Spike TV (the cable channel with Impact Wrestling, Bar Rescue and 1000 Ways to Die) has a different take on handing out trophies and their Guys Choice awards show returns next month with the big event premiering on Wednesday, June 12th at 9PM ET/PT.
Why do we care? Well, the Guys Choice awards show has always made a point of supporting the military and this year’s show will feature salutes to the troops and returning veterans. There’s also a special Troops Choice Entertainer of the Year award that they want our readers to vote for. Click here to choose between Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Anniston, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Downey Jr., Russell Crowe, Steven Spielberg, Vin Diesel, Zach Galifianakis or anyone else you might want to write in. +Continue Reading
Want to buy 50% off tickets to see Kenny Chesney’s “No Shoes Nation” tour this Saturday 5/25? The show happens at FedEx Field in Landover, MD and features Chesney, Erich Church, the Eli Young Band and Kacey Musgraves.
This is a special offer from our friends at GovX (the “largest e-commerce destination for military and government members”) and you have to follow this link to get the reduced price. +Continue Reading
There are a couple of new trailers for Tom ,due this August before the fallCall of Duty rush. The game’s two-player co-op mode allows you to play as longtime hero Sam Fisher or his new partner, CIA operative Isaac Briggs. You’re tasked with retrieving a nuclear warhead from a group of terrorists. There are 4 mission types, 14 maps and a two-player split-screen option. +Continue Reading
China Beach has finally gotten a DVD release in an elaborate box set. The 1988–91 ABC TV series examined the Vietnam War from the perspective of women, both those who served and civilians who experienced the war up close. +Continue Reading
Editor’s Note: COMPLEX 90 was an unfinished Mike Hammer novel by Mickey Spillane that was recently completed by noted author Max Allan Collins, whom Spillane asked to finish the book before is death in 2006. In the just-released book, Hammer travels to Russia on a fact-finding mission and gets entangled in an espionage incident with the KGB. Since the novel was originally inspired by the ‘60s spy craze, Collins decided to reflect on the influence of James Bond for us.
The recent publication of COMPLEX 90 got me reflecting on that special time in the ‘60s when James Bond first exploded onto the American scene. This is in part because I’m the lucky writer who completed Mickey Spillane’s unfinished 1964 manuscript of his “lost Mike Hammer Cold War thriller”; but also because I was in high school when Bond and the Beatles led the British Invasion, and have warm, vivid memories of the spy craze. +Continue Reading
J.J. Abrams is having a good year. His new movie Star Trek: Into Darkness opens this weekend and will take over from George Lucas to make a Star Wars sequel that’s due in 2015. Being the guy fixed Star Trek or getting a chance to fix Star Wars would be the life’s dream of any sci-fi kid who grew up in the ‘70s or ‘80s. Being the guy who gets to fix both is something that’s impossible to imagine.
Abrams is using his Hollywood power and profile to support The Mission Continues, an organization founded by former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens. The theory behind the group is that men and women who served their country aren’t given enough opportunities to continue that service after they leave the military. +Continue Reading
Jack Reacher is out today on Blu-ray and DVD. Based on Lee Child’s wildly successful series of novels about a mysterious Army vet who roams the country using his military police skills to right wrongs and beat the hell out of bad guys. The book describe Jack as 6’5″ and around 220 lbs., so a lot of readers were surprised when the movie version cast Tom Cruise (generously listed at 5’7″ on the Internet) to play the role.
Director Christopher McQuarrie (who previously co-wrote the classic The Usual Suspects with director Bryan Singer and directed the underrated The Way of the Gun) made a movie that should win over the doubters. It’s got enough action to appeal to the Jason Statham (or Charles Bronson, depending on your generation) action crowd but adds a level of wit and intelligence most action pictures don’t make the effort to achieve.
One of the director’s secret weapons is his brother, former Navy SEAL Doug McQuarrie, who worked as the weapons technical advisor on Jack Reacher. Doug also advised his brother on The Way of the Gun, so they’ve long had a successful working relationship. This clip from the bonus documentaries describes Doug’s role in making sure the climactic shootout at the rock quarry looks as realistic as possible.
The movie is based on the novel One Shot and really uses its Pittsburgh locations to great effect: the movie is definitely set in western Pennsylvania and the detailed and obvious use of location is a big plus to this movie. (Compare that to the dozens of current movies that use Georgia locations as Anywhere, USA and never use the local character to the movie’s advantage.) Tom Cruise really gets into this role: even if he’s not the Jack Reacher you were looking for, he commits 100% to the role and he’s the best he’s been in a film since at least Minority Report.
There are currently eighteen books in the Reacher series, so there’s plenty of source material for a McQuarrie/Cruise sequel if Jack Reacher finds the audience it deserved on DVD after a so-so theatrical run.
The WIGS Channel on YouTube wants to update the serial drama (a/k/a “soap operas” or what your grandmother called “my shows”) for the modern world with a series of programs named after the female lead characters who anchor each drama.
Lauren returns today for a second season. “Season” on the WIGS channel is kind of a hybrid between the traditional weekly episode model and the all-at-once release Netflix is pioneering with House of Cards and Hemlock Grove: four episodes of Lauren are live now, with four to follow on May 10th and the final four on May 17th. Each episode runs about ten minutes, which makes each series almost add up to a feature-length movie.
Lauren wants to address the problem of sexual assault in the military and explores the subject in a manner that will seem familiar to anyone who grew up on General Hospital or One Life to Live. The show features some other high-watt talent: Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) plays Lauren’s commanding officer and Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) plays the officer that Lauren tells about her sexual assault.
In the scene below, Lauren (played by Troian Bellisario from Pretty Little Liars) tries to convince Raymond Cruz (from Breaking Bad and The Closer) to seek help for what seems to be post-traumatic stress.
After you’ve killed the enemy and they’ve come back as zombies so you have to kill them again, what’s the next logical step for Call of Duty? Ghosts. Of course, there aren’t many details about the plot in the game announcement, so “ghosts” could be a reference to some kind of new stealth mode for players, but let’s hope the idea here is that you’re supposed to take out spirits of the dead. +Continue Reading
Made for Canadian television in 1980 and later syndicated to American stations, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War is an almost twelve-hour documentary about the history of Vietnam from the end of WWII through the fall of Saigon in 1975. Time Life has just issued the series in a 4 DVD set.
Future CNN war correspondent (and Canadian) Peter Arnett wrote the narration and conducted the interviews for the series and the Richard Basehart narrates the documentary, something that might be disconcerting for anyone who recognizes his voice as the narrator of Knight Rider. +Continue Reading
![Der Gro?mufti von Jerusalem [Amin al Husseini] bei den bosnischen Freiwilligen der Waffen-SS. Der Gro?mufti ist auf dem Truppenubungsplatz ein[getroffen] und schreitet die Front der angetretenen Freiwilligen mit erhobenem Arm ab.](http://images-undertheradar.military.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/nazicollaborators300.jpg)
Under the Radar is commentary. We don’t report the news; we offer our take on what happened.
