The classic children’s series “Sesame Street” celebrates four decades of teaching children to read, count and sing with the new two-disc DVD set “Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days.” The DVDs include five hours of favorite moments and songs, celebrity segments and backstage footage.

Families also can add the latest Disney/Pixar release, “Up,” to their DVD collections today, while comic book fans can invest in the Ultimate Edition of the “Watchmen” film.

In music news, rockers Kings of Leon, who have Oklahoma ties, are releasing their performance DVD “Live at the O2 London, England” today. New albums…

3D here with your New Releases for this week.  In DVDs this week, the big release is the “Watchmen (Director’s Cut).” It must be significantly different than the theatrical release because the runtime has increased by 24 minutes.

After the success of their first venture together, “Silent Thunder”, best-selling author Iris Johansen has once again teamed up with her son Roy for a new novel out this week.

In CDs, there is a special new box set of Michael Jackson’s music out as an import. Originally intended to be released to coincide with his comeback tour,…

After a few weeks of down business, the box office rebounded this week with the premiere of Monsters vs Aliens.  Thanks to the pricier 3D tickets, this family friendly fare had the biggest debut of the year at $59.3 million. 

Also having a good first week was the horror offering The Haunting in Connecticut with a better than expected $23 million.  The action film 12 Rounds suffered a first round knockout with only $5.3 million.

The total box office numbers for the top ten films this week:

1.) Monsters vs Aliens $59.3 million

2.) The Haunting…

Nicolas Cage’s apocalyptic thriller “Knowing” opened as the No. 1 movie at the box office over the weekend, according to the Associated Press. The Summit Entertainment release debuted with $24.8 million in ticket sales.

It was another success for the small studio, which made its mark last year with the blockbuster vampire romance “Twilight.” The “Twilight” DVD went on sale Saturday, with fans of the movie and Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the book series on which the film is based, lining up at midnight.

“Knowing” beat out two other new releases. The “bromantic” comedy ”I Love You, Man” debuted…

It was a big weekend for remakes at the box office.

“Race to Witch Mountain,” the “re-imagining” of the 1970s Disney flick “Escape to Witch Mountain,” opened at No. 1 with $24.4 million, according to the Associated Press.

The remake of the ’70s horror movie “The Last House on the Left” was in third with $14.1 million.

Last week’s No. 1 movie, the film version of the acclaimed graphic novel  “Watchmen,” nabbed $17.8 million for second place.

“Witch Mountain” fared better than anticipated. Still, Hollywood had its first down weekend in six weeks,…

The entertainment staffers at The Oklahoman and NewsOK talk about the opening weekend for “Watchmen,” band reunions such as New Kids on the Block and other news in this week’s Entertainment Roundtable. Click here to read it.

Or you can see and hear us talk about these entertainment issues in this NewsOK Entertainment Insider video:

-BAM

Features writer David Zizzo has in today’s Life section a fascinating story on James Kakalios, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota who worked as a consultant on the film version of “Watchmen.” Kakalios teaches a popular freshman seminar called “Everything I Know About Physics I Learned by Reading Comic Books.” Click here to read David’s story.

“Watchmen” made $55.7 million over the weekend to nab the top spot at the box office, making Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel the biggest opening of the year so far,…

Listen in as George Lang and I quiz Matt Price about the new film “Watchmen” in this week’s NewsOK entertainment podcast. Click here to hear it.

-BAM

Check out Matt Price’s blog Nerdage to get a total fix on this weekend’s big movie relase, “Watchmen.” Matt attended the recent press junket for the film in L.A., and he’s got his movie review, plus features on Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Dave Gibbons and more.

You might say Matt’s obsessive coverage of “Watchmen” makes Rorschach’s relentless investigation into the Comedian’s death look like mild interest – but in a good way. But that would be an immensely nerdy comment, and he’s the expert nerd around here, not me.

Seriously, I’ve been reading…

The long-anticipated film adaptation of “Watchmen” opens Friday in theaters. The acclaimed graphic novel was long considered unfilmable, but “300″ director Zack Snyder apparently has pulled it off.

The buzz has been building for “Watchmen” since Snyder presented snippets at a packed panel last summer at San Diego Comic-Con. A strong ad campaign has helped keep the excitement going.

I’m currently reading the graphic novel for the first time, and it’s completely engrossing. So far, the source material has proven worthy of the hype, but will the movie?

And for those of you…