The dark cloud surrounding the NBA lockout is growing larger with every passing day that a deal between the players and owners is not agreed upon. Fans of the sport may have to soon settle into a reality void of professional basketball, where are favorite hardwood stars are scattered throughout the world like pieces on a Risk board.

One way of escaping such a reality might be getting your main fix from the collegiate scene, with the occasional grainy highlight of Kobe Bryant scoring 97 points in an obscure (at least to most NBA diehards) Chinese league. However, if college athletics aren’t your thing, there may be another way to ease through your withdrawals. In order to aid basketball fans in the coping process, I have composed a list of 10 of the greatest basketball movies ever to grace the big screen.

Let the healing begin.

10. The Sixth Man (1997)

I encourage you to begin with this movie, because it will make the rest of this list seem Oscar worthy.

On a more serious note, this might be my favorite movie featuring any one of the dozen Wayans Brothers (minus Blank Man).

On an even more serious note, I actually enjoyed this movie. It is guilty pleasure number one that made it onto my list. Any sports movie that can end with one of the main characters walking off the court to go play for the basketball team in Heaven touches me in ways The Notebook never could.

9. Space Jam (1996)

This is my second guilty pleasure selection, but I am fully prepared to defend its merits. I’ll begin by admitting that I was right in the target demographic when Space Jam first came out, and my judgment might be a little lost in the fog of nostalgia.

However, here is my defense. Space Jam featured the most talented basketball player ever to walk the planet, paired with iconic cartoon characters than spanned multiple generations.

It may be the most accessible, albeit superficial, version of Jordan that fans have ever seen. He lives life with a chip on his shoulder and an unrivaled competitive nature that often manifests itself into a public persona most find off putting. In this movie he was the loveable hero that many fans want him to be.

8. Glory Road (2006)

Although it might get trapped in a familiar framework that surrounds a lot of movies driven by racial tension, it still manages to generate a lot of genuine emotion.

Based on the true story of Texas Western Coach Don Haskins, and his decision to be the first collegiate coach to feature an all black starting line-up, the movie delivers a strong message in the triumphs that take place both on and off the court. Think “Remember the Titans,” if it were to cross over to the hardwood.

7. White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

Seriously, they can’t. Not if the sample size you are using includes Woody Harrelson and myself. Cue Wesley Snipes, in a movie where two basketball hustlers pair up to become more profitable.

There is something special about watching Woody Harrelson, who actually has a pretty natural stroke, and Mr. Snipes wipe the floor with their opponents in comically ugly clothing.

The end of this movie still breaks my heart. Damn you Billy. Damn you.

6. Finding Forrester (2000)

A movie that centers on an unlikely friendship between an aging writer, Sean Connery, and a black youth recruited to a private school for basketball, played by Rob Brown.

Connery and Brown have great chemistry, and I’m a sucker for the duel focus on writing and athletics that propels the movie forward.

It is a flick that is both tense and honest in its delivery, and although basketball may not be the heart of the film, it does involve an impressive display of free throw shooting. I would like to see Rajon Rondo hit five free throws in a row, let alone 50.

Iron Man 2, the film, is out this Friday in North America, but Iron Man 2: The Video Game, is out right now.

In it, are popular actors Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson, providing voice-work for two of the game’s characters.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a voice actor on a huge release like Iron Man 2: The Video Game, this is your chance, as a behind the scenes look at the world of voice acting in the game hit the Internet today.

Tonight is the finale of “Shark Tank” at 8 p.m. on ABC, as well as “Flipping Out” on Bravo at 10. No premieres tonight. The American League Championship Series continues on FOX tonight, so that will take up all the television-related attention.

Leading up to the new sci-fi drama “V,” ABC is hiring skywriters to draw huge letter V’s in the sky at 26 major landmarks across the US from Friday until the series opens November 3. “V” will have four episodes before a hiatus until early 2010.

FOX recently approved a new comedy called “Rehaab,” from writer/producer Sam Laybourne (“Cougar Town”). The show centers around a man who pretends to need rehab in order to re-connect with a former high school sweetheart who’s now a rock star.

Finally this morning, Samuel L. Jackson has two products in the works for CBS. The first is a comedy about the wife of a congressman who inherits her husband’s seat after he dies suddenly. We wonder if Victoria Kennedy is paying attention to that one. The second is a medical drama about an ER doctor who treats patients in unusual ways. Jackson will executive produce both shows. He is, after all, the highest paid man in Hollywood.

SAN DIEGO — In a Comic-Con exclusive announcement, Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson and Academy Award winner Charlize Theron have joined the voice talent behind Summit’s new film “Astro Boy.”

Kristen Bell and Freddie Highmore presented the worldwide premiere of the “Astro Boy” trailer, which exhibited animation that stayed very true to the animated cartoon.

“Astro Boy” is Summit’s first animated film and shows Summit’s vast film range, complimenting “Twilight” and “The Hurt Locker”. It hits theaters October 23, 2009.

LOWELL – Samuel L. Jackson might have had enough of those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, but three years later, Cobra Starship (which outfitted the title song for the 2006 summer reptilian thriller) hasn’t given up the party.

Although many people initially thought the group was a joke promotional tool for the film, the boys and gal of Cobra Starship are about to release their third full length album this summer and are currently playing main support for Fall Out Boy on the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, also featuring All Time Low, Metro Station and Hey Monday.

Blast caught up with Cobra bassist Alex Suarez, drummer Nate Novarro, and Hidden in Plain View’s former drummer and Cobra comrade Spencer Peterson in their dressing room before the show on the 19th stop of the Believers tour at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell.

“We’ve just been really happy since Spencer came out here to join us,” said Novarro. “It’s like the Dow national average went up 7 points. Before that it was at an all time low.”

Everyone shares a laugh before Suarez elaborates, “there are just so many moments where we say, ‘That was awesome. Remember last night? That was awesome.’ There are like 20 of those a day.”

To no surprise, the Cobra attitude is a lighthearted one which could lead some to think that “believers never die” may work as some sort of mantra for the band considering the obstacles they have encountered over the last few months.

They ended a full summer run on last year’s Warped Tour to be confronted with a could-be-devastating diagnosis of lead singer Gabe Saporta’s voice. Because of lumps that formed on his vocal chords, Saporta was sentenced to vocal rest and surgery, but that would impede the upcoming headlining US tour for the New York-based quintet. While the Starship delayed recording of the new record and postponed UK dates, they went ahead with the Sassy Back Tour.

Saporta bumped up his surgery to December and spent the holidays recovering before going to work on the new album at the end of January, though there was some worry if he would be up for the Fall Out Boy tour.

“We just kind of hung out and waited for him to be ready to go,” said Suarez. “There wasn’t really anything else we could do.”

Now the band takes a humorous take on the situation by making skits about Saporta’s surgery for their new weekly webisodes on cobracam.tv.

“Our friend Jack the Camera Guy was available and we invited him out on tour. He just comes out with all these great ideas because he’s such a genius,” said Suarez.

A new webisode will premiere every Monday until the new album is released. The previous escapades have shown backstage footage of the tour and alleged album title meetings.

“Someone starts off, says ‘We should do this,’ and then everyone just throws in there and it all comes together,” Novarro said, explaining how the group drafts ideas for the skits.

The group’s latest episode depicts the after-effects of writing part of the new album in the mountains of Pennsylvania on Novarro’s psyche. The trip was an opportunity for the band to get away from it all and write some new material, but became another filming expedition when the band set up a web cam to film their songwriting process.

“There was lots of snow and red wine. White powder and red wine. Cobra cam. Sweet jams were written up there. We wrote a rap song,” said Suarez of the experience.

The mountain session and later recording in New York City did lead to the first song off the record being released to the Cobra Myspace, “Pete Wentz Is The Only Reason We’re Famous.” The title hints that Cobra is up to their usual celebrity trash-talking style, but not afraid to make themselves the target as well, considering Wentz is the one who signed them to his Decaydance label and they are now opening for him during the BND tour.

“I think we make fun of ourselves more, but ourselves as celebrities,” said Suarez. “So I guess you could say we’re still making fun of celebrities.”

As well as making reference to 80′s Kung Fu supervillain Bruce Leroy, the glowing Last Dragon in the new track, Saporta also gets a little dirty in the first verse when he proclaims, “you can rise to the top/but you can’t ride on my cock.”

The cavalier line took many fans by surprise on the first listen but Suarez and Novarro didn’t seem phased when asked if more of the same bluntness would be found on the record.

“Expect a lot of dick and a lot of cock,” said Suarez.

“Metaphorically, of course,” added Novarro.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of hinting about cock,” concluded Suarez before going into a traumatic story from his childhood in which he was witness to two elephants mating but confused the male elephant parts as a second trunk.

“We went to this, like, drive-in zoo , (Lion Park Safari). I’m just looking out the window, ‘Hey ma, why does that elephant have two trunks?’ and then they started doing it. Have you ever seen two elephants doing it? Not pretty,” Suarez regaled.

Namco Bandai recently created a new publisher within their holdings empire, and they named it Surge. This publisher was formed with the goal of catering to western gamers’ tastes, and for their first game, they went with a fitting meeting of east and west in Afro Samurai. The game, which is based on the manga and anime series, takes place in feudal Japan, but a feudal Japan with hip hop music and samurai robots. Mission accomplished, Namco Bandai.

While it seems like it should be difficult to mess up a formula like that-especially one from an established series that plenty of people already adore-Namco Bandai did just that while developing the video game version of Afro Samurai. Now, that’s not to say that no one should go out and buy this game, because it has some excellent moments, ones that oftentimes more than make up for the problems, but the issues are also too much to just overlook outright.

Let’s start with the positives. The gameplay is more than solid, with a simple yet deep battle system in place. You have light hits, heavy hits and another button that kicks; string those moves together to form long combos to take out your foes. You will know you have a combo working when blood splatters on your screen; the more blood, the more effective your combo has been. You can also perform these same attacks whilst in the air, which makes for some nifty looking moves.

You need something besides combos and a few different ways to whack the bad guys though in order to make a brawler worthwhile, and Afro Samurai delivers with its focusing system. ‚ You essentially slow down time in order to charge up a powerful vertical or horizontal slash (or a leg sweep to set up one of those two), and the effect is very satisfying. You can aim with the left stick in order to take out bellies, hands, limbs, heads, and even go for fingers or toes. That kind of control over what you do with your sword keeps things fresh and entertaining throughout. The game keeps track of those kinds of things for your Achievements as well, so those who follow their gamer score’s will want to start aiming.

Another neat addition to the battle system is the ability to mount your foes after performing a successful parry. Just hold down the A button after you parry, and Afro will hop on the shoulders of his adversary; follow that up with a finisher, performed by pressing the left stick along with one of the attack buttons, and you’ve got yourself some entertaining ways to clear your path of foes.

The battle system is a success, which is good news, because it’s the thing you will be doing the most of. There’s some platforming, but for the most part it isn’t anything difficult. The occasional wall run, wall jump or basic hop from platform to platform makes up most of the platforming experience, though there are occasions where these will be strung together for a more difficult experience. They can be more frustrating while trying to fend off enemies, but this is a rarity as well.

The presentation for the game is another strong point. The art style is gorgeous, as it’s a mix between a comic book and an anime, with the hefty horsepower of this generation’s consoles behind it. You will not tire of looking at the backgrounds or the fluid animations of Afro as he slices through everyone in his path. There are two minor downfalls graphically, though: enemy animations when not in battle are stiff, ‚ and there is also slowdown when the screen fills up with enemies and action. The latter isn’t a huge deal, given you do have the ability to slow down time after all, but it does detract from the fast-paced action on occasion, and is a major pain when someone is shooting at you while you’re surrounded by swordsmen.

In addition to the looks, the sound is superb. Samuel L. Jackson provides the voice of Afro’s traveling buddy Ninja Ninja-he’s basically the polar opposite of Afro, who himself gives off the air of a quiet, deep thinking samurai-and Ron Perlman is the antagonist, Justice, the man responsible for the death of Afro’s father many years prior. Both do an excellent job of voicing the characters, so you won’t be too upset that you can’t skip the cut scenes. The music was inspired by the work of The RZA, as he put together the soundtrack for the Afro Samurai series. Howard Drossin composed the tracks this time around while RZA worked as musical director and contributed vocals on two tracks; just like in the series, this portion of the project shines. There aren’t a ton of tracks though, and they do loop quickly, but what you hear is done very well, and given the fast-paced nature of the fighting, you will feel like you’re swinging your sword and kicking to the beat of the music behind you.

LOWELL, Mass. — “The Spirit” is a horrible movie. Now go out and watch it. Sounds like a joke, right? Well, it is a joke and one that the movie is in on.

“The Spirit” is a mock-noir film about a domino masked, fedora wearing hero who has a great mystery in his life. If you think that sounds like every hardboiled film ever, you would be right. The movie doesn’t win points for an original script impart to it originally being a comic book that helped define the pulp-noir thing to being with.

Before I get into the review, for all you neckbearded Spirit fans that can’t stand the thought of such a comic classic ending up on the screen stop reading after this paragraph. I’ve talked to many people who were insulting the film based solely on the trailer, and there self-righteous attitude wouldn’t let them accept even that it might be good. This is Frank Miller’s “The Spirit,” not Will Eisner’s “The Spirit.” I loved the books as much as any nerd does, but you need to understand that the slow moving plots, and joke cracking hero would translate very poorly to the screen, so you’re going to get Miller’s “Booze, Broads, and Bullets” approach to storytelling. In the end, it’s not a perfect translation, but rather a reimagining of the character and story. Ok, now that I have made sure to get a lot of death threats, let’s talk about the movie, shall we?

The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) is the hero of the story, and I don’t use the word hero lightly. Think of someone who stops bank robberies, defeats mad scientists, and saves your neighbor’s cat from a tree all in the same day, and you get the type of guy the Spirit is. The main plot of the movie involves him fighting his arch-nemesis, the Octopus (Sam Jackson), over a couple of priceless artifacts. It’s simple, flawed and frankly pretty uninteresting.

The acting is almost as bad as the script. Every character is either over the top, or might as well be played by a stand in. Big names like Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson are there just as eye candy and to put their names on the posters. Our virtually unknown protagonist, Gabriel Macht, might go back to being unknown if this is the top of his acting ceiling. Sam Jackson is actually very memorable in this. We all know he is a huge comic book fan, and clearly wanted this part. He’s still just an over the top version of himself, but it feels like he wants to be there.

However, I might be looking too deeply into this. If this film is supposed to invoke the feeling of a 50′s gangster movie, then maybe they got the last laugh. The Hero is damn near perfect, the Villain is a mad scientist trying to conquer the world, The Femme Fatale is sexy and otherwise useless and everyone else is just a clichƒ© of various archetypes. It seems so perfectly bad that it was made to be bad.

There is no way anyone could miss on literally every single aspect of characterization. It appears the wool might have been pulled over my eyes.

Then why am I telling you to go see it? Well, not to sugar coat it, it’s very pretty. Once you understand that the script is a mess of clichƒ©s, one liners and deus ex machinas then you realize that it’s still fun because of the wonderful settings and visuals. In a style similar to Frank Miller’s other movie, “Sin City,” it is very desaturated, almost to the point of grayscale, then covered in these wondrous bright colors that remind you of what it must have felt like when man first saw fire.

The movie also uses very stark black and white contrasts that look fantastic, especially with the constant crimson red of the Spirit’s tie flying throughout the scenes.

There are a couple of standout scenes. Visually, anything with the Spirit running over the rooftops, or any fight scene is worth the price of admission. There is another scene that I didn’t think anyone would ever make. Picture Sam Jackson talking about death. Now picture it on a stage surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia and Jackson is himself dressed in a SS uniform. Needless to say, there were a couple gasps from the audience from this scene. The whole thing is done in a tongue and cheek manner, but I think “The Spirit might have just tried to make Nazis funny. You can’t fault this movie for not trying new things.

In the end, the Spirit will remain a popcorn flick. It has moments that make you both laugh and groan out loud. Its paper thin plot is covered up by its amazing visuals. So go grab someone, drag them to a matinee showing, clear your mind, and be prepared to see something that they don’t make often, an enjoyable bad movie.