This week’s pick is yet another classic from the world of Golan Globus a.k.a. Cannon Films, Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985) which was directed by Lance Hool and stars Chuck “White Lightning” Norris as Colonel James Braddock in this prequel to the Missing in Action franchise.

The film also stars Soon-Tek Oh (Col. Yin), Steven Williams (Nestor), Cosie Costa (Lt. Mazilli), David Chung (Dou Chou), John Wesley (Sgt. Franklin), Christopher Cary (Emerson), Bennett Ohta (Capt. Ho), Joe Michael Terry (Cpl. Opelka), and Professor Toru ”Sub Zero” Tanaka (Lao).

The film opens in 1972 Vietnam where Col. Braddock (Norris) leads a rescue mission along the Cambodian border. A squad of American troops are pinned downed by enemy fire when Braddock and a rescue team land in a chopper to ferry them out. As they take off under heavy fire, a rocket round takes out the hydraulics and the chopper goes down. All the men on board are soon listed M.I.A. ‘Missing in Action’ and become a painful reminder of America’s failure to win the Vietnam War.

The film then flashes forward ten or so years later where Braddock and his men are prisoners in a camp run by the sadistic Col. Yin (Soon-Tek Oh) who forces Braddock’s men and others to grow opium for a French drug smuggler named Francois (Pierre Issot). Yin has spent years trying to break Braddock and make him confess to ridiculous war crimes. Yin also uses psychological torture against the prisoners by telling them that American ambassadors are being killed throughout the world, and that world opinion has turned against the United States because if its long war against the peace loving people of Vietnam.

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When cool new things come out like Amazon’s recent Cloud Player service you pretty much assume these things will work with your iPhone, iPad or other iOS device. They are, after all pretty darn popular with the kids who also happen to love music. Sadly, at least at launch, that wasn’t the case with Amazon’s new offerings.

That was then. Now, things are a bit different. Amazon has decide that IOS users have suffered enough and has flipped the switch that allows Cloud Player to work with Mobile Safari. You will still get the ominous “Your browser isn’t supported” warning, but once you get past that you can experience the service in all its glory, complete with background playback and control.

In case you’re not familiar with Amazon’s Cloud Player service, you get 5 GB of free storage once you sign up. Anything purchased from the Amazon MP3 store can be automatically added to your Cloud Drive without counting against your storage quota.

In addition, Amazon will give you an extra 15 GB of free storage when you purchase at least one MP3 album, bringing your storage limit up to 20 GB. You can also upload and stream any tracks you already have with it.

All in all, its a pretty cool service. Sure, it would be nice to have a native IOS app instead of having to use Safari, but one thing at a time. This is progress and you can probably expect a new IOS app soon enough.

In a world where branding is extremely important, one company has risen to the top — at least according to a recent study. What is this top company? Why, it’s Apple of course.

According to a study conducted by advertising firm WPP and published in their “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands,” Apple’s brand value has increased 859% since 2006, and jumped 84% to $153.3 billion this year. Yes, that’s a lot.

Apple isn’t alone, however, as tech companies are predominate on the list with AT&T, China Mobile, IBM, and Microsoft all having spots in the top-10 most valuable brands list. McDonald’s is the only non-tech brand in the top-5. Google had reigned supreme for the past four years before being displaced by Apple, and Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the No. 1 retailer.

Not bad for a company that was thought to be dead not that long ago. Click through to read the full press release from WPP.

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“Were sailors! Just like you… except for the gun thing, and the beardiness’

-The Doctor

One of the biggest problems that face shows with season long story arcs is how to fit in the “one-off” episodes that exist in between the larger, grander story episodes. Doctor Who used to be a serial, which meant they didn’t ever really need small single episode stories to keep the thrust of the season afloat. Most of the time there were hardly any definition between the seasons at all, in fact looking back now it would be difficult for most casual Who fans to differentiate between the specific seasons of the original run.

That structure isn’t feasible today, and in 2005 when Russell T. Davies restarted the show he had to take the show into the more traditional season format. This meant that the stories became far more interconnected over the course of a season, and it also meant that every now and then you would get an episode that pretty much exists entirely on it’s own. It is exactly that type of episode that ‘The Curse of the Black Spot” ends up being, and it is one of the better stand alones yet.

This is the point where I warn all you readers who haven’t seen the episode yet to avoid the rest lest ye be spoiled! More after the jump.

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Thor had a mighty weekend, but not quite as spectacular as some of the other Marvel properties. It nabbed the number one spot at the box office with $66M.  Audiences were fairly pleased with the film, and bestowed a “B+” upon it, according to CinemaScore. The film earned about 60% of its total from 3D screens and had an impressive per screen average of $16, 688.

Fast and Furious was a bit of a surprise. It dropped 62%, despite very positive reviews and word of mouth. That’s a drop we typically see in horror movies and other front loaded films. It still managed to make $32.5M, and has made over $139M in just two weeks.

Jumping the Broom came in at number three, an impressive task considering the fact that there was minimal advertising and promotion for the movie. There were also no big name stars, yet the film made $13.7M on fewer screens than the number four film, Something Borrowed.

Something Borrowed pulled in about $13.1M.  Okay, but not great, especially since it should have had a built in audience from Emily Giffin’s book. Rio took the five spot, making $8.2M. In four weeks, the film has taken in $114.9M.

The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster and starring Mel Gibson,  played on limited screens (22) and made about $4,700 per screen. That is roughly on par with what Something Borrowed pulled in per screen.

Guess who just passed the $50M mark?  A little horror film called Insidious, which only had a budget of about $1.5M. Source Code also joined the $50M club this week.

Next week Bridesmaids will square off against Priest.

Before you get all bent out of shape and start asking why no-one learned anything from Wild Wild West, take a listen to the idea first. Quentin “homages aren’t stealing” Tarantino has decided to take to the world of spaghetti westerns and “reboot” the classic franchise Django.

Here’s the most recent info from Heat Vision:

Sources prepped for those meetings say Tarantino would like Smith to star in the film, the script for which has been making the rounds in recent days to wide acclaim. No official offer has been made to Smith, and any deal would of course be subject to working out financials, which might be difficult given Smith’s status as one of Hollywood’s few sure-thing stars.

Smith is being teed up for the title role of Django, a freed slave who seeks to reunite with his slave wife, a journey that will see him team with a German bounty hunter to take down an evil plantation owner.

Tarantino wrote the bounty hunter part with Christoph Waltz in mind, according to insiders. The German ends up training Django and helping him seek his wife.

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Saturday marked the special Mother’s Day season finale of Saturday Night Live, with special guest host Tina Fey. Fey did a pretty solid job, considering how very pregnant she is and the fact that she didn’t even sit in to do Weekend Update (WTF?). One skit that definitely stood out in the night was a brand new song from Andy Samberg’s Lonely Island.

From the guys who brought us “Motherlover” last Mother’s Day, Samberg (alongside Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone) have added one more legendary singer to the list with Akon, T-Pain, and Justin Timberlake. That artist? The Legendary Michael Bolton.

In their newest single, The Lonely Island try to tote their coolness and how “gangsta” they are, when all Michael Bolton wants to sing about is his newest film obsession: Captain Jack Sparrow.

Check out the music video after the jump, and pick up the new song on iTunes here.

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I’m more interested in coming up with cheap puns that could’ve titled this review were it not for the fact that we have formats to follow regarding the titles, so, no matter how awesome it would be to call it “THORing” or “This Movie Is Asgard,” I can’t. (“Thor: A sNORSE-fest” would be good, too.)

Thor (Chris Hemsworth), for those of you who skipped the Norse mythology part of your childhood or avoided the comic (does anyone know a die-hard Thor fan? I’ve been told they exist, but then people say there’s some dedicated Hulk and Dr. Strange fans, too), is the Norse god of thunder and son to Odin (Anthony Hopkins), king of Asgard, an alien planet or alternate plane of existence (I’m not entirely sure).

A thousand or so years ago the Asgardians fought the frost giants, led by Laufey (Colm Feore), to protect earth and preserve something called the Casket of Ancient Winters. Fast-forward to the present, when those knucklehead frost giants are at it again. This time they invade Asgard to back steal the casket, and Thor disobeys his father when he travels to Jotunheim to rough up Laufey.

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Even though you probably already know, the first Saturday in May (that’s tomorrow or today, depending on when you read this) is a great day for comic book fans everywhere. Why? Well, its Free Comic Book Day of course!

What does that mean? It means that you can walk into any participating comic book store in your area, grab some free comics and then leave, go home and enjoy reading them. That’s it. No muss, no fuss.

Free as in free beer. And who doesn’t love free?

You can check out the list of free comic books for this year—including an origin special for Robert Kirkman’s Super Dinosaur, and then look for stores in your area that are participating. In addition to all the great free comics, its always nice to help out the comic shop owner a bit by actually buying a few things too.

You don’t have to by anything, though, its just a nice thing to do. Lots of stores put a bunch of stuff on sale too so that’s a bonus.

No matter what, be sure to get out there and have some fun. After all, fun is what comics are all about, right?

Buyer beware: if you haven’t read Emily Giffin’s book, it is likely that this film adaptation will fall flat. Those who have read the novel will be pleasantly surprised to see the world of Rachel, Darcy, and Dex wonderfully brought to life. This is the rare book adaptation that was perfectly cast, and should please the fans.

However, without the back story of the novel, you are likely to be confused or even annoyed by the love/hate relationship of the title characters. For the uninitiated, Something Borrowed is the tale of Rachel, an attorney who is not particularly happy with her job, and is perpetually single. She has lived in the shadow of her best friend Darcy, a beautiful party girl who lives a charmed existence, for most of her life.

Rachel became pals with Dex during law school, and has nursed a crush on him since day one. Lacking the confidence to divulge her true feelings to Dex, Rachel steps aside and lets a romance brew between Darcy and Dex. It’s a decision that will come back to haunt her.

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Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a fan of Marvel’s Ghost Rider. Even if I had tried to give the character a chance, which I did, any interest I had in it was effectively destroyed by Nicholas Cage’s portrayal of him in the Ghost Rider movie.

Although, as bad as Cage is, we can’t lay all the blame at his feet. The film’s writing and direction, both curtesy of Mark Steven Johnson (who also did Elektra and Daredevil, which should tell you something) are also to blame.

Given all that, it makes sense that Marvel is trying to reboot the character, at least in comics, with the upcoming release of Ghost Rider 0.1. According to Marvel, this comic will be “a bold new beginning for Ghost Rider amidst the chaos of Fear Itself.”

But wait, there’s more: “From the newly exclusive creative team of writer Rob Williams and artist Matthew Clark, Johnny Blaze has finally found a way to defeat the demon within and undo his pact for power. But can he allow himself to ‘Give Up The Ghost’? Find out in this special POINT ONE issue as Vengeance rides in a new direction and scorches the Marvel Universe like never before.”

Yes, I’m still a bit skeptical. But looking at these new images and reading a bit about the story of this comic, I gotta say I’m inclined to give this character, and this book, a second chance. See, Nicholas Cage can’t destroy everything.

Check out the preview images after the jump. The brand new Ghost Rider 0.1 hits comic store shelves on June 8th.

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Inner Circle should be best remembered for giving unto the world “Bad Boys,” the song that has, for some 20 years, opened COPS. My father so loved that song that he actually bought a tape of Inner Circle’s greatest hits, doubtless the only reggae music he has or ever will purchase, and I remember taking long trips through the east side of Saginaw (the most violent portion of the most violent city in America) listening to him sing along—even the incomprehensible lyrics (“You ‘chock’ it on this one, you ‘chock’ it on that one, you ‘chock’ it on your mother and you ‘chock’ it on your father”).

Years later, to me at least, “inner circle” meant the part in TIE Fighter when Thrawn is promoted to Grand Admiral (Battle Ten). I don’t think I ever made it to that part, but there was a cheat that allowed you to see all the killer cutscenes. Damn fine game.

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