Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan has confirmed that he helped Israel develop its nuclear weapons program as a spy, according to the investigative television program Uvda on the Israeli Channel 2.

The book "Confidential" details Milchan’s double life as a hotshot and Israeli intelligence operative, which the multi-billionaire never discussed on the record.

Milchan reportedly toldinterviewer Ilana Dayan that he set up bank accounts and companies to acquire material and equipment for Israel's secretive LAKAM economic espionage unit. He reportedly operated 30 companies in 17 different countries at the peak of his spying activity.

“Do you know what it was like to be a 20-something guy whose country decided to let him be James Bond? Wow! The action! That was exciting,” Milchan, who was born in 1944 in what was then Palestine, told Dayan.

In the 70s, Milchan brokered deals for hundreds of millions of dollars between Israel and U.S. companies for helicopters, missiles, and other equipment.

Milchan, who is good friends with current Israeli President Shimon Peres, told Uvda that he then helped Israel obtain key nuclear equipment and information while Peres built the Dimona nuclear reactor as Director-General of the Ministry of Defense.

(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to work for Heli Trading Co., is also a friend of Milchan.)

Milchan's company, Heli Trading Co., brokered the shipment of 800 krytons — sophisticated triggers for nuclear weapons — from the California company MILCO International Inc. to the Israeli Ministry of Defense between 1979 and 1983.

In 1985, the U.S. indicted MILCO President Kelly Smyth on 30 counts of smuggling and making false statements.

When asked about the transactions, Milchan told Dayan: "I didn't know Israel ordered the triggers. I didn't even know what triggers were."

SEE ALSO: How Israel Received Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material From A US Company

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The actor Alec Baldwin has blamed "the fundamentalist wing of gay advocacy" for the decision by MSNBC, the US cable news channel, to cancel his weekly show after he used offensive language to a photographer.

Baldwin, who was caught on camera apparently calling the photographer a "cocksucking fag", acknowledged he had to take "some responsibility" for his actions but blamed activists for the network's decision on Tuesday to pull the plug on his six-week-old talk show, Up Late with Alec Baldwin.

"You've got the fundamentalist wing of gay advocacy – Rich Ferraro and Andrew Sullivan – they're out there, they've got you," he told the news site Gothamist. Ferraro is a spokesman for the mainstream campaign group Glaad, and Sullivan is a popular blogger whose views are not widely regarded as extremist.

"Rich Ferraro, this is probably one of his greatest triumphs," Baldwin said. "They killed my show. And I have to take some responsibility for that myself."

MSNBC suspended the show two weeks ago after Baldwin was caught on camera apparently calling a photographer a "cocksucking fag". He disputed using the second word, apologised for the first and promised to be more careful in the future but amid continued outcry the network announced his show would not resume.

"We are jointly confirming that 'Up Late' will not continue on MSNBC," the network and Matthew Hiltzik, a representative for Baldwin said in a statement. The network added: "This is a mutual parting and we wish Alec all the best."

The 30 Rock star, currently in Hawaii filming a Cameron Crown film, told Gothamist the audio of his outburst was unclear. "Faggot' is not the word that came out of my mouth."

He also denied a New York Post report that he aggressively took over a makeup room used by a woman with cancer who was sensitive to hairspray.

"No one ever ever ever said to me that somebody had cancer, and I never said 'I don't give a fuck'."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Prince William, Taylor Swift, and Jon Bon Jovi are three people we wouldn't necessarily put in a room together, but the musicians and the royal united last night at a gala for the Centre point Charity.

Swift and Prince William even went on stage to accompany Bon Jovi while joining in to sing "Livin' On A Prayer." And yes, Prince William knew the words.

While Swift gets a little too into the performance, the proper prince looks like he feels incredibly uncomfortable after taking the mic. Watch below:

SEE ALSO: 11 Reasons Kanye West's 'Yeezus' Tour Is Actually Incredible

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The start-up GoldieBlox will take its parody of the Beastie Boys song "Girls" out of an ad for its line of girl-focused building toys and ask the group for a truce in their copyright fight, GoldieBlox said in post Wednesday on its company blog.

The decision comes a little less than a week after GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit against the surviving members of the hip-hop trio that claimed the group's attorneys threatened a copyright suit over the GoldieBlox video ad, which parodied the original Beasties Boys ode to female domesticity with new lyrics promoting female empowerment.

The video had amassed more than 8 million YouTube views by Monday, but has since been pulled from the site.

Here's the letter GoldieBlox wrote to Beasties Boys members Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and Mike "Mike D" Diamond on its blog:

"Dear Adam and Mike,

We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans.

When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions. We wanted to take a song we weren’t too proud of, and transform it into a powerful anthem for girls. Over the past week, parents have sent us pictures and videos of their kids singing the new lyrics with pride, building their own Rube Goldberg machines in their living rooms and declaring an interest in engineering. It’s been incredible to watch.

Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.

We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.

Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video. In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.

We don’t want to spend our time fighting legal battles. We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends.

Sincerely,

Debbie + Team GoldieBlox"

GoldieBlox's video won praise across the internet for promoting new opportunities for young girls, who could "build a spaceship" or "code the new app" instead of the cleaning tasks the Beastie Boy originally sang about in 1987.

Then, this past weekend, news broke that GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit against the Beasties asking a California judge to rule it didn't infringe the Beastie Boys' copyright and alleging that the Beasties had threatened a lawsuit.

The Beastie Boys fired back soon after with an open letter in The New York Times, saying that they did not threaten a lawsuit, but were merely asking why the song was used without their permission.

Others pointed out that the group has been staunchly opposed to its music being used in product ads, and that the will of Adam "MCA" Yauch, a group member who died of cancer in May, explicitly prohibits his music being used in commercials.

If nothing else, the entire saga is something of a media coup for both sides of the spat. The small start-up GoldieBlox permeated the public consciousness with a huge viral ad and major news story, and the Beastie Boys had an old song introduced to a new generation while they stayed true to their old fans with a compassionate, yet anti-corporate stance.

Here's the new video, without the Beastie Boys parody:

SEE ALSO: A Small Girls' Toy Company Claims The Beastie Boys Want To Ban This Video

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Film producer Arnon Milchan recently confirmed that he served as an Israeli spy for decades while also working in Hollywood.

And it seems he was no ordinary spy.

Israel's secretive LAKAM economic espionage unit, which was tasked with securing technology for Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program, recruited Milchan in the 1960s. At one point, the 69-year-old told Channel 2, he operated 30 companies in 17 different countries.

(Milcharn reportedly became a key operative for LAKAM chiefBenjamin Blumberg and top spy Rafi Eitan, who ran jailed spy Jonathan Pollard and infiltrated a U.S. company to obtain tons of highly-enriched uranium.)

Milchen, who is good friends with current Israeli President Shimon Peres, also said that he helped Israel obtain key nuclear equipment and information while Peres established the Dimona nuclear reactor as Director-General of the Ministry of Defense.

Milchan's company, Heli Trading Co., brokered the shipment of 800 krytons — sophisticated triggers for nuclear weapons — from the California company MILCO International Inc. to the Israeli Ministry of Defense between 1979 and 1983.

In 1985, the U.S. indicted and extradited MILCO President Kelly Smyth on 30 counts of smuggling and making false statements.

Here's what Smyth told FBI agents in Los Angeles (via IRMEP):

Smyth details his recruitment by Arnon Milchan, meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu who then worked at smuggling front Heli Trading (Milchan Brothers Trading Company) in Israel, and how the "Project Pinto" smuggling operation was rolled up after his arrest for smuggling 800 nuclear triggers and subsequent flight from the U.S.

Milchan denies that he knew about the nuclear triggers, which require a U.S. State Department munitions license to be exported. In any case, it's clear that he was integral to Israel's nuclear program.

Milchan, who still works in Hollywood, has produced over 120 full-length films including "Natural Born Killers," "Heat," "Pretty Woman," “Fight Club,” “L.A. Confidential," and "The Fountain."

SEE ALSO: How Israel Received Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material From A US Company

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Actress Jena Malone plays the angry, axe-wielding, elevator-stripping Johanna Mason from District 7 in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."

But in order to get the role, the self-proclaimed "happy-go-lucky" 29-year-old had to channel her inner anger.

Luckily, nothing went right on the morning of her audition for director Francis Lawrence.

Malone explained that day and her audition process to Vulture:

Before the audition, I was like, F---, I’m so not an angry person. I mean, I can do intimidating or whatever, a little bit. But I’m much more of a happy-go-lucky, make everyone feel comfortable [person]. Anger’s not something you can fake. It’s something that channels through you, out of nowhere. It’s a hard thing to control. So I was like, F---, this is going to be a little complicated, and I don’t wanna go in there and give him something fake and ridiculous. And so, I don’t know what happened, but the morning I woke up, everything started pissing me off. My alarm didn’t go off right; someone called me at five in the morning. I got out of bed on the wrong side of the bed. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s happening? And I was like, Oh, wait. She’s totally taking over. And so by the time I got to the audition, I was so pissed off. And they were like 30 minutes late, some actor was in there before me, he kept coming out and putting his headphones on and then going back in. And I was like, Jesus, this guy. They’re, like, coddling everybody. He’s trying to cry, he can’t cry. I was so pissed off. They’re wasting my time. By the time I was in there, I was seething; I was frothing at the mouth. I don’t even think I said hello to Francis. I just walked in and said, “Tell me when you want me to start.”

Needless to say, Malone got the gig.

And now everyone is obsessed with her role in the film.

SEE ALSO: Here's The 'Hunger Games' Actress Who Randomly Strips Naked In An Elevator

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Microsoft released the Xbox One Friday, exactly one week after Sony's PlayStation 4 launch.

We've been playing the next-gen console for more than a week.

It's definitely not a perfect console, but boy is there a lot to do, and when it works, it's fantastic. 

However, is it worth the $499 price tag?

With the holidays around the corner, and Sony's slightly cheaper PS4 ($399) on the market, here are the big takeaways from the Xbox One to consider when deciding which system to buy this holiday season.

Love: The three different ways in which you can turn on the console. 

In addition to using the Xbox logo on the controller to turn on the system, the Xbox One is voice activated (simply say “Xbox On”) or can be turned on by swiping your finger over a motion sensor on the console. 

Note: You need to have the Xbox set to “instant-on” mode to turn on the console with your voice. 

The downside: We’ve wasted a lot of breath trying the voice activation feature to turn on the One.  

We’d stick with the controller. It’s easier.  

Indifferent: The new Xbox Dashboard 

Microsoft says the Xbox One home is “designed to be simple and uncluttered … to easily find … what you want.”  

That’s definitely true. Unlike the eight screens available to scroll through on the Xbox 360, now there are just three — the home, store, and pins. 

However, the whole look and feel of the dashboard screams Windows 8. If you’re not an adopter of the operating system, you may feel like it’s being forced on you. 

The biggest addition here are pins which are available to use on the Xbox 360, but weren’t mandatory. They’re not necessary here either, but they’re quick shortcuts to apps, games, and activities. You can pin up to 25 different items. 

While cool, the biggest downside is that you can’t freely rearrange your pins in whatever order you want. If you wish to move the pins, you can do so in a tedious shuffling manner which sends one after another to the front slot. 

Love: The exclusive game selection 

This is a no-brainer. The Xbox One clearly has the upper hand when it comes to better, exclusive launch titles. 

“Lococycle” may not be anything to brag about from collective reviews, and “Ryse: Son of Rome” is your generic, gladiator combat, but zombie and racing games “Dead Rising 3” and “Forza Motorsport 5” show off the full range of the 40 new improvements to the controllers.  

The new view button let’s you change views in Forza, while the triggers let you experience every crash hands on.   

Hate: No backwards compatibility 

This was the same with the PS4. Though you can upgrade a few select Xbox 360 games for $10 at the moment to Xbox One versions, the selection is limited.

Battlefield 4
Madden NFL 25
Need for Speed Rivals
Call of Duty: Ghosts
NBA 2K14
FIFA 14
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

If you recently purchased "Grand Theft Auto: V" or Batman game "Arkham Origins," you need to stick with the 360. 

Love: Watching cable on the Xbox One 

Arguably one of the best features of the Xbox is the ability to live stream your cable through the console.  

It's a pretty simple process as illustrated in the handbook / manual that comes with the One. In addition to the set up for the Xbox One, you just run the HDMI cable that (hopefully*) runs from your TV to your cable box and run it from the cable box to the Xbox console. 

The transition is very smooth. We had the television on in the living room the other night and I had no clue whether or not we were streaming through the console. It didn't help that both our Xbox 360 and One were turned on (remember, we can't play 360 games on the One). 

I had to say "Xbox" to test it out and see if Kinect commands would come up on the screen. (Turns out we were watching AMC through the console.) 

Why would I want this? 

Why wouldn't you? But seriously. For any gamer, it makes transitioning from television to video game play — and vice versa — so much easier. Before the Xbox One, we needed to switch the input on our television to go back and forth between games and TV. In our case, for the Xbox 360, this is going from HDMI 1 to HDMI 2. 

With the Xbox One, there's no switching. You can just tell the console "Xbox Watch" and tell it to head to whatever channel you want to watch.  

Want the volume higher? Say "Xbox volume up." The same goes for volume down and mute. 

Want to go right back to your video game? It can do that, too. 

Sounds cool … but does it work?  

It's not perfect. That's for sure. 

I've had to repeat myself a few times.  

But when the Xbox One's Kinect is listening to you and decides to work, it does so wonderfully and fast. The best part? You don't even need to yell at the Kinect every time you want a command done. Speaking in your regular voice — while a good distance from the console — registers with the console.  

I've sat in front of the console from a variety of ranges, speaking in a multitude of high and low-pitched voices ( looking slightly ridiculous in the process) and though I've had to repeat myself a few times, the Kinect picked my voice up without fault.

Just make sure you don't have the volume up too loud while trying to speak to the console or it may not hear you. 

One thing I have noticed is that the Kinect seems more responsive to me than other friends and family members. This may be because I have used it the most so the Kinect recognizes my voice more than the others. Over time, the technology is supposed to respond better to those who speak to it frequently as it recognizes your voice over others. It sounds weird, but in a way, I'm kind of like it's mom.  

Just how easy is it to set up?

*Well, we ended up having an old Comcast box without an HDMI outlet (those exist!). So we had to go and get a new one in order to use the cable feature on the Xbox One.

We've tried out the feature on three different TVs and overall, setup is pretty painless. However, for those who have surround sound, it hasn't been as easy to figure out how to hook that up. There's currently a Beta in place. If you're having trouble figuring that out, you can head here.

Hate: How specific I need to be with commands. 

While using the TV on the Xbox One, you do need to know the channel network. You can't just say "Xbox watch channel 42."  

Want to play a video game? You can't simply say "Xbox play Forza." Games require that you say "Go to" instead of "Play." Play is reserved for movies and music. 

For some apps, you also need to say the name of that app specifically. Any command with Xbox One's exclusive title, "Forza Motorsport 5" must be said with the entire title of the game. 

Needs Improvement: The Xbox's version of a TV Guide 

While watching TV on the Xbox One, you're able to surf through what's on through the consoles version of a TV Guide called the One Guide. Sounds and looks cool. You can mark your favorite channels, and easily say any show's name on the screen to bring up info on it. It's very similar to what your cable box can already do for you — just hands free.  

One feature you're supposed to be able to do is ask the console what's on any channel at a given time by saying something like, "Xbox, What's on ABC?"  

Though it worked during various demonstrations while I was with the Xbox team, no matter how much I have used this command, it simply hasn't worked. Instead, I'll be taken straight to the network channel. Not a huge problem, but it could be refined. 

Love: The Snap feature 

We’ve gone over this before, but the ability to run two applications at once — or snap them on the screen together — is pretty awesome. 

You can play video games while listening to music or watch TV while running Skype or the NFL app. 

The combinations are endless depending on the apps you have downloaded on the console.  

Some combinations don’t make sense (we wouldn’t run two TV based apps at the same time — Netflix and Hulu), but that’s part of the fun. 

Our best combo so far? ESPN and the NFL app to show live scores and game highlights. 

You can read more on this feature here.

Love: Xbox One's Kinect Gestures 

The new Xbox has five gestures to try out.  

On the 360, you used to select an object by hovering your hand over something and waiting for a load circle to complete around it. This is gone. Instead, you push in with your hand to "tap" into an application. For any "Star Wars" fans, it's kind of like using the force (without things getting obliterated in the process).  

They're fun to use … when you can get them to work. 

Hate: It's not so easy to get your hand to pop up on screen. 

We spent a good amount of time looking like morons trying to get the little hand to pop up on the screen. (We nearly couldn't put it in our 60 second Xbox One review because we couldn't get the function to work.)  

On the 360, the way you make the hand appear is by gently waving your hand back and forth. 

On the One, you just hold your hand up. But you need to make sure that you hold it up so the one camera sees your hand. Then a white hand pops up on the screen. It can be frustrating if it doesn't work and we've given up many times. Also, the only gestures we've really gotten to successfully — and easily — work are "making a selection" and "grip and hold." 

Hate: Calibrating the Kinect and its size

Compared to the old Kinect — and the PS4 camera— the Xbox One's Kinect is pretty large in comparison.

Though we can see the improvements in the Kinect camera (it uses an HD camera that shows us in 1080 pixels) and how precise its motion technology is, we've experienced issues using the Kinect when going to play Kinect Sports.

You have to make sure you have the camera leveled JUST right in order for it to see your floor space to play.

The camera can be adjusted easily enough up or down. If you're fiddling around with this it can become a bit frustrating.

Could be better: The Internet and Bing Search

Sorry Google fans. As a Microsoft product, you’re forced to use Internet Explorer and Bing search. The concept sounds intriguing; however, the execution isn’t that great.  

The Bing feature listens fantastic. It brings up exactly what you search for … provided it has to do with television, movies, and actors. 

On Internet Explorer, while useful, it’s annoying to type out a website with an Xbox controller letter by letter.

Could Pass: DVR / Record That

Like the PS4, you can also record and share gameplay on the Xbox One. While Sony’s console records up to 15 minutes of gameplay, the One's The DVR feature can capture up to five minutes of gameplay. Say "Xbox Record That" and it will record up to 30 seconds of play.

It’s easy to share recorded clips with friends across Xbox Live. However, if you want to share your videos elsewhere on social media, it’s a two-step process through the Xbox’s Skydrive which isn’t really all that clear. 

 We’ll take recording on the PS4 any day over this.

Love: The achievements you can get across apps.

On the Xbox 360, you could get achievements, goals the game sets for players to accomplish, only in games. (The point of these is basically to give players extra incentive to continue and replay games.) The One allows you to get achievements in any app. 

Here are a few you can receive:

Indifferent: The ability to Skype 

Skype looks great on the Xbox One. You can host calls with up to four people and send messages to anyone using the application, on or off the Xbox. 

The only problem here is whether people are really going to use this feature on the console. Microsoft wants you to use it to chat with friends while watching TV or playing games. We figure this feature may come in handy during Xbox Live parties and matches with friends; however, you’re already using the chat feature to communicate with up to 30 people, so one must ask how necessary this really is.

Overall: Is the Xbox One cool? Without a doubt. Do you need it right this instant? Probably not.

There's no denying this is a great console. From the cable and Snap features to the Kinect gestures and commands, the Xbox One has much more to offer to the average consumer than the PS4. 

The Kinect commands don't work perfectly, I've had to repeat myself numerous times speaking to the console, and that can become frustrating. Over time, it does seem more cognizant of my voice over others the more I use it. 

While meeting up with both Sony and Microsoft for the two consoles, there was one main difference I noticed.

When I first tried out the Xbox One at the start of the month with some of the Xbox team, they were very anxious to show off every facet of the Kinect. I spent very little time actually playing a game, and that was a problem. Though the Kinect was — and is — cool, it didn't always work. The Sony team wanted to get me to play a game right away, tossing around its virtual robots. 

To me, that speaks volumes about the audience both are trying to hit.

Microsoft seems a little too dependent on using the Kinect to sell this device when in reality I'm not sure how many people will even use the camera all the time.

Don't get me wrong, though. The Kinect is great. There's a lot of room for potential and growth. I'm really interested in seeing how developers plan to use the full range of Kinect capabilities (motion capture and all) in future game releases — if at all. But its not why I'm dishing out $499 for a console. 

It's clear Microsoft is trying to reach a broader audience. However, it may just be trying to be too much of everything. Do I really need Skype on here? It's cool I guess, but I have a multitude of other devices to easily use that on (iPad, laptop, desktop). It sounds silly, but I feel so distracted by everything else available on the console that it's easy to forget the main purpose of the Xbox One is to play video games.

I get that Microsoft is trying to make gamers' lives easier by integrating everything into one system and make everything available so you never want to leave the console. While it's great to have everything available at your fingertips, at the end of the day, gamers just want to play their games. 

SEE ALSO: We played the Xbox One and PS4 — here's which one we liked better

AND: What you get with the Xbox One console

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"Orange is the New Black" writer Piper Kerman has become a celebrity for getting involved in a heroin-smuggling conspiracy in her early 20s, and it turns out the guy allegedly behind that conspiracy is still at large.

The Chicago Tribune recently pointed out that the federal case involving Kerman — whose book inspired the hit Netflix show — is still wide open. That case dates back to 1994, and most of the 14 defendants were convicted long ago.

But the alleged kingpin, a man named Buruji Kashamu, has evaded U.S. authorities. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago refused to drop the indictment against him in 2011, but he's been safe in Nigeria for years.

The Tribune notes that the case against Kashamu been particularly frustrating for prosecutors in Chicago because he was arrested in England in 1998 and held for five years. But British authorities reportedly refused to extradite him back to the U.S. after finding the eyewitness identification of him was weak. He returned to Nigeria, where he's reportedly been active in the country's politics.

Kerman signed a plea agreement for her relatively minor role in Kashamu's alleged conspiracy, and she ended up serving 11 months in federal person. Her role involved transporting $50,000 in drug money from the U.S. to Europe for her girlfriend, who had a bigger role in the alleged heroin-smuggling conspiracy.

Although Kerman pleaded guilty to her crime in 1998, her ordeal was dragged out because feds wanted her to testify against Kashamu in "street clothes, not an orange jumpsuit," Kerman wrote in Marie Claire. Thus for five years, she had to live her life with the prospect of prison hanging over her head.

It was only after Britain finally released him in 2003 that she could finally start doing her time — and getting some inspiration for her best-selling memoir.

For his part, Kashamu claims that the government is fingering the wrong guy and that he's not in fact the drug kingpin known as "Alajj," according to the Tribune. Alajj was, in fact, his dead brother, Kashamu says. The U.S. is still apparently trying to have Kashamu extradited from Nigeria, though.

"We're still trying to figure out ways we can fix this for Buruji," his Chicago lawyer, Scott Frankel, told the Tribune. "They're trying to bring this guy back and then have a bunch of people who haven't seen him in years testify that he's the guy."

SEE ALSO: 'Orange Is The New Black' Writer Gets Awkward Questions About Race During Reddit AMA

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"Breaking Bad" is really setting the bar high in terms of creativity for complete series box sets.

Sony released the complete series Tuesday. Naturally, as huge fans of the AMC show, we pre-ordered the set to have it delivered release day.

It comes with a lot of great extras — a never-before-seen two-hour making of the series, a collector's coin, and even a Los Pollos Hermanos apron(!) — however, we were really impressed with the unique packaging of the discs.

It's clear an immense amount of detail went into making this box set feel special for fans.

Forget everything you know about regular DVD cases. Each season is held together by magnets — a clear reference to the series.

Better yet, you may notice a bunch of strange images drawn on each season's disc set. 

What's up with that? 

If you watched series creator Vince Gilligan unbox the series ahead of its release last week, you'll know you can put the clear plastic discs together to form an image iconic from each season. Gilligan suggested using them as drink coasters.

Pretty cool. 

Let's take a look at them all!

Season 1

What do we have here?Walter White's pants.The first image we saw at the series' start.Season 2

We knew what this one would be before we put it together.The one-eyed pink teddy bear White found in his backyard ...... floating around in his swimming pool.

Season 3

Here's where the hat comes into play.A drawing of Walter White as his drug lord alter ego, Heisenberg.Remember the sketch of him on the notebook paper in Mexico?Season 4

This should be another easy icon to guess.Tio Salamanca's bell ...... which had an explosive series exit.Season 5 (part 1)

We really weren't sure what to expect as an image to coincide with the first eight episodes.But then it all made sense.The tarantula from the train episode (Season 5, episode 5), which ignited the beginning of the end for Walter White.Season 5 (part 2)

Until we laid these out, we weren't sure what that red blob was.The very important car keys and beeper Walt needed at the series' end.This may be our favorite.

Here they are all together:More box sets should be this creative.

SEE ALSO: Watch Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston read the series' finale

More "Breaking Bad" Check out everything that comes with the box set

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The latest Spike Lee joint, "Oldboy," came out today. It stars Josh Brolin and it's a remake of a South Korean film that came out a decade ago. It's a dark and twisted movie, and the movie posters promoting it do a good job at capturing that.

But freelance designer and photographer Juan Luis Garcia sent an email to Spike Lee accusing the director's film company of stealing his designs to promote the movie.

He recounts dedicating two months to working on "Oldboy" posters. He says the joy he felt upon learning Spike Lee personally chose one of his designs as the key poster quickly faded when the ad agency on the movie offered him less than he made in a day in a low-level photography job. He said they refused to negotiate on a price and became furious when he declined their offer. "I need you to know the truth. Some of the posters you are using were stolen from me. I tried my hardest to resolve this amicably but the agency just blatantly refused," the email says:

They told me I didn't want to mess with Spike Lee, that I would never work again, that I was a despicable human, that they wish they never met me, and that they were going to sue my ass to oblivion. For what, I honestly don't know. We never signed any contracts or work-for-hire agreements and I certainly never agreed to donating or selling any copyright of my work without a licensing fee.

He said he decided to chalk it up as a loss, even when he saw what he believes is a slightly modified version of his poster promoted months later:

Garcia claims that earlier in the week, he found his original design and two more of his posters on Spike Lee and his production company's Facebook pages, with their copyright claims on them. He says he wanted to contact Lee before pursuing legal action. Here are the other two posters in question:

Lee's production company 40 Acres And A Mule did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment by the time we published this post. Both they and Lee have kept mum on social media regarding the subject for the past couple days, but that hasn't stopped Garcia's fans from spamming their pages with a link to the "Dear Spike Lee" letter. An example:

"Everyone is asking why I don't name the [ad] agency and the answer is simple. Spike knows exactly who I am referring to," Garcia told The Hollywood Reporter. He also told them that he has been receiving a stream of support from the design community.

Garcia has previously designed posters for movies like "The Great Gatsby" and photographed celebrities like The Roots drummer Questlove.

SEE ALSO: Josh Brolin Gained 15 Pounds In 4 Days For 'Oldboy' Remake

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Over the past 89 years, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has become an irreplaceable staple of Thanksgiving festivities. 

Every year, 3.5 million people flock to the streets of Manhattan to see the parade in-person and 50 million people gather around their television sets to watch the parade from home. 

What began as a small Macy's employee-run event called Macy's Christmas Parade, has morphed into a huge production that requires almost an entire year's worth of preparation.

From the parade's first character balloon, Felix the Cat, and its original route that started at 145th street, to this year's spectacle, which will feature appearances from Fall Out Boy, Florida Georgia Line, and the Robertson family of "Ducky Dynasty," the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade continues to be a sight to see.

The first Macy's Day Parade was on November 27 in 1924. The parade originally featured Macy's employees and live animals from the Central Park Zoo. Floats, instead of balloons, were the main attraction.

The parade began in Harlem at 145th Street and ended in front of the Macy's flagship store on 34th Street. It was originally called the Macy's Christmas Parade, but was renamed the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in 1927.

(Above photo is from 1994)

An estimated 250,000 spectators attended the first parade. Today, about 3.5 million people attend.

(Above photo is from 2007)

Jimmy Kimmel isn't exactly in the Thanksgiving spirit.

"It is weird that we have a feast every year celebrating our escape from England," the late night host joked.

But English actor Gary Oldman is taking the American holiday personally.

"This year as you consume your annual feast known as Thanksgiving, consider this: not only did you flee our homeland to avoid paying taxes, you now pay it so willingly you run our faces in it with a big, fat food orgy," explains an angry Oldman.

"But guess what?" asks the actor. "We're glad you're not British anymore ... so f--- off."

To hear the rest of Oldman's rant on Thanksgiving, watch below:

SEE ALSO: The 89-Year Evolution Of The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

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On Saturday, "The Hunger Games" actor Josh Hutcherson hosted a Thanksgiving-themed episode of "Saturday Night Live," kicking off what might perhaps be our favorite time of year on the weekly variety show.

Since the early 1990s, the super funny "SNL" cast and celebrity hosts have staged song-and-dances, mock talk shows, and cartoon — all in the name of the holidays.

From Adam Sandler's ode to Chanukah, to Alec Baldwin's spherical holiday snacks, and of course, the 2006 digital short by The Lonely Island about a special boxed gift for the ladies, "SNL" hasn't ceased to entertain us .

It's the most wonderful time of the year, so for that, we're taking a look back at some of the funniest "SNL" skits of all time.

"The Chanukah Song" (1994)

Before making it big in comedy movies, Adam Sandler was a five-year "SNL" cast member, and one of his most memorable performances came via a December 1994 episode.

In "The Chanukah Song" — a follow-up to his 1991 "The Thanksgiving Song" — Sandler sings about Jewish children feeling alienated during the Christmas season.

Sandler rhymes, "Tell your friend Veronica/It's time to celebrate Chanukah/I hope I get a harmonicah/Oh this lovely, lovely Chanukah."

"Motivational Santa" (1994)

The late Chris Farley was by far one of "SNL's" most memorable cast members, and though he appeared as a variety of characters (ahem, Chippendales) throughout his career, he often played Matt Foley, an over-the-top motivational speaker.

In this December 1994 "SNL" episode, Foley returns as a department store Santa Claus, frequently reminding that he, of course, lives in a van down by the river. 

NPR's Delicious Dish - "Schweddy Balls" (1998)

The Delicious Dish was a regular sketch on "SNL" featuring cast members Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon discussing often-monotonous cooking topics on an NPR talk show. 

In a December 1998 episode, Alec Baldwin joined the sketch as Pete Schweddy, famous for his spherical food items made of various ingredients, aka "Schweddy Balls."

The 1998 sketch did so well that it has since appeared on every "SNL" Christmas sketch compilation episode.

Click for sound.

Anyone who's seen a dog show has probably wondered: "What are the judges doing to those poor dogs out there?"

David Frei has hosted the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show for over 20 years, and the host of the National Dog Show, which airs annually on Thanksgiving Day — so, he has a pretty good understanding of what those judges are looking for in a "Best of Show" type dog.

The voice of the Westminster Kennel Club (and founder of a therapy dog charity called Angel on a Leash) tells us how show dogs are judged.

Produced by Kamelia Angelova and Will Wei; Additional camera by Justin Gmoser

Music: "Playtime" by Elyse Montano

SEE ALSO: How To Choose The Perfect Dog

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Freemium mobile gaming is a byzantine, poorly-understood vertical within the ecosystem of consumer technology. Few industry analysts or journalists possess the relevant knowledge to assess the health of companies operating under the freemium model  – not because they’re incompetent, but simply because freemium gaming only really became noteworthy from the perspective of large media outlets and investor advocates in the west (which is to say, it started generating large amounts of money) with the rise of Facebook’s gaming platform between 2008 and 2010. Because of this, the public consideration of freemium gaming companies tends to lean on parallels to legacy business models or historical benchmarks.

To complicate the issue of evaluating a freemium company’s health diagnostics, very few freemium gaming companies have experienced long-term success at scale. This makes predicting failure a low-risk proposition whenever a freemium company makes a large bet, grows quickly, or opens a new product track: since most freemium gaming initiatives fail, it logically follows that any given freemium gaming company’s initiative is likely to fail. Comparisons to past mis-steps can be made as quick and easily-digestible summaries of a freemium company’s proposed plans.

For these reasons, comparisons between King, the developer behind the global gaming phenomenon Candy Crush Saga that recently filed an S-1 to go public, and Zynga, another gaming company that launched an IPO in December 2011, are currently being made because both companies develop freemium games. And since Zynga is currently trading at around 40% of the debut price of its public shares, the temptation to predict a similar fate for King is understandably strong – but flawed.

To highlight just how misunderstood the freemium mobile gaming industry is, consider that, for the last few months, there seemed to be no consensus in the mainstream technology media that King was even pursuing an IPO.

From the ground, this uncertainty was baffling; King’s most popular title, Candy Crush Saga, has remained comfortably entrenched at the head of Apple’s top grossing charts for months, likely delivering millions of dollars in gross revenue per day to the company.

And in mid-May, King’s notoriously secretive and limelight averse CEO, Riccardo Zacconi, made a rare public revelation of operational data points that was obviously intended to shore up interest in a public listing. To those familiar with King as a company, this was interpreted as a concrete admission than an IPO was imminent: King’s CEO generally eschews public speaking engagements, interviews with journalists, and public disclosures of proprietary data. But to outsiders, King’s very public reveal was reported upon as a mere PR stunt.

While it’s true that Zynga’s IPO poisoned the well for prospective social gaming public offerings – and equally true that large institutional investors, to whom King’s banks will begin making overtures in short order, cannot possibly approach the analysis of every potential investment with the trained eye of an industry insider – comparisons between the two companies are invalid, for three reasons.

1) King’s management team and ownership structure is completely different from Zynga’s.

In the lead-up to Zynga’s IPO, the company’s then-CEO, Mark Pincus, held conspicuous ubiquity in technology press– conspicuous because profiles of the veteran executive were almost universally unfavorable, highlighting his aggressive management style and willingness to engage in less than savory tactics in the pursuit of revenue.

Pincus had the freedom to maintain such a high profile because the lines between Zynga and its CEO were blurred: at the time of its IPO, founder and then-CEO Mark Pincus owned 18.1% of the company, far more than any other individual employee (and about 50% more than the stake held by Zynga’s next-largest shareholder, Kleiner Perkins).

While little is known about King’s ownership structure (given that King filed a “confidential” S-1, as allowed by the JOBS act), the company was founded in 2003 (as Midasplayer International Holding Co.) by six former colleagues from a company called Spray that fell victim to the burst of the internet bubble in the early noughts. Apax Partners and Index Ventures invested $50MM into the company in 2005 to fund development of a web-based “skill game” platform.

That massive round of funding (and the investments that preceded it) as well as the size of the founding team likely means that King CEO Riccardo Zacconi’s ownership stake is far smaller than Pincus’ was at the time of Zynga’s IPO. With a more distributed locus of managerial power, King has built a more conservative and calculated business than Zynga was in December 2011.

Zynga’s strategic capriciousness surely contributed to the significant decline in the company’s enterprise value since it went public: as its competitive advantage on Facebook dwindled, the company has endlessly explored faddish rabbit holes without seemingly committing to any on a long-term basis. Such fickleness is only possible when a company is helmed by a messianic leader with unrivaled influence, which King does not appear to be.

2) King and Zynga employ critically opposing growth tactics.

Until recently, but especially at around the time of its IPO, Zynga’s operational strategy involved rapid headcount growth, often through acquisitions. Prior to December 2011, Zynga acquired the following companies:

• YoVille (2008, coincided with $29 series B investment)
• MyMiniLife (2009)
• Serious Business (2010)
• XPD Media (2010, established Zynga’s presence in China)
• Challenge Games (2010, established Zynga’s presence in Austin. Austin office later shuttered)
• Conduit Labs (2010, established Zynga’s presence in Boston. Boston office later shuttered)
• Dextrose (2010, German-based HTML5 game enginge developer. Established Zynga’s presence in Europe. German office later shuttered)
• Bonfire Labs (2010, established Zynga’s presence in Dallas. Dallas office later shuttered)
• NewToy (2010, NewToy was the developer behind Words with Friends. Zynga paid $53MM for NewToy, which was based in McKinney, Texas and folded into the Dallas studio through layoffs. The Dallas studio was later shuttered)
• Flock (2011, Flock was a “social web browser”)
• Area/Code (2011, established Zynga’s presence in New York. Multiple New York were offices later consolidated through layoffs after Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP and then closed altogether, although a small advertising and sales office remains open in New York)
• Floodgate Entertainment (2011, folded into Zynga’s Boston office, which was later shuttered)
• JamLegend (2011, JamLegend made a free-to-play, web-based music game and was folded into Zynga’s San Francisco office)
• Wonderland Software (2011, established Zynga’s presence in the UK. UK office later shuttered)
• DNA Games (2011)
• Sapus Media (2011, the two-man company that developed cocos2d, a 2d mobile game engine)
• Five Mobile (2011, established Zynga’s presence in Canada)
• Astro Ape Studios (2011, folded into New York office, which was later shuttered)
• HipLogic (2011, HipLogic was an Android development studio)

Many of the studios acquired during Zynga’s three-year acquisition spree were later shuttered – mostly in Zynga’s recent culling of 18% of its workforce.

King, on the other hand, has only publicly announced one acquisition in its 10 year history: that of Fabrication Games, which was a Stockholm, Sweden-based mobile games developer with just 12 employees. As of June 2013, King employed a mere 400 people across offices in London, Stockholm, Malmö, Barcelona, Bucharest, and Tokyo (notably, not San Francisco).

3) King’s mobile launch pipeline is bolstered by a massive portfolio of existing web titles.

King’s development approach  – which involves vetting new titles, developed by 3-person teams, through the 10 million users of its King.com platform before launching on mobile – allows the company to maintain a portfolio of properties without investing heavily in marketing when testing the viability of new games.

Additionally, without developing new IP, King could likely fill its mobile release schedule for at least the next year or two from the huge bank of approximately 150 games that are already operational on its web platform. This represents a substantial distinction between December 2011 Zynga and King: Zynga was forced to acquire teams and IP (like Zynga’s acquisition in March 2012 of OMGPOP, the developer behind the, at the time, fast-growing Draw Something) to keep releases regular, while King can select the best-performing titles from its existing portfolio to port to mobile platforms.

This presents another important difference between the two companies: rather than operating a portfolio of titles across multiple platforms, Zynga commits the bulk of its development resources to a single platform at a time. Much has been written about Zynga’s dependence on Facebook and its resultant late shift to mobile, but even acknowledging the company’s recent recognition of the primacy of mobile, it can be said that Zynga appears to still be too narrowly focused on a single platform (iOS). Zynga has 60 apps in the App Store compared to its 26 in Google Play.

While Android doesn’t yet match the monetizaton of iOS, it is the key entry point into Asian markets, which Zynga doesn’t appear to courting. Compare this to King, which launched Candy Crush Saga on Android earlier this year, announced a partnership deal with KakaoTalk in South Korea earlier this month, and has begun announcing new mobile titles for multi-platform launch (as opposed to iOS exclusives), and King clearly is more committed to diversifying its user base in terms of both geography and platform adoption than Zynga.

This diversification is a matter of strategic risk distribution: rather than bet on hits (as Zynga did with its $180MM acquisition in 2012 of OMGPOP), King manages a portfolio of titles, across an array of platforms, to diversify its revenue streams. And while it’s probably true that Candy Crush Saga will represent the vast majority of King’s 2013 revenue, the company was profitable before that game’s release.

The fundamental differences between King’s and Zynga’s profiles don’t necessarily dictate that King’s fate as a public company won’t mirror that of Zynga’s; King’s reported $5BN IPO valuation likely requires the permanent presence within its product portfolio of at least one hit within the realm of Candy Crush Saga’s success, which is impossible to predict.

A more relevant comparison to King than Zynga is GungHo, which also operates a massively successful freemium mobile game, Puzzle & Dragons, and which has experienced incredible share price volatility as that game’s growth has slowed.

King’s business model, ownership structure, and future product roadmap will be subject to considerable scrutiny over the next few months. Comparisons to Zynga are merely a distraction; December 2011 Zynga and King look nothing like each other, and Zynga’s post-IPO performance has little in common with a potential publicly-listed King.

Eric Benjamin Seufert runs Mobile Dev Memo, a mobile development / freemium apps-oriented site that publishes original op-ed content and aggregates news from across the web.

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If you build it, they will use it for sexual gratification. Or at least that's what Twitch is learning.

Engadget reports that Twitch, the streaming video platform for gamers to broadcast their gaming sessions to the world, has discovered something of a porn problem, and it originates with PlayStation 4 consoles – Sony integrated Twitch directly into the PS4 software.

The PlayStation Eye camera can be pretty easily used to show your naughty bits and whatever other sultry content you like. Pair this with Twitch's platform, and it's suddenly a cinch for others to tune in to your amateur sex show.

Twitch's terms of service specifically prohibit non-gaming content going out over its platform, so it's paying extra-close attention to streams originating from Sony's new console and banning offending accounts.

Check out our PlayStation 4 unboxing here »

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The TV business is having its worst year ever.

Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research.

Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever." All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn't sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn't.

In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year.

People are unplugging.

Time Warner Cable, for instance, lost 306,000 TV subscribers in Q3, and 24,000 broadband web subscribers, too.

And Tom Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, told Wall Street analysts he was "surprised" that 1.3 million of his 5.5 million customers don't want TV — just broadband internet. "Our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be," he said.

The following charts show the evidence that cable TV is dying, and that people are also unplugging from broadband internet service.

Cable TV ratings are sinking.

Cable TV ratings are in an historic slump. Note that the "growth" line, as charted by Citi analysts Jason B. Bazinet and Joshua P. Carlson, is persistently below zero.

Fewer people are watching TV.

This is the macro problem: Ratings are falling across the board. They have been for years.

It's not too surprising that broadcast TV ratings are down. The major networks have faced increasing competition for years from niche-interest cable channels and the better-quality programming on places like AMC and HBO.

But ratings for both cable and the broadcast networks are down.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google have created an audience that's about to overtake all of TV in terms of reach.

Even ratings for some major TV events are in decline.

People just don't watch the World Series like they used to. Recently, viewer decline is led by young people, according to Business Insider's Sports Page:

It's the same with basketball.

Maybe people prefer the NBA to the MLB? Turns out that today's big stars don't grab TV eyeballs the way they used to either.

For the first time ever, the number of cable TV subscribers at major providers is about to dip below 40 million.

So why are ratings in decline?

We're at the beginning of a major historical shift from watching TV to watching video — including TV shows and movies — on the internet or on mobile devices.

This is going to hurt cable TV providers.

Nearly 5 million cable TV subscribers have gone elsewhere in the last five years. The number of cable TV-only subscribers remaining could sink below 40 million later this year, according to this data from ISI Group, an equity research firm (at right).

Cable and broadband companies are increasingly unable to retain customers.

This chart (below) is the most important chart in this set: It shows the number of net subscriber additions across all types of customers — cable TV, broadband internet and landline phone.

The cable and broadband subscriber business is seasonal. The net number of people leaving or adding services changes with the seasons, because people like to move house in the fall.

It used to be that up to 500,000 new subscriptions would be added across all companies in any given quarter. But now, cable and internet companies are lucky if they get any new subscribers at all. Increasingly, the industry loses subscribers rather than gaining them, according to this data from One Touch Intelligence:

For the first time ever, less than half of subscribers at the major broadband companies now subscribe to cable TV.

What's happening is that people are giving up on cable TV as a standalone product, and the market is shifting in favor of telco companies like AT&T and Verizon who offer TV as a package with high-speed internet access, according to media equity analysts at ISI Group. (Direct Broadcast Satellite appears to be remaining steady, in part because its customers often live in more rural areas and have fewer alternatives.)

Here is how individual TV providers are affected.

It's not an across-the-board collapse. But this is what you would expect to see during a technological sea-change: The weaker players are crumbling. The stronger players are picking up some of the pieces ... but how long can they also resist the tide?

Fewer households actually have TV.

One macro-economic factor behind the decline is that fewer houses actually have TV.

These charts, from Citi Research, show that the total "Nielsen TV Universe" — the number of people who watch TV — is declining. Note that the number of U.S. households is still growing, but growth in the number of households with cable TV is declining.

Fewer households have TV because they are watching video on mobile devices instead.

Here's the big picture: People are spending more of their time on mobile, and less of their time on TV:

Mobile video is booming.

Even though iPhone and Android phones still struggle to show video seamlessly, the amount of video seen on mobile devices is going through the roof. About 40% of all YouTube traffic comes from mobile.

Tablets are stealing prime time, the period we used to devote to TV.

In the media industry, iPads and other tablets are sometimes called "vampire" media — they come out at night.

Slowly, the money is following the eyeballs. It is shifting from TV to digital media of all kinds.

This research from Macquarie Capital shows a giant mismatch between where people spend their time and where advertising money is spent. People spend more time with digital media than TV now. Ad dollars are likely to follow that shift in the long run, Macquarie says.

Ad revenue increases are masking the macro decline of TV.

The collapse of TV is having a counter-intuitive effect on TV ad sales: prices are going up, even though the number of commercials is going down.

The reason? It's still really, really difficult to gather a large, mass audience in any kind of media, mobile or otherwise. The Super Bowl — on TV — is the only media property than can reach more than 100 million people in a three-hour stretch. That scarcity of large audiences makes TV's dwindling-but-still-big audience increasingly valuable.

The TV business may actually be addicted to the very thing that is killing it.

Even though cable TV has had its worst year ever, cable TV revenues are still rising because companies are charging the dwindling number of customers more in subscription fees. According to analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson, those higher prices are "part of the problem" that pushes out poor subscribers — losing the TV business even more eyeballs:

"Of course, the fact that pay-TV revenue is still rising smartly is part of the problem ... We have always argued that cord-cutting is an economic phenomenon, not a technological one. ... Pay-TV revenue growth reflects rapid pay-TV pricing growth and that is precisely the problem. Rapidly rising prices are squeezing lower-income consumers out of the ecosystem."

The market does not care that the TV audience is declining.

This chart (below) shows a basket of cable TV stocks over the last year. Not bad!

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in his last-ever conference call that the cable business has been 'in denial.'

Britt, who has been diagnosed with cancer, told analysts on his Q3 2013 earnings call that he thought the cable business had spent too many years complacently dismissing the competition. Britt is also retiring, although that was already planned:

Regarding competition, well, duh, we have competition. I say that because when I first got this job 12 years ago, I think the cable industry as a whole, including our company, was in denial that we had real, viable competition. And I still hear some of my peers saying dismissive things about our competitors. And certainly, each of them has strengths and weaknesses, just as we do. However, they are around to stay, and we need to keep getting better at competing.

People who are unplugging from both cable TV and broadband internet are likely going to free wifi.

So if fewer people are watching cable TV and fewer people are paying for Internet service, does that mean that we just don't care about watching our favorite shows anymore?

Not necessarily. 

Free wifi — at work, in coffee shops, and on campuses — is making it easier for consumers to get the shows, movies and videos they want without subscribing to any kind of cable or broadband service

All of Starbucks offers free wifi, for instance.

Fifty-seven cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, offer free wifi. Facebook and Cisco have joined to offer free wifi access to customers in any business who check in to Facebook. Facebook’s original free wifi test included just 25 stores in the Bay Area. The company has now expanded it to 1,000.

For some people, there is just no need for a cable or pipe to deliver the internet or TV to their residence specifically, as long as they are within range of a free wifi hotspot.

This chart shows the free wifi hotspots available in Jersey City, N.J. Most reasonably dense areas of the U.S. look like this now, according to Bright House Networks, a cable company that provides wifi hotspots:

SEE ALSO: All Business Insider's Stories On The Death of TV

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There's been a lot of "Star Wars" talk lately with casting getting under way for "Episode VII."

While we can expect that film December 2015, there are also a number of "Star Wars" spinoff films in addition to the three already planned.

While fanboys contemplate the next sequel's plot, no one's really sure what the spinoffs shall entail either. 

We're rounded up ten characters we'd like to see in theaters from the obvious to a few you may not be familiar with — unless you know the extended universe.

Sorry, but you won't find Admiral Ackbar here.

The character's great for a gag, but any film with him would be a trap.

MACE WINDU: Samuel L. Jackson says he wants in on the new installments even if he has to return as a hologram.

Sure, Jackson has another Disney franchise on his hands right now with "The Avengers," and there's the slight issue about his character getting axed in "Star Wars—Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," but it wouldn't be the first time we saw a hologram in the "Star Wars" universe.

CHEWBACCA: Han's Wookie sidekick has a family back on his home planet of Kashyyk. And, in the books, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader imprisoned most of the Wookies to help build the Death Star.

(Source: "Star Wars" wiki)

HAN SOLO: Harrison Ford's a little old at 70 to reprise the role, but if the film was to follow a younger Solo in all of his smuggling glory alongside Chewy, then we could get a peek at his adventures before joining up with Luke and Leia.

Though Disney has yet to confirm, EW reported Han will get his own movie.

Toronto "Crack Mayor" Rob Ford has become a media favorite for his lack of filter around the press.

David Letterman is the latest to spoof Ford's now infamous initial apology after being accused of doing crack. 

On Thursday’s “Late Show,” Letterman had Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughn, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and even Martha Stewart read Ford’s epic apology aloud. Watch below:

SEE ALSO: Jimmy Kimmel Put Together An Incredible Compilation Reel Of 'Crack Mayor' Rob Ford TV Clips

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Wait, what?

Slate.fr reports a Croatian community association in France is suing Bob Dylan and the French version of Rolling Stone magazine for racism. 

Dylan, of course, was at the vanguard of the artistic wing of the Civil Rights movement, so it may seem impossible that anyone could accuse him of such a thing.

But the Croatian group appears not to have appreciated comments made in Rolling Stone's cover interview of Dylan from this September. In response to a question about whether he sees parallels between Civil War-era America and today, Dylan responded:

Mmm, I don't know how to put it. It's like . . . the United States burned and destroyed itself for the sake of slavery. The USA wouldn't give it up. It had to be grinded out. The whole system had to be ripped out with force. A lot of killing. What, like, 500,000 people? A lot of destruction to end slavery. And that's what it really was all about.

This country is just too f***** up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.

What Dylan is referring to in the final part of that last sentence is the longstanding feud between majority Roman Catholic Croats and Christian Orthodox Serbs, instances of which still occasionally pop up to this day. In October, unknown assailants destroyed several bilingual and Cyrillic signs placed on state buildings and Serb minority institutions in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, according to Balkan Insight. "Bilingual signs have been installed on state buildings in areas where Serbs make up more than a third of the population – a requirement under the minorities legislation – but the move sparked protests by war veterans in the city of Vukovar which was devastated by Serb forces during the 1990s conflict," the site reported.

Europe's free speech laws are much stricter than in the U.S., and the suit has been accepted on formal grounds, though remains to be evaluated on its merits, Slate says. Cases such as these can take up to 18 months to decide, and even longer when the counter-party is not a French citizen. Dylan and the magazine would face a fine and formal sanction if found guilty.

Dylan was recently named a Legion of Honour by France, though at least one member of the Legion's committee objected on the grounds that Dylan had once done drugs and showed signs of radical leftism...

SEE ALSO: The 6 Greatest Dylan Songs Ever

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