You may not remember when the first Rambo movie came out back in 1982. First Blood was a box office hit. Sly Stallone had become a star pretty much because of his Rocky movies and it had been about 10 years since the U.S. ignominiously departed Viet Nam. We were still dealing with the fallout from that war and how it had changed us as a people. Most notably were changes in our veterans, who left family and friends as young men and returned as someone different.

Many movies tried to address the plight of the Viet Nam Vet, but Rambo gave him a face and a name. And an attitude.

It’s fine to talk about how poorly our veterans were treated after returning to "The World," but John Rambo made many people wake up and take notice.

Now, more than 20 years after Rambo first appeared in theater, Sly Stone is reprising his role as the disenchanted kick-ass vet, except now the misanthropic police aren’t of the small town variety, they are the local arm of the Burmese government who are harassing folks near where Rambo has put down some roots in Thailand.

So what, you say? Rambo is ancient history and the recent movie can’t be anymore than a ploy by a rusty old actor with grand memories vying for a way to be relevant in today’s world. After all, didn’t Stallone recently do another Rocky movie? Rocky!!

That could be true, and it could be that Mr. Stallone has a decent movie in Rambo. If you can’t decide, there is hope. There’s a free-to-rent 18 minute movie that goes over the background of the latest Rambo movie. Producers, Kevin King Templeton and John Thompson, and writer/director/actor Sylvester Stallone take turns discussing the history of the movie with the aim of giving you a clue why you might want to rent or buy it (it was released to theaters on January 25 and is now available on DVD).

While the movie is interesting in its own right, what’s really has my attention is that Apple choose to rent this movie instead of giving it away. I’m thinking they did so so that folks can see how easy it is to rent flicks from the iTunes Store. And it is easy. So easy, in fact, that I’m seriously considering picking up an AppleTV.

Anyway, check out Rambo: It’s a Long Road. Resurrection of an Icon. You might be glad you did.

Ever watch young boys play with toy dinosaurs? They set the stage, usually pitting a meat-eater against a herbivore, but occasionally the guys will have 2 carnivores clash. A T-Rex, perhaps, against a velociraptor: that’s the ticket! There is always a lot of growling and teeth gnashing and the action is furious. Kind of makes you wish you could see such a matchup for real.

Well, you’re in luck if you don’t mind wading through all of the science. In the new series called Jurassic Fight Club you can watch what might have happen millions of years ago when big reptiles ruled the world and fought and dined on each other to survive.

I’m somewhat of a fan of shows like these. I love the science behind them and the little boy in me loves to see these beasties come virtually to life. What I don’t like is how they often repeat scenes and flashing to clips seemingly to fill space. It’s annoying almost to the point where I don’t want to watch it. I watch anyway.

The free episode on the iTunes Store centers on Majungatholus, a little known meat eater found in Madagascar. This guy not only sported shark-like teeth, it had a head built for ramming and a tail built for slamming. Pit two males against each other during mating season and you’ve got some serious jurassic action on your hands. If you can get past all the scene flashing you’ll find it pretty interesting and fun to watch.

Download the first episode of Jurassic Fight Club for free at the iTunes Store.

There’s got to be a statistic around that says something about the number of shows proposed to TV execs versus those that actually become the shows we watch. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to something like one out of every 20 shows makes it to the air. That means there’s a lot of pilot episodes sitting around collecting dust somewhere.

Were those pilots really so bad? Now there’s a chance to find out, at least for two would be shows. A new series by Sony Pictures, called The Lost Pilots, is featured this week at the iTunes Store and offers two pilots for a show starring comedian Dane Cook, and another pilot that lampoons the various shows aimed at teenagers. The bonus material for both Dan Cook pilots are available as free downloads.

Don’t pass up the Dan Cook bonus materials, they are all the out-takes, retakes, and random silliness that went on while filming the pilot and it’s funny. The actual pilots are called Cooked 1 & 2, presumably because the actual show would have been called Cooked, and judging from the bonus material it looked like it might have been funny and could have made it.

I guess we’ll never know. Get Cooked 1 & 2 Bonus Material and see some of what we’ve been missing.

OK, that’s going to do it for this week. More free stuff at the iTunes Store below, with direct links.

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.