evening Class Interview With Tom McCarthy (The Evening Class)

More on Standard Operating Procedure. (Green Cine Daily)

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After a great opening weekend and lots of praise (especially from The New York Times) Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor is going to play in theaters beyond LA and New York!

This Friday (Today!) the film will open in Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Washington DC and even in my non-Manhattan borough of Brooklyn! to find out when it will be playing at a theater near you. And in case you’re like my family and live in Ohio (it’s not on the list linked to above) fear not! The Visitor will be at the Cedar Lee on May 2nd!

Woo-hoo! Watch the trailer below and go HERE to listen to an interview with the director and stars.

On Wednesday The New York Times (and many other news outlets) reported on an immigration/borders story that I worry many folks missed. The below paragraph really says it all:

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all. Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom. [The New York Times]

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Movement Vision Lab, is a website that works to brings “together grassroots organizers and social justice advocates to share and debate long-term, visionary ideas for the future.” Recently they held an awesome video contest where they asked:

We know that, as a country and as a world, we’re all in it together and we’re more than the sum of our parts. That goes for both sides of the border. What would it mean to value everyone equally, no matter where they come from and how they got here? How would you tell America that immigration is about Community Values? [MVL]

The winning video is below - give a watch:

And on the note of immigration and movies, The Visitor comes out this Friday

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One of my favorite websites is http://www.apple.com/trailers - mainly because I could watch movie trailers for hours! When I went to the trailers page last, I noticed that the trailer for The Visitor was up. I excitedly hit play and watched. (*I should note that trailers for Get Smart and Love Songs also made me happy)

The Visitor is about “a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.” And it teaches us that “in a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life.”

The film stars Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) and is written/directed by Tom McCarthy, who also wrote/directed The Station Agent, a great little film that also deals with different folks coming together and finding that new relationships and experiences can change one’s life.

to watch the trailer on the Apple website, or watch the YouTube version below (the quality isn’t as good though ).

Also and learn how you can get involved with the film.