Heroes - Sylar Sex Switcheroo

Sylar is having fake sex with Matt Parkman's wife, meanwhile we dry heave in the corner at sight of Sylar's sexy face.

Kyle XY - Drunk Dance Rapping

In the midst of a terrible montage of Kyle and his boys getting their drank on, one moment of pure WTF-ness stands out, when the gang attempts to half rap. I think even the crew was embarrassed for them.

Smallville - Twitter Torture

Chloe wields her mighty power of the delete key.

Stargate Universe - Boob Lens

The moment that angered the masses - who needs a plot when you can frame the shot against one character's giant rack? Need to change it up? Frame the shot with her underwear.

Battlestar Galactica - Cry-Painting

Possibly the worst scene to come out of BSG is Adama's cry-painting moment. Mixing fear, awkwardness and general horror, we sat and watched our mighty leader have a fit in a bucket of paint like a 5-year-old who's been given a time-out.

Lost - Ben's Smoke Monster Home Movie

After years of wondering what the smoke monster would look like one-on-one it's finally revealed! Sadly it's a lot like watching home movies in your chain smoking Uncle's basement.

Fringe - Peter Knows Everything

We're on board for Walter knowing everything, but when you lump Peter on top, come on - now you're just being a dick.

Eastwick - Vibrator Talky Talk

Women and their vibrators, we just can't stop talking about them in public at a family fair outside with co-workers. We can't help it! Vibrators Vibrators Vibrators, oh and we name them after real people we work with, naturally.

Torchwood - "I'm BAAAAACK"

Nothing like ruining an otherwise well directed, edited and written special Torchwood series with some crappy shtick. You just can't help yourself can you Torchwood?

Vampire Diaries - You Need Death

Ah Damon, you old over-dramatic softie. Now, tell us some more about you vampire man jewelry.

Dollhouse - Diva or DIIIIIIIVA?

First off that singing, my god, plus this meant we had to listen to said "freedom" song over, and over, and over. Second, what is the difference between a Diva and a DIIIIIVA?

V - "I'm a cool Mom"

Juliet is hip with the teen scolding lingo - also if your child is "tagging" things but has no real talent and is a rich suburban know-nothing, do yourself a favor: drop him down a well.

Dr. Who - The Master Is Hungry

All. The. Time.

The Prisoner - The Prisoner In Its Entirety

This clip pretty much sums up what we feel was accomplished or learned in The Prisoner reboot, nothing.

True Blood - Goodbye Godric

Watch as the ancient vampire Godric Quantum Leaps himself to death. So long, fey baby vamp.

We've only seen the first episode out of two so far — we'll review both episodes fully tomorrow or Thursday — but so far, we're liking the new Day Of The Triffids pretty well. It was probably never going to be quite as horrifying or gut-wrenching as the 1981 version or John Windham's original novel, but it's more or less holding its own. The Triffids are used sparingly, and mostly loom in the darkness like great horrible venus flytraps.

The first 90 minutes moves at a fair clip — you have the infodump that explains how we used Triffids as a clean, renewable fuel source and averted global warming, but nobody realized how dangerous they really were. And then there's the miraculous light show in the sky (now converted into a kind of solar flare instead of a meteor shower) which blinds almost everyone on Earth. Soon the blind, shambling masses are nothing but a rich food supply for the rampaging Triffids.

Some of the additions to the story serve to cover over some of the slight inconsistencies in the original — like now, there's a "Triffid rights" activist who's responsible for Bill Masen getting blinded by a Triffid sting, and also for releasing the Triffids after everyone else goes blind. It makes a tad more sense that the Triffids would have male and female plants, and there would be elaborate precautions to control their breeding — it's one of the ways in which this version feels fairly thought out.

The obligatory scenes of blind people staggering around and clutching at the few sighted people who remain are gotten through fairly quickly, and they don't pack quite as much horror as the earlier TV version, which really dwelled on the horror of being besieged by too many blind people ever to help. Here's a clip of the horrific earlier version:

The 1981 producers may not have had the money for huge setpieces or super-convincing plant monsters, but they could marshal the real horror of being at the mercy of people you can't really help. In its place, we get lots of disaster-movie and apocalyptic standbys, like a plane crash and ambitious shots of traffic disasters. And then we move on to phase two of the post-apocalyptic recipe, which is various flavors of authoritarianism and crazy communities. (I bet there'll be a lot more of that in part two.)

Like I said, this version feels reasonably thought out, and I like Dougray Scott as Bill Masen, the only scientist who can deal with the Triffids. The scene where he and Jo (Joely Richardson) put on a little BBC broadcast, and struggle to keep in place their good old BBC presentation as everything's going down the tubes, is pretty amazing.

If there's a weak link so far, it's Eddie Izzard as the (seemingly) evil Torrance. He doesn't talk for the first hour, although he does get the weird "surviving a plane crash by cocooning yourself inside flotation devices" moment. (Would that really work?) And then he skulks around looking shifty and ominous, before making a weird random power grab. I wasn't sure if Izzard's role was just severely under-written, or if he was just underplaying it. Either way, he seemed a bit bored by the whole exercise, and it was hard to feel whatever menace we were supposed to get from him. But maybe part two will be better?

What did you think?

According to the trades Producers Gil Adler and Shane McCarthy are set to Adapt Sci-Fi Horror Comic Night And Fog.
The story is set in WW2 and explores the effect of a dangerous and deadly mist that transforms the soldiers on the military base into "preternatural creatures of the night. But when the survivors try to kill them, they adapt and change into something even more horrific and unstoppable."

Adler produced both Constantine and Superman Returns, so I think you know what "type" of film we're dealing with here: solid TNT late-night viewing material. Still, no filming dates as of yet, but we'll keep you posted. The set pics should be pretty fantastic.

"The history of evolutionary studies has been dogged by the intuitively attractive, almost irresistible idea that the whole great process leads to greater complexity, to animals that are more advanced than their predecessors," write Gary Lynch and Richard Granger in this month's Discover magazine. "We're drawn to the idea that we are the end point, the pinnacle not only of the hominids but of all animal life."

The whole idea that we survived as a species due in large part to our wits goes out the window when you bring in these mysterious, big brained hominids. So who were they and what happened to them?

Boskop bone fragments were discovered in 1913, after two farmers in a small South African town by the same name found a rather strange looking skull while digging in a drainage ditch. The skull, which was dated 10,000-30,000 years old, made its way to S.H. Haughton, one of South Africa's few formally trained paleontologists at the time, who found that this human-like skull was capable of protecting a brain 25 percent larger than our own.

Now just think, our brains are said to be 25 percent larger than those of the now defunct Homo erectus. If we were able to accomplish so much with a brain 25 percent larger than a Homo erectus, what could a brain 50 percent larger do? Try wrapping your now miniscule brain around that.

What's weirder is that with further examination, it was discovered that whatever genus owned the skull also had small, childlike features — a Boskop face only takes up 1/5 of its cranium size, while a typical European adult face takes up roughly 1/3 of its cranium size.

Big head, small face? Sounds familiar, eh?

Lynch and Granger, who wrote about Boskops in their book Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence note in their Discover article that we aren't the only ones to think of stereotypical extraterrestrials when we hear about Boskop characteristics. American anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley wrote about this very idea in his book, The Immense Journey in 1958. "Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child's face."

Lynch and Granger argue about all the possible ways the extra girth in the Boskop brain may have lead to their demise. We don't want to spoil this great read, but our money is on the whole alien theory. Maybe Boskops didn't go extinct, but rather they fled when things got too rough? Wouldn't that be the smart thing to do?

What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us? [Discover]

Owner Andy Heidel opened the Way Station — named for the novel by Clifford D. Simak — in September, although his failure thus far to procure a liquor license has left the venue in a state of limbo. Although the bar isn't open on a daily basis, Heidel has been hosting events throughout the fall to attract a crowd steampunk fans and fanatics.

Surprisingly, despite a few Victorian-inspired touches, the decor doesn't particularly scream steampunk. The TARDIS, though, is a nice nod to the geeky tastes of its hoped-for clientele. Perhaps we'll see more gaslight and brass once the bar picks up its liquor license and gathers more — ahem — steam. But maybe it's just meant to be a spot where the goggles and corset-wearing crowd can gather and rub leather-clad elbows with like-minded souls. If you're interested in ringing in the New Year with a group of fellow steampunks, the Way Station is hosting a free New Year's Eve party this Thursday.

The Way Station [via Flavorwire]

With Avatar now making enough money to justify its reportedly obscene budget, it's the perfect time to look at the central contradiction of Cameron's career. And IFC has a terrific essay looking at all the ways that Cameron has used high tech to tell stories about technology that will let you down or try to kill you. Writes Matt Singer:

Though we often associate Cameron's work with major advances in the field of special effects - think of the watery alien tendril in 1989's "The Abyss," or the liquid metal T-1000 in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" - his movies consistently paint an unflattering portrait of technology, one that depicts it as something that is, at best, inadequate or, at worst, downright malevolent. Every film he has made since the original "Terminator," even the ones that aren't science-fiction or fantasy films like "True Lies and "Titanic," has used state-of-the-art filmmaking tools to tell stories about the way technology fails human beings.

In The Terminator, not only is a machine from the future trying to kill Sarah Connor, but her roommate bites it because she's listening to a walkman, and Sarah nearly dies because she babbles her plans to a machine: her answering machine. In Terminator 2, two machines battle over Sarah's fate, and this time it's the obsolescence of the "good" Terminator that poses a problem. And Aliens is the flipside of Avatar, in which the technological humans are outmatched by a force of nature — except it's a ravenous xenomorph horde instead of blue hippies. (And both movies end with a showdown between a human and an alien, where the human wears a robotic suit.) In The Abyss, Ed Harris gets trapped on the bottom of the ocean trying to prevent a nuclear explosion, and doesn't have enough oxygen to return to safety.

Weirdly, Singer points out that at the end of Avatar, with — spoiler alert — almost all the humans banished, the moon of Pandora has been transformed at last into a purely natural world, without any artificial crap. And it's at that moment that Pandora becomes most computer-generated, with almost no live-action elements remaining. [IFC]

Here're 100 of our favorite comic covers from the last decade. We tried to hide our biases slightly by only allowing one pick per series (Otherwise, you'd get a Fables and 100 Bullets gallery, most likely), and limited our choices to books that fall squarely into io9's wheelhouse (Thereby missing such great covers as Ryan Kelly and Brian Wood's Local, many things from DC's Minx line or Jock's Losers covers), but if you're still not getting a visual feast from everything below, we advise you to go and see a specialist immediately.

(Covers are in something approaching alphabetical order, and not in order of how much we love them, before anyone wonders.)

Covers 1 - 10:

Covers 11-20:

Covers 21-30:

Covers 31-40:

Covers 41-50:

Covers 51-60:

Covers 61-70:

Covers 71-80:

Covers 81-90:

Covers 91-100:

We're sure we've missed some obvious choices; tell us what we should've picked in the comments below.

[Ryan Dunlavey via Forbidden Planet]

The photographer recently published an amazing spread for FHM, the Chinese version, as the US version would never be this bold. The fashion shoot, which feature sexy Chinese models wearing sci-fi inspired duds Jean Paul Gaultier would be envious of, remind us of what we hoped Aeon Flux, the live-action movie, was going to feel like. It's amazing how much emotion the animated series had, yet the movie failed to bring that feeling out. These pictures do just that.

It's raw emotion with flesh-toned thigh highs.

You can check out the full photo essay, which gets a little weird in some parts here. This isn't the first time FHM China has had a girls behaving bad-ass series. In 2008 they published another spread, this time involving tattoos, fencing, and a black bikini orgy.

Motorcycles, Girls and Violence: Chen Zhun's interesting photo essay [Motorcycle.com]

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

By Chen Zhun for FHM China

(To be entirely fair, the Moviefone poll asked "Which actress gave the worst performance?," so for all we know, America en masse may think Fox is a very talented actress who just had a series of really bad days.)

Fox's dual wins were reflected in the movie she won for, as well; Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen managed to win both Best Action Movie of 2009 and Worst Movie of 2009. Well, at least one of those is right.

Year-End Movies Poll Results [Moviefone] (Via)

Two years ago Randy Schueller recounted to Comic Book Resources that Venom evolved out of an idea Schueller sent to Marvel in the 80s when the company ran a competition for aspiring comic book writers and artists.

I thought it would be cool if Spidey needed to upgrade his powers and his look, so I came up with this idea that Reed Richards had made a new costume for Spidey using the same unstable molecules that the FF costumes are made of. The unstable molecules would flow into Peter's pores and allow him to cling to walls better. I think my original idea was to increase his sticking power by 25% or something like that.

For some lame reason, I had the Wasp involved since she was the resident fashion plate of the Marvel universe at the time. Remember when Jan would show up in every other issue of the Avengers sporting a cool new costume? I loved when they did that! So to me it made sense to have her design the new spider suit when she was over at the Baxter Building for cocktails or something. Anyway, I saw the new suit as a stealth version of the original costume - jet black so he could blend in with the shadows. At best, all you could see of him was the blood red spider emblem, emblazoned on his chest. (Yeah, in my design the spider was red, not white. I also gave him underarm webbing like in the original Ditko design.

To Schueller's surprise, a few months later he got a letter from the Marvel desk of then editor-in-chief James Shooter saying flat out, "I want to buy it," and offering Schueller $220 for the idea and the chance to write the script. He wrote up a few versions of his idea, but scripting didn't pan out and the idea, he thought, had been shelved.

A year later, Secret Wars came out, introducing a black costumed Spider-man. Shueller was surprised to see some of his concept brought to life, but when his idea then turned into Venom in The Amazing Spider-man he was disturbed. " I was never a fan of the costume-turned-villain idea. Give me the classic Ditko villains any day! Venom just never really seemed to work for me," he wrote in to CBR.

When Venom became such a big part of the Spiderman-3 movie, Schueller decided to bring his venomous alter-ego to light, along with the letter James Shooter personally sent to him in 1982.

While Schueller isn't looking for money from Marvel — he did get his $220 — he's bummed the comic giant never acknowledged his part in the character's creation. With Marvel's continued legal trouble as they suss out who created and now owns what of the Spider-man franchise, this two-year-old story has gained traction again.

With a Venom movie in the works, along with Spider-man 4 we wonder if Schueller will get any props from Marvel, or the movies' directors any time soon.

The secret origin of the black Spider-Man costume [Heat Vision Blog]

I've also always tried to review at least one major book in the field each fall and spring, usually those that publishers think of as 'breakout books.' More often than not though, I seem — regretfully — to have given many of them mixed reviews. I admired but had cavils or, in some instances, serious reservations about Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Anathem, for instance, won the Locus Award, and a lot of people obviously love the book, but it didn't work for me. I found it too long, too slow-moving, too heavy.

Of course, I could be dead wrong about Stephenson's novel. The books we can't make sense of, that knock us off-kilter, that we don't accept readily, will often be the books that matter most to the next generation. In fact, that's generally the sign of a really important book: it doesn't fit into our received expectations, it bothers us, it 'doesn't work.' Sometimes an ambitious failure is more worth having than a successful little novel that is perfectly well done.

The whole interview is well worth reading, both the selections online and the entire thing in the print magazine. [Locus Magazine]

Top image: Gluekit's illustration for the New York Times (not Washington Post) review of Anathem.

In today's morning spoilers, we linked to eating class's analysis of the new trailer. Here's our shot-for-shot breakdown and speculation on what it means.

We know so far that DiCaprio is playing a CEO-type who enters people's dreams to steal information from their heads and Page plays his assistant. In the trailer, we get some moments inside the dream worlds as well as hints at how you wake a dreamer from their sleep.

In the first shot above, we see Leonardo DiCaprio spinning a top with great concentration. What is the purpose of the top? Later, we see several shots in which the laws of physics appear to be altered. Is the top some sort of test of the physics of a place?

His voiceover asks, "What's the most resilient parasite? An idea."

Now we see DiCaprio and his assistant Ellen Page staring at something with interest, but without fear.
And now we see what that is: the city is folding up and in on itself. But despite the folding, there is no destruction; nothing is breaking, no cars or people are falling, and no one is afraid of the change.

"A single idea from the human mind can build cities."

The water in the glass is shaking. Water does actually seem to indicate the physics of a place, as we'll see later in the trailer.
A man looks out the window at a fire in the street (eating class notes that this man is probably Luke Haas, who plays the character Nash). As the fire erupts into an explosion, it looks like the people an the street might be briefly reacting, suggesting this scene might take place in the real world instead of a dream world.

DiCaprio's voiceover continues, "An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules."

Inside what looks like a makeshift hospital, several people sleep on cots. It looks like wires or tubes lead from several bodies toward the ceiling. They could be suffering from some sort of illness, or they could be subjects in some sort of dream harvesting or research program. The man at the desk overseeing these people stands up to acknowledge someone who's just entered the room.

Dicaprio surveys the city from the roof of a building.

"Which is why I have to steal it."

Walking through a restaurant kitchen, DiCaprio pulls out a silencer for his gun.

A freight train barrels through the middle of a street, pushing cars out of the way.

Now Page is walking down the street while DiCaprio shouts advice at her. As we noted yesterday, it's a moment very reminiscent of The Matrix. DiCaprio is the mentor and Page travels through this strange world with us, learning the rules as we do.

DiCaprio tells her, "Never recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places."

The pair sit at a brasserie while groceries explode into the air next to them. Neither seems to particularly notice.

DiCaprio stares out the window of his car while Haas is being forcibly taken away by two men.

DiCaprio is talking to someone (Cillian Murphy?), saying, "He's hiding something and we need to find out what that is."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's badass character and Tom Hardy have commandeered a cab and it looks like they get involved in some kind of car chase/shootout.

Now we're back to the glass of water. Although from our perspective, the table and the glass are in the same position, the water is now at a slant. Perhaps this indicates that, if the laws of physics were working properly, the glass and the table would be at a slant as well.

We get our first look at Ken Watanabe's villain, rising from bed, gun in hand. An ambush, perhaps?

A voiceover says, "We gotta break out of here."

A motorcycle chases a van through the fog.

Now we see the person talking is Gordon-Levitt. He shouts, "Give him the kick!" We know that people can enter other people's dreams through injections. Perhaps "the kick" is a way to wake the dreamer up and escape the dream.

Haas lets DiCaprio, who appears to be unconscious in a chair, fall back toward something.

A masked man walks into a room where two men in suits are being held prisoner.

DiCaprio screams, "This was not part of the plan!" Is that the same taxi from before?

Shots of DiCaprio continuing to fall into the tub are interspersed with shots of two men fighting. The water apparently wakes DiCaprio. He appears to have something around his wrist, and eating class noticed something coming out of his hand. Perhaps this is related to the wire/tube-like things we saw in the infirmary scene earlier.

We hear a woman, perhaps Page, screaming, "Wake me up! Wake me up!"

Two men approach a door, guns raised.
And we end on another fine water shot, with DiCaprio standing in the middle of a room as streams of water burst in overhead.

Scientists at the National University of Ireland tested the effectiveness of a common hospital and home disinfectant, benzalkonium chloride (BKC) on a easily found pathogen, pseudomonas aeruginosa. The pathogen tends to infect those already weakened by illness.

What they found is that the pathogen will grow stronger when exposed repeatedly to small amounts of disinfectant. So if you skimp out on how much Pine-Sol you add to your mopping bucket, you may be turning your home into a superbug petri dish.

While Fleming isn't saying we shouldn't use disinfectants, he does say they need to be used responsibly. Use the amount directed on the bottle and be aware that diluted disinfectant can build up on a surface, which then encourages the bacteria's growth. "For heaven's sake, rotate your disinfectant even if you like the smell and it's cheap, to prevent a build-up of residue"

Fleming's report is published in January's Microbiology.

Common Disinfectants Create Mutant Superbugs [Treehugger]

Cameron's Neytiri sketch, seen above, comes individually signed by Cameron himself, with a certificate of authenticity. It's just $250 unframed or $405 framed. And there's this priceless description of Neytiri, probably from Cameron's screenplay:

Invisible to him, draped on the limb like a leopard, is a striking Na'vi girl. She watches, only her eyes are moving. She is lithe as a cat, with a long neck, muscular shoulders, and nubile breasts. And she is devastatingly beautiful - for a girl with a tail. Her name is Neytiri.

The other art works are available as Giclee on paper, Giclee on canvas, or Giclee on vistachrome, costing anywhere from $185 to $1,800. [Acme Archives Direct via Slashfilm] Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Aerial Battle:

The visual scope of the aerial battle between RDA and the Na'vi was motivated by epic military campaigns of the 20th century. By seamlessly integrating the elements of familiar gunship warfare in an otherworld environment, illustrator Ryan Church achieved in this design the film's standard of balance between reality and fantasy.

Neytiri And Thanator:

The fiercest rainforest predator appears before Neytiri in a design that depicts one of the turning points in the film's third act battle. This illustration by artist Steven Messing emphasizes a hero standing her ground against a potential threat…or to a newfound ally.

Willow Glade:

Production Designer Robert Stromberg created a hallmark environment in this design that served as a backdrop to Jake's journey through the phantasmagorical depths of Pandora. In this scene Jake follows Neytiri to the Willow Glade where he will discover the interconnectedness of all living things past and present.

To begin with: welcome to Indy Comic Book Week. Even though Diamond Distributors aren't shipping new product to stores this week, a collection of small press creators have teamed with a collection of stores nationwide to offer some counterprogramming for the week, from scifi comedy What Planet Is This? to epic mouse fantasy (No, really) The Osward Chronicles. The entire list of books is available on the website, along with a list of participating stores. Go and check it out.

For everyone else, don't think that you're going to be completely devoid of new books. Marvel has a preview of their next big storyline, Origins of Siege, that'll bring you up to speed on recent events and the origins of some of their big name characters.

But DC trumps Marvel with the embargoed sixth issue of Blackest Night. For those following the DC series, you'll know that the last issue ended with a pretty big cliffhanger (SPOILER FOR THOSE READING IN TRADE: Oh, look: Superman, Wonder Woman and countless other DC superheroes are dead after all, and now they're working for the bad guy), so calling this issue "anticipated" is a slight understatement. Here's hoping it offers up more surprises and things going very wrong for the good guys.

Next week: Back to normal, lots of new books and the start of Marvel's Siege, just to make sure that the real Avengers are back together in time for their movie...

Turns out George Lucas himself is a fan of the animated series. "Lucasfilm is probably the only company out there right now that is progressive enough to allow this," Seth MacFarlane told the LA Times. "Certainly we would have a laugh doing this with Indiana Jones or Wrath of Khan. But I can't imagine in a billion years that Paramount would give us permission."

Fox ended up looking to clear rights with LucasFilm after MacFarlane and co. continued to make small Star Wars gags on the show. Worried the wrath of Lucas would hit the network, they groveled at the bearded one's throne and to MacFarlane's surprise, LucasFilm okayed any references to the franchise as long as Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Brian, Stewie and the rest of the characters looked just like the stars of the film.

When Family Guy's first Star Wars spoof, Blue Harvest, aired, George invited the show's team up to Skywalker Ranch to watch it with him and his son. How rad is that?

"He laughed a few times, yeah. He's a very muted guy."

Family Guy's feature length Star Wars spoof, Something Something Something Dark Side comes out on DVD & Blu-ray 12/22.

Q & A with Seth MacFarlane [LA Times]

Some of these demon mummies are believed to be cursed. The demon mummy found at Daijōin Temple was said to have brought misfortune and illness on its owners until it was turned over to the temple. Remains such as these have been enshrined within various temples across Japan and treated as sacred objects. And mummies of all sorts of supposedly supernatural creatures — from the kappa river imps to the thunder-bringing raijū — have turned up as well.

Pink Tentacle has more information about these and other supernatural mummies — as well as the nightmare-inducing process of self-mummification.

Monster mummies of Japan [Pink Tentacle via Metafilter]

Kappa mummy at Zuiryūji Temple, Osaka
Demon mummy at Daijōin, Usa
Baby demon mummy at Rakanji temple
Mysterious mermaid mummy
Raijū mummy at Saishōji temple

Collider is reporting, based on an unknown source, that Warner Brothers has canceled Jerry O'Flaherty's CG animated Thundercats origins story, based on the animated pilot. If you remember correctly, the Thundercats had to vacate their homeworld when it was destroyed.

And that sounds like a remarkable origins story, unlike most of the heroic origins that are being floated around Hollywood right now. Plus it has alien planets and cat people — sound familiar? But no, that couldn't possibly make any money. Plus it looked amazing, judging by the concept art of Third Earth.

But the "good" news is the flash video game is still being made along with The Orb of Madness, where you get to play Panthro. So, that's something.

But we're still baffled. Hasn't Avatar proved that alien features directed towards everyone can and do make money? So why get all gunshy over another alien features that not only has a bankable pre-existing audience, but more awesome cat people? Plus the merchandising alone has got to be making someone at Warner Brothers hungry. Hollywood, we urge you, this is one of the classic properties we want made into a film, we don't need a Labyrinth remake or another Neverending Story, just one good Thundercats film.

The image, sent out by Marvel with only the words "The Year of Spider-Man is 2010," seems to contain at least three different Spider-Man, as well as Arana (AKA Spider-Girl, not to be confused with this Spider-Girl) and the oracular Madame Web. The return of infamous "Spider-Clone" Ben Reilly has been teased for some point during next year's thrice-monthly Spider-series, and Avengers: The Initiative has already featured people not called Peter Parker in the red-and-gold "Iron Spider" costume, so is this a bait and switch or are we going to see multiple Parkers spinning webs at some point in the twelve months to come?

Curbed NY picked ten of their favorite buildings from this decade's deadpool, mourning concept designs that fell prey to practicality, politics, and the credit crunch. Topping the list is the 80 South Street residences, depicted above. The tower would have consisted of a dozen four-story townhouses, each starting at $29 million. The project was ultimately doomed because there were "Not Enough Billionaire Supervillains" ready to shell out for a waterfront lair.

Also on the list is Frank Gehry's design for a Guggenheim Museum, which was to sit on the piers south of the Brooklyn Bridge and perpetually look like it was about to blow away.

And another experiment in innovative housing for the ultra-rich bit the dust with 56 Leonard Street. The great glass condos would have been arranged in the Jenga-like design we've seen in other recent architectural concept designs, with a silver jelly bean sculpture by Anil Kapoor wedged into one corner of its base.

You can see the rest of the the top architectural casualties at Curbed NY.

Top 10 Crazy Things That Didn't Get Built [Curbed NY via About Architecture]

Reality TV producers are planning a new series based on Forks, Washington, the town that Meyer set her Twilight saga in. Right now, the crew is seeking out a cast based on everyday people that live in Forks. So nothing to do with Twilight at all, unless you overlook the fact that the half the town has converted to Twilight tourism, hawking Bella Berry Shakes, inviting tourists into their Twilight themed hotel rooms, and throwing a vampire birthday for Bella in which 1,000 young girls were in attendance.

This is a Twi-themed bedroom from the hotel The Pacific, in the Forks area.

And no this isn't the documentary called Twilight In Forks, this is an entirely different reality-based show about Forks. But still, the crew insists that the project will focus on the riveting lives of the ordinary people in Forks, not those who think they are vampires, or werewolves — because who wants to see that, besides the 100 people a day who clamor into Forks looking to get a piece of Edward?

[WENN via Cinimatical picture via Pyzam]

The First Avenger: Captain America is also aimed at a 2011 release (22 July, following Thor's May 20th release date), and Fangoria has let slip that the movie will start shooting in June next year, following Thor's principal shoot, which starts next month. We know that the movie will be directed by The Rocketeer's Joe Johnson and written by the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, probably best known for both Chronicles of Narnia movies, but beyond that, everything's been kept pretty much under wraps.

IMDB's plot synopsis just reiterates the character's origins during WWII, and it's a fair bet to assume that we'll see a lot of period action in Cap's solo movie. In fact, we're wondering if that's pretty much all we're going to see, because his arrival in the present day is so linked to Avengers lore to tell too much of that story without including the Avengers ahead of their own movie, which seems pretty unlikely. We already know that Avengers scriptwriter Zak Penn is a fan of Mark Millar's Ultimates retelling of Avengers history, so perhaps we should prepare for The First Avenger to repeat The Ultimates' first issue, which told the backstory of Captain America leading up to his accidental suspended animation, allowing for the Avengers movie to continue from that point, introducing him (and new viewers) to the characters from all the other movies who'll have teamed up to form Marvel's mega franchise.

Of course, we'll have to wait for casting announcements for the movie to start surfacing, allowing for more detailed and informed guesses as to what we're going to see during the First Avenger - not to mention what timeframe we're going to see it in - but don't be surprised if Marvel's 2011 movie slate will seek to expand the superhero genre in more epic, mythical directions (Thor) and more gritty, realistic "War Is Hell" ones at the same time.

Inception:

One blogger teases apart some of the clues in the newly released trailer. Joseph Gordon Levitt seems to be part of a security detail, watching as Lukas Haas is being taken away, and maybe Haas has info that can lead to whatever Ken Watanabe is up to. It seems like people's imaginations are reshaping cityscapes, and cities are also like mazes. But when your mind reshapes cities, sometimes gravity applies and sometimes it doesn't. There's a car explosion in a city, being witnessed by Haas through a window.

Also, it seems like the train racing down the city street is chasing a taxi, which has Tom Hardy in it. Ken Watanabe jumps out of bed with his gun, and there's medicine on his bedside table.

JGL and Haas have a man tied to a chair, and JGL says, "We've got to get out of here. Give him the kick!" JGL fights in a room where the walls and floor are shifting around, and masked men walk in on two men who are tied up, as prisoners. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio is holding something as he's drowned in that bathtub. [Eating Class, thanks Gerard!]

Paranormal Activity 2:

Micah Sloat talks about the inevitable sequel:

I can't say anything specific about it, but I can definitely tell you that Paramount and the producers are very aware of what happened with Blair Witch 2, and how you can't really take something that's unique like Blair Witch or Paranormal and then follow it up with just a typical, Hollywood horror film. It just doesn't work. I think you can expect Paranormal Activity 2 to be just as unique, or at least have a quality of uniqueness, just like the original did, in its own way and I think it's really going to be a great movie.

[MovieWeb]

Lost:

More mysterious spoilers: One of the original Losties from the start of season one will try to kill himself, but Jack will save him. (And I'm guessing this is in alternate universe-land. Just a guess, since OG castaways are in short supply in the regular timeline.) Also, someone "tall, dark and handsome" whom we've known a long time will die within the first four hours, in the season's first shocking death. [E! Online]

Sawyer begins the new season racked with guilt over the events of the previous season finale, and Josh Holloway says Sawyer needs a second chance to rectify some of his mistakes. The badass Sawyer will be back in 2010, but first he'll get some closure with Juliet in some "poignant" scenes that set up important developments later on. But Sawyer says his grief over Juliet makes it "not possible for him to be with Kate. Right now, he doesn't give a f—- about life…or anyone in it. He's destroyed inside. There's an undeniable love for Kate, but everything inside of him is fighting not to go there." Also, it sounds like Sun and Jin will be separated again this year. [TV Guide Magazine]

Some more details about the Sun/Jin episode. There's a crucial scene involving Sun, a beat-up Jin, Sayid, Keamy (who has a gunshot wound in his side), Omar (who has a GSW in his stomach), and Mikhail (who looks young, has both eyes, and speaks Korean). In the scene Mikhail surprises Sun and takes her hostage, and they come around the corner, and there's Keamy, already shot. Mikhail goes to check on Keamy, and Jin jumps him. Mikhail and Jin fight. Jin shoots at Mikhail three times, hitting him in the eye the third time. Also, the Sun/Jin episode includes scenes at Sydney Airport and a Korean bank. And a car will drive off a pier.

Meanwhile, scientists are chasing Sawyer down to the beach. And we'll see a new camp full of airplane stuff — and this turns out to be Claire's camp. We'll learn what Claire has been up to all this time, and it's pretty "wild." [The Transmission via SpoilersLost]

Some rumors/hints from inside sources. Supposedly a great deal of the season opener takes place on Flight 815, and we'll see Desmond on the plane. Plus we'll see the Statue from the plane, and Jack bumps into Kate on board the plane. Jack saves Charlie once again — and maybe this is the suicide that Jack prevents? We'll see Juliet die, but first she gets a final kiss. Jacob appears to Hurley, Jack and Sawyer fight again, and it's "pretty fucking crazy." [SpoilersLost]

Dollhouse:

The next episode, "Getting Closer," includes Bennett (Summer Glau), November/Mellie, Mr. Dominic AND Whiskey/Claire Saunders. And here's a description:

Topher races to reconstruct Echo's original personality and memories when Adelle realizes they are the key to averting a devastating future. Meanwhile, Echo and Bennett's shared past and the identity of the Rossum's Corpration's mysterious leader are revealed in the all-new "Getting Closer" episode of DOLLHOUSE airing Friday, Jan. 8

[Summer-Glau.net]

Doctor Who:

John Simm answers YOUR questions about his return as the Master. Not all that spoilery, though. [Pop Culture Zoo]

Batman: The Brave And The Bold:

A series of clips and some awesome pics from Friday's episode, "The Revenge Of The Reach," featuring Guy Gardner, the Challengers Of The Unknown, Blue Beetle and the Green Lantern Corps. Looks like a late Xmas present to those of us who loved the Rogers run on Blue Beetle. [Comic Book Resources]

Smallville:

A new mid-year teaser includes a few tantalizing glimpses. [OSCK]

Heroes:

Here's the official description for episode 4x15, "Close To You." A grim vision of the future? That never happens on this show!

H.R.G. EXPOSES SAMUEL'S GREATEST WEAKNESS IN AN EFFORT TO STOP HIM - LISA LACKEY, DAWN OLIVIERI AND ELISABETH ROHM GUEST STAR - H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) recruits Matt (Greg Grunberg) to help him take down Samuel (Robert Knepper), as they use his long-lost love, Vanessa (guest star Kate Vernon), to lure him to them, but Samuel has his own plans for Vanessa in the works. Meanwhile, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) go to extreme lengths to save Dr. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy). Elsewhere, Peter's (Milo Ventimiglia) introduction of Emma (guest star Deanne Bray) to his mother (Cristine Rose) brings forth visions of a very grim future.

[HeroSite]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

You have to love Helen "Supergirl" Slater as a Capenters-loving scientist, and Martin Landau as an evil mad genius. You just have to. [IMDB]

If you've read Vertigo titles like Hellblazer or Lucifer in the past decade or so, you're already a fan of Carey's writing. In particular, his epic run on Lucifer kept the intrigues of Heaven and Hell constantly surprising, with a shifting set of loyalties and fascinating characters. Not to mention, Carey wrote one of my all-time favorite miniseries: My Faith In Frankie, the story of a girl and her personal god.

But for the past few years, he's been putting out a number of novels featuring Felix Castor, a London exorcist who sometimes helps the police untangle particularly baffling murders. He's put out five of them so far, and he seems to be doing a great job of ratcheting up the tension and weirdness. I've read a couple of them, Vicious Circle and Dead Men's Boots, and have found them addictive enough to drag me away from the other books I'm supposed to be reading.

Like Supernatural, they're dark and witty, and feature otherworldly monsters that want to run rampant on Earth. Their mixture of cleverness and heart reminded me of Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble at their cracklingest.

In the books, Felix Castor is an exorcist, someone who can see the ghosts that lurk around London and banish them by playing on his tin whistle. (And yes, the whistle thing does get a bit cheesy at times. But run with it.) There have always been ghosts, and people who could deal with them, but for some reason the 1990s saw a huge surge in the number of dead people refusing to go quietly. (The reasons for this change are a bit mysterious, but apparently relate to something called the Great Project in Hell.)

So now exorcism has become a valid career path, for those who have the talent — but besides ghosts, there are also zombies, loups-garous and demons roaming around causing trouble. Castor, the perpetually down at his luck ghost-hunter, also has to contend with a fringe group that argues that ghosts have human rights and shouldn't simply be exorcised, even if they're going all polter. There's even an ominously pending law that would ratify the legal status of the deceased.

Castor's pretty much your classic sad-sack P.I., as well — he's constantly getting out of his depth and tangling with opponents way beyond his weight class. His cases involve rogue exorcists whose powers are beyond his, or gangsters who've found a way to live forever by transplanting their souls into new bodies after death. There are occasional moments of genuine horror as well as traditional detective work, piecing together odd clues until something comes together.

He survives a lot of scrapes by his wits alone, or through pure luck, and his main superpower seems to be knowing when to tell a clever lie. His allies are rarely terribly reliable, including Gary Coldwood, the cop who often seems to hate his guts, Nicky, a zombie information broker, and Juliet, a former succubus who's just barely reformed thanks to the love of a good woman. His best friend Rafi is possessed by the demon Asmodeus (thanks to Felix's blundering), and his ex-girlfriend Pen won't forgive him for it.

I think the main thing that keeps me obsessively reading these books is Carey's dark, smoky narrative voice. It's very much in line with the Jim Butcher novels, Kadrey's Sandman Slim, and some other vaguely pulpy urban fantasy that's come out lately — I am trying not to overuse the phrase "noir fantasy" but there's definitely a smidgen of noir in the way that Castor's first-person narrator always seems world-weary and a bit of a bastard. But he's less of a bastard than most of the other people he meets, and he has a kind of struggling nobility to him. And there's definitely something a bit noirish about narration like this:

I was starting to get the picture now: it was a bleak and sad one, executed mainly in grays, but then I don't get to see many that are in bright primaries.

Or this, from later in the same book, after a spirit contact goes disastrously wrong:

I fished out my flask of I-can't-believe-it's-not-cognac and unscrewed the lid with shaking hands. The first sip was medicinal: I swilled it around my bitten tongue, trying not to wince, rolled down the window, and spat out the blood. The second sip was for my jangled nerves. So were the third and fourth.

The actual plots of the novels, judging from the two I've read, are insanely complicated and usually involve tons of different strands weaving together. I often found myself having to flip back 100 pages to try and remind myself exactly who a particular character was, when we hadn't seen him or her in a while. There are a lot of random characters, or entities, who show up and do something, then vanish for hundreds of pages only to resurface when the plot(s) needs them. The overall effect is one of whirling corruption and soul-deep chaos, and it's not at all a bad thing that Carey's spiritualist London feels fully populated.

The major supporting characters, though, are quite memorable and a big draw of these books is following Juliet, Pen, Rafi and the others through their evolution. Carey seems fairly determined to keep his status quo from becoming too quo, and all of the major characters seem to have actual arcs planned out, making the books worthwhile just to see how they turn out.

And there are plenty of hints, tossed here and there, about infernal politics. Something bigger seems to be coming down the pike, and every case Castor takes on, especially the ones which seem to be too hot to handle, increases the lingering sense that we're just seeing the tip of the supernatural iceberg. In any case, Castor's the type of fantasy hero we need more of — he's a good man in a bad world that's getting worse, and he defeats evil through a mixture of raw cunning and having friends in low places. Until Sam and Dean come back, it's definitely worth spending some time getting to know Felix Castor.

Boys need more attention. Really? Recently published research suggests that as girls are helped to achieve academic and social success, boys are getting left behind. The result: American boys are leaving school with lower literacy rates, lower grades, and higher dropout rates. They also have higher suicide, arrest and premature death rates. Hmm. Maybe this is all related to another study, which showed that spankings lower IQ scores?

Dinosaurs wiped out by algae. While many scientists believe an asteroid impact killed off the dinosaurs, Clemson University researchers announced on October 19th at the Geological Society of America that they believed toxins from algae were to blame for not just killing off the great beasts of 65 million years ago, but five other species. Their scientific peers aren't buying the theory, claiming the evidence just isn't there.

Fetuses have memories in the womb. As if we needed more fuel for the abortion debate, scientists co-authored a study published in Child Development that says fetuses just 30 weeks of age have short-term memory. This discovery was claimed after a series of "fetuses became habituated to a low sound that makes a vibration, and so weren't startled after repeated stimulation. Fetuses younger than 30 weeks never showed signs of habituation, while those older could remember the stimulation for longer and longer stints with age."

Who's the oldest of them all? While Ardi was pronounced the official oldest link to us humans, another fossil was found in the meantime that may change our evolutionary tree. Ida is a 47-million year old primate fossil (Ardi is 4.4 million years old) that has scientists debating whether or not her remains are proof of an even earlier precursor of humans.

Climategate. The University of East Anglia computer systems are hacked, leaking thousands of private (and pretty incriminating) emails and files from prominent climate scientists. The emails seem to show that climate scientists, such as Phil Jones, were purposely keeping research papers whose conclusions argued against the connection between global warming and human activity out of an important climate panel report. Oops!

Here are the most viewed trailers of the year, according to Yahoo:

10. Up

9. Avatar

8. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

7. Star Trek

6. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

4. Terminator Salvation

3. 2012

2. Transformers

1. New Moon

[Yahoo via Rope of Silicon]

The eagle eyed folks over at Slashfilm pointed out a major detail from the new Iron Man 2 trailer. It seems that for a split second in the new trailer Black Widow exposes a S.H.I.E.L.D. badge on her catsuit. The badge was previously removed from any official stills, as it would expose the secret of who she is and why she's working inside Stark's company. Here's the picture...

When we spoke with Scarlett Johansson back in the comic con the actresses played especially coy about her character's ties in the film.

What is your relationship to the other characters in the film?

Well I'll tell you that um, my character... there are two sides to my character. She's a bit of a shape shifter, I suppose. There's a side of the character that's kind of demure and covert - I wouldn't say that she's submissive, but she's blending in to the Stark Industries [team, as an assistant]. Then the other part of the character is a really aggressive, bad-ass character, that is sure of herself and is going to kick the shit out of you if you get in her way. So that's as about as much as I can tell you, and how that relates to the other characters.

I'm curious as to how your character balances out Whiplash and the other villains. A lot of people are saying two villains is too many, what does your character bring?

We don't know whether the character is villainous. She does have a dark past, and she is very seductive and distracting. We are not sure exactly where she's coming from, and what her intentions are, I'm not saying that will all be revealed. But there are a lot of characters in this movie, and a lot of new characters. And it is a balancing act. I think that between the huge explosive action, the romance, the battle of good versus evil - even within one's self - there's a nice balance between all of us. And I think fans will be excited to be taken down all these different journeys. They all really play into one another, and it doesn't feel like a lot of different films coming together. It feels like an ensemble. And you know, who can have too many villains?

In the comics your character works with Sam Jackson, do you have any scenes with Sam?

Um, I have worked with Sam Jackson.

She kept a tight lid on the plot details there, but this assumption seems to go along with comic books, and the "duality" issues that Scarjo is talking about above. Not a huge surprise, but a welcomed addition that keeps in canon with the comics.

Flickr user Nevada Tumbleweed has been posting dozens of pics from the 1953 nuclear cannon test, and they're as notable for the beautifully clunky 1950s hardware as for the actual devastation of the nuclear shell, detonated just 500 feet above the ground. And I feel really bad for the soldiers crouching in the trench nearby — I don't think that trench turned out to be all that helpful. More at the link. [Nevada Test Site - Operation Upshot-Knothole - 1953 on Flickr]

The cannon itself
That fireball
Soldier standing guard to make sure nobody wanders into the blast zone
More security
The weather service tracks the toxic clouds to see where they go
A pilot-less "drone" aircraft
Soldiers "duck and cover" in a trench
A WB29 aircraft being checked for radioactivity. Planes that had radioactive contamination were washed with a solution of "gunk," plus grease solvent and water, then returned to duty 24 hours later.
A B45 tornado.

From Fringe to FlashForward to V, with sidesteps into Dollhouse and Warehouse 13, the FBI were all over 2009's science fiction television (And yet, none of these activities make their list of top cases of 2009. I smell cover up). But why are so many of today's heroes working for The Man? And the same Man, at that?

Positive media portrayals are nothing new for the FBI; since its creation, the agency has actively participated in various projects, including 1935 radio show G Men and the wonderfully-titled This Is Your FBI. We remember Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, or Mulder and Scully from The X-Files, but this year's federal fetishism seems to have hit a new high. Part of it could be put down to a mix of comforting the audience while pretending to ramp up the excitement at the same time: They're risking their necks to make your life a safer place like the cops... But more extreme!

There's something to be said for the post-9/11 wish-fulfillment aspect of the new rash of FBI heroes; it plays directly to the idea that, even when the threat is literally unimaginable on a human scale, the people charged with protecting us will (in whatever small way) be able to recognize it first, and mobilize to stop it even if said threat is internal, which it so often seems to be. In fact, today's FBI dramas seem a particularly backhanded compliment, if they're meant to reassure; in most of the shows our new G Men and Women idols appear in, they're faced with an institution that's against them and, in some cases, implicit in the "bad stuff" that's going on around them. How many times, after all, has an FBI agent turned out to be an undercover bad guy (V, Fringe) or mentally unstable in some way (FlashForward, Fringe, Dollhouse because, let's face it, Ballard has problems) this year?

Besides the apparent ease of infiltrating the FBI, the new wave has also produced other 21st Century FBI cliches: Apparently, emotionally distant blonde women advance up the ranks easily, especially when paired with joking-yet-caring male partners. Department heads are often African American and gruff, yet ultimately caring. And new taskforces will be created at seeming random, but have to answer for budget overruns just before important breakthroughs happen. Are these really things that happen all the time in the real FBI? If so, I think someone in HR needs to find the moles immediately (Here's a clue: They're probably the ones from an alternate dimension).

Maybe the FBI-zing of science fiction is just a way of making everything into a procedural, making it easier for non-genre fans to get to grips with the new shows, turning everything into a CSI: Aliens or the like, and we're reading way too much into it. Perhaps it's a fad, and next year, every new show will have firemen. But for whatever reason, 2009 has been the year when only one kind of government employee could save the world, and we were happy to have them. Viva la FBI.

Ruins of Detroit [Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography via Twitter]

United Artists Theater
Michigan Central Station
Farwell Building
Broderick Tower
Whitney Building
Bank Vault
Ballroom, Fort Wayne Hotel
East Methodist Church
Library
Fisher Body 21 Plant
Ballroom, Lee Plaza Hotel

Many don't realize that Alda has a geeky side. Known for his 11 year story arc on M*A*S*H, the actor has always been fascinated with science. He's been lucky enough to entertain that side of his life by serving on the board of the World Science Festival and hosting the now defunct Scientific American Frontiers for 12 years.

While he hasn't starred in any science-based films (yet), Alda did act the part of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman in the play QED in 2001. Explaining his lack of science fiction on his resume, Alda tells io9, "Nothing's been offered to me that looked really interesting." Are you listening, Hollywood?

"I used to read science fiction a lot and I still like it if it's a model of how we really are, so we can see ourselves from another perspective," Alda continues. "The thing is that I read so much science, much more than I do fiction, because to me, science in itself is a great detective story that's happening in front of us. I don't get as involved with science fiction, except as it tries to help me understand who we are, because the greatest frontier in science is to understand humanity itself."

In a quest to learn more about that very subject, Alda and the folks at PBS take a look at what makes us human in a three-part series premiering on January 6th. The Human Spark, a three-part miniseries, sends Alda to three continents as he talks with archaeologists and scientists about our evolution and how we differ from Neandrathals, apes, and other animals.

"We often start off with these great divides," Alda explains. "We say, we're the only ones that cry. We're the only ones that laugh. We're the only ones that build skyscrapers. And little by little, as we've explored this, I've begun to see some of these lines blur and disappear in certain cases. What my interviews with scientists, being out in the field with these animals, and taking part in these experiments has done, is I've personally started to feel more connected to these other animals and see some of the roots of my behavior."

Alda went so far as to have his brain scanned at MIT's McGovern Institute, but it wasn't the first time he's done so. Turns out the producers at Scientific American Frontiers have made Alda get his head examined a few times already. While the brain scans in this instance were done to show what areas scientists think are uniquely human, technicians at MIT noted that they wouldn't have been able to guess Alda's age based on his brain scans — his noggin looks a few years younger! "I've carried that along with me for a while now," Alda laughs. "It cheers me up."

Alda's big question, which has yet to be answered involves our future as a species. "Scientists have told me that the average lifespan of a species is about two million years. We've only been here a fraction of that so far. Do we have a chance of having an average existence on earth? Can you picture us here a million years from now. What would we be like? What destruction will we be capable of? I hope we learn more about ourselves and that this series makes its own small contribution to that."

The Human Spark premieres on January 6th on PBS. Check local listings for times.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a powerful CEO, Page as his assistant, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a khaki suited bad-ass and Ken Watanabe as the bad guy. The basic plot is being heavily guarded and all imdb has to say about the picture is that, "A CEO-type becomes involved in a blackmailing scandal." But from the trailer I think it's safe to say that this blackmailing is at least happening from inside someone's thoughts, because "your mind is the scene of the crime." Also, is Page screaming "Wake me up!" at one point?

Out in theaters July 16.

[via Apple]

The poster, which has been put up at the Tottenham Court Road bus shelter in London, includes some sort of built-in screen that shows images from a film shot by Frank Budgen. What you see is a distressed-looking girl sitting alone in the corner of a room. At the bottom of the poster is a green collection tin that, if you place money into, gets the virtual girl to look towards the person who just dropped the coins in and give a half-smile.

The ads promote Barnardo's children's charity. We wonder how much spare change the group is getting via this one bus stop and if, ironically, any downtrodden children have yet to try to pry that collection jar, or flat screen, straight off.

Barnardo's Interactive Poster [Creative Review]