First the evidence:

I'm loving the "scientist" excuse, come on people that's the oldest trick in the book. If I saw this this report in NYC I'm pretty sure I'd recognize it as code for "get the hell out, run run run." But what if it's not just a mere alien ship? Taking a cue from last week's FlashForward, don't the two illusions appear slightly similar?

This strange figure in the sky appeared at the end of the episode when the little town in Africa was subjected to a flash forward. Did the tower induce the incident? We don't know just yet, but the people of Moscow should head outside and check for odd buildings under the optical illusion...or flee.

[via NY Daily News]

What's It About?
For a series that started with the simple idea of "It's Superman as a kid," Smallville has somewhat lost its way in the eight seasons so far (in part, to be fair, because you can't really do "as a kid" eight years down the line). These days, Smallville is essentially "Superman before he finally becomes Superman": Clark Kent is already a reporter for the Daily Planet (alongside Lois Lane), commuting via superspeed from his home in Smallville, and he's already saving people on a regular basis with the help of fellow superheroes like Green Arrow and the Flash. He just hasn't put on the tights yet.

Also, this Clark Kent? Kind of a clueless dick.

So Who're The Bad Guys These Days?
This season, we're finally seeing General Zod in the flesh after years of him being a disembodied voice causing mischief from beyond. Copping an idea of two from DC's current "New Krypton" comics, Zod has arrived on Earth with an army of Kryptonians; unlike the comic, though, this is a time-traveling, younger Zod who isn't even a general yet. Don't worry; he's still a fan of people kneeling before him.

Clark and friends have good reason to be mad at him nonetheless. At the end of the eighth season, Jimmy Olsen was murdered by Davis Bloome, the clone son of Zod created to take over the world, leading to Clark deciding that being human and having friends is a bad thing (Trust us, Clark, we've thought the same thing often, especially while watching this show). As if that isn't enough, Zod has appeared before, escaping from the Phantom Zone and possessing Lex Luthor for a bit.

If you're wondering where Lex is, the answer is "supposedly dead," having apparently been blown up in a plane by Green Arrow last season. Considering that he's Lex Luthor - somewhat insane, a bit of a genius and, in Smallville continuity, completely aware that Clark is from Krypton and that kryptonite is a bad thing - we're betting that'll last until producers can lure actor Michael Rosenbaum back. In his absence, Luthorcorp was placed in the care of Tess Mercer, one of the show's two attempts at moral ambiguity (Green Arrow is the other; we'll get to him in a minute). Tess knows that Clark is an alien and has superpowers (thanks to the journal of Lex's dead dad), and is responsible for bringing Zod and his army to Earth, but still... she's not all bad. Maybe.

Why Do You Keep Talking About Green Arrow?
Because the show does. Since he was introduced in season six, billionaire Oliver Queen has slowly become more and more important to the show, becoming the Batman that the producers are allowed to use. Less unwilling to get his hands dirty to get the job done (See: Potentially killing Lex Luthor) and less embarrassed to dress up in a superhero costume and give himself a dumb name (See: Being Green Arrow in the first place), Queen and his love of archery became a series regular last year, meaning he has a life beyond the show's Justice League team (which consists of Arrow, Black Canary, the Flash and a version of Teen Titans' cyborg) - which is good, considering Clark fell out with them at the end of last season (See: Clark being a bit of a dick).

They're not the only familar faces from the DC Universe in the show, however; Metropolis police detective John Jones is actually a powerless Martian Manhunter, and last year saw the introduction of the Legion of Super-Heroes, who're rumored to return this year. Also coming this year: the Justice Society of America.

What About All The Regular Folk?
Problem with Smallville is that it's run so long that no-one is just regular folk anymore; Lana left the series after becoming (a) psychic and (b) radioactive with kryptonite, which is apparently a side-effect of Kristin Kreuk wanting a career that doesn't involve Tom Welling, Chloe - still there after eight years, and the only character besides Clark to hold that honor - turned out to have healing powers and got possessed by Brainiac, only to end up taking the codename Watchtower and acting as the Justice League (and Clark)'s unofficial official IT person, and Lois... well, she's still just Lois, really: Hard-headed investigative reporter for the Daily Planet who's fallen for Clark but somehow is still unaware that he has super-powers, demonstrating that she's not a very good investigative reporter.

For those keeping track of Clark's parents: Pa still dead, Ma still in politics, which for all intents and purposes in this show means the same thing.

So Where Are We With The Story?
Davis Bloome - AKA Doomsday, AKA a cloned Kryptonian monster created by Zod and his wife - has been defeated after trying to kill Clark and succeeding in killing Jimmy Olsen, who was Chloe's (estranged) husband. As a result, Clark has decided that he's giving up being Clark Kent because it only endangers his friends, and will only be Kal-El, wearing black and saving the day in secret while necessary, spectacularly abandoning his friends when they need him, what with that whole "mourning" thing and all. Meanwhile, Tess Mercer has accidentally brought Zod and his army to Earth after being guided by mysterious forces. Everything else? Well, you'll have to watch Smallville tonight on the CW at 8pm to find out.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day:

Sarah Connor herself decides to explain the first movie, and the background of the second movie to us, while robots slaughter people and her scarred son scowls at us. (That glimpse of Future John packs more punch than five hours of Bale, incidentally.)

Robot Jox:

An all-time classic movie, this Joe Haldeman/Stuart Gordon joint starts out with a gruff voiceover packing everything we need to know about robotic single combat into one speech. With rubble.

Slipstream:

This opening monologue from Steve Lisberger's followup to Tron almost belongs in the "what the hell are you talking about" category. What the Hell? Earthquakes, okay. And then they "merged civilizations together?" But then there's a wind that ate everything. And someone is traveling it. Wha?

2019: After The Fall Of New York:

This one wins extra points for having the synthesizery blues score, and the guy in the trenchcoat pretending that the synthesizer is actually his trumpet. Twenty years after the bombs fell, New York is still a shithole. Sorry.

Doomsday:

This actually isn't the entire opening voiceover of this film, because it continues after about five minutes of people being shot by riot cops. Scotland gets turned into a scabby plague sore, and those sensible Brits wall it off. Which works out perfectly, of course.

Judge Dredd:

Can I just say, I love it when a voiceover comes with a text crawl, in case you need to follow along at home? Most movies do one or the other, but only a truly great movie has a text crawl and a voiceover. The U.S. has gone to mega-shit with Megacities, and a new breed of law enforcer rises up.

City Of Ember:

The movie's entire backstory is compressed into a couple of minutes. Global disaster, underground city, box of instructions... box gets lost. Oh noes.

The Road Warrior:

Thanks to John Hazard for finding this online. Still the greatest post-apocalyptic movie opening of all time.

The Marshall rumor comes from Bloody DIsgusting, which cites a "100% reliable source" for the buzz that the Doomsday and The Descent director is close to signing with 20th Century Fox to helm Predators, a movie that reportedly involves a team of commandos facing down a whole race of the dreadlocked aliens. Robert Rodriguez, who co-wrote the script, backed out of directing it last month but will still produce. The film, which may or may not feature a return-visit cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is due in July 2010.

Now, we may have gone a bit overboard in our enthusiasm for Doomsday, but then, so did Marshall in directing it. We hereby endorse him for the Predators gig. In fact, if he doesn't get the job, heads will roll. Then again, if his Predators is anything like Doomsday, plenty of heads will roll if he does get the job.

Last night's ep was one of the worst Smallville finales to date - Normally, their finales are some of the few things they do reliably well - in part because there was too much going on, and almost all of it made very little sense. Magical kryptonite can split Doomsday in two! Jimmy finds out that Clark is "the red and blue blur" (Yes, Clark actually said, "Jimmy, I am the red and blue blur," making you realize just how stupid that term is)! Lois ended up in the 31st Century!

(Also, Oliver Queen is a dick. Seriously, I'm sure that his purpose in this show is to turn up, be a dick, and leave. Shooting Clark with a kryptonite arrow just to make sure that he doesn't get hurt? Really, Oli?)

At least JImmy's death seemed important at the time; his being murdered by Davis may have been more for shock value than anything else (Although, is it wrong that I liked that Davis without Doomsday is still a psychopath? I mean, it kind of goes against the whole "I am tortured and trying to rebel against the purpose I was created for" thing, but still; yay for pointless murders), but the cliche of his having just enough life left to save the day and kill Davis made this fanboy just a little bit happier with the whole mess. Of course, Jimmy had to save the day, because this is Smallville, where Clark Kent stands around while other people get things done and then mopes that he can't save the people he loves.

This time, though, Clark doesn't just mope; he decides that, because Davis was human when he killed Jimmy, that human emotions are bad and therefore, he'll embrace his kryptonian side to become a better hero. Which, you know, doesn't make sense, but does make for a season finale cliff-hanger (As did the final scene, where Zod apparently came to Earth in a desperate attempt to make people continue to care about the show). Oh, Jimmy. Is your sacrifice truly in vain? Apparently so; not only does Clark's "Clark Kent is dead" moment completely fail to convince in any way whatsoever - Come on, do you really think that it'll last any longer than the start of next season? - but it seems that there's a baby brother Olsen out there ready to take his place, and this one's the right age to make all that Superman Mythos fans happy.

With eight years under its belt, last night's finale just made the show seem much, much older; everything seemed like it'd been done before, and none of the shocking changes are going to stick. It's a shame; the start of this year felt much fresher than the show had in years, but by the end, everything had become the old, familar melodrama with the future of the world at stake yet again. Here's hoping that next year's the final year we have to go through these particular motions.

Apparently as the Moon gets closer to our surface, the greater influence it has over our Earthling gravity, or something like that. So, zero-gravity beach party at my house on the final days of our existence. Check out the latest trailer for Impact, the miniseries ABC out-bid the Syfy Channel for, and ask: was it worth it, ABC?

The series will appear this fall.

Actor/rapper Mike "Fresh" Johnson (aka Jay Dogg) has a role in the new Doomsday telepic (although he's not on the IMDB page yet.) He blogged about showing up for the audition and meeting star Luke Goss, plus B-movie sexpot Xenia Seeberg, who has a supporting role. And later, he posted some set pics, which actually do look sort of cool:

At first, Johnson seemed to think the movie was called Doomsday 2, or Doomsday 2: Extinction Level. But later, he said that title was a "joke" by the film's writer, Rafael Jordan. The real title is just Doomsday, and it "has nothing to do with the Neil Marshall film.. I wonder will we have to change it because it's the same story too??" It looks like the TV movie already wrapped production.

So now I'm a tad confused. Doomsday has the same story as the Neil Marshall film, but "has nothing to do with" it. That could mean it's a quasi-remake, which fits with the rumor that this TV movie is a backdoor pilot for a new series. Or it could just mean that great minds think alike? In any case, director Nick Lyon wrote and directed a 2006 indie called Punk Love, which is a great title. So maybe this telepic (also starring Marina Sirtis!) will shock us with its greatness. Wait, what am I saying? It's a Sci Fi Channel original movie. [Thanks to commenter IsabelJebbie for the heads up!

Let me get it out of the way and say I loved Neil Marshall's Doomsday, loved it. It was silly, wrong, made little sense but went for the throat with sky-high dreams of strange government conspiracy and medieval garb. So I'm excited because what Doomsday really needed was another chance.

Whether or not it will succeed on the Sci Fi Channel is another matter entirely. But I'm still excited because playing the "Government Official" in the Doomsday TV movie will be Star Trek's one and only Counselor Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis. Also Luke Goss is rumored to be attached to the project — you remember him as the pissed off white-haired fella in Hellboy 2, or as one half of pop duo Bros. When will he be famous? Maybe now, if this adaptation takes off.

Director Nick Lyon, who worked on the not-so-loved Grendel TV movie, and writer Rafael Jordan. are both working on the film. So please, take my advice. Make the medieval garb less Renaissance Faire costumey, but keep the fighting and sword play. Also figure out a way to bring more lady ass-kicking in super tight outfits. All cleared up? Okay.

There is still no word whether or not this is a sequel or a prequel, but I think both side of the story are greatly lacking in explanations, so there's a lot of material to play with. And we can always hope that it gets picked up as an ongoing series. [IMDB]

I traversed the city, poking my head in each store looking for what might be gone and what's probably still in stock for you last-minute shoppers. Now, just because some stocks were dwindling in my town doesn't mean it's lights out for Watchmen across the nation. But just in case we've got a list of back-ups so you don't show up to the holiday festivities empty handed. Sorry — there are only so many times you can use the "I bought you Netflix" line, when you simply showed up with nothing.

Video Games:

Sold Out: Gears Of War 2
Instead: First off, ask the clerk. I ran into three lying liar faces that had more copies stashed in the back room. "What you see is what we got" need not apply to most video games, as they churn out these discs like heroin. But should you run into this predicament, there are more video games out there, trust me.
Instead: Try Fallout 3 or Dead Space. Both should be in ample supply.

Sold Out: Wii or Wii Fit. Yearning to try the workout of the future? Too bad. They are sold out — all of them. You will get laughed at to your face by some 16-year-old on winter break. (I did.)
Instead: Flip Camera. Sure, it's not a Wii, but really what is? And at least they'll be ready when the Cloverfield Monster strikes their town. They're reasonably priced (a little over $100) and can hold a lot more video than most of the cell phones out there.

Movies:

Sold Out: Hancock, because apparently a lot of people liked this movie.
Instead: There are two other infinitely better bad good movies that had loads upon loads in stock. I suggest Death Race or Doomsday. They're both action packed and terrible in a good way, and NO WILL SMITH.

Sold Out: WALL-E. I actually found a few here and there shoved in the wrong spots, so keep a keen eye out. Plus, the Blu-ray had a few left over.
Instead: So you can't watch the new awesome robot from Disney? Well, what about the old awesome robots, gadgets and space creatures? Teach others about the great scifi kid movies of our past. Flight of the Navigator, Honey I Shrunk The Kids and Black Hole are all on sale at Best Buy for $5.99. If that doesn't work, go with Enchanted, but seriously if your child/friend/sig. other doesn't like one of those first three, you need to sit them down and have a long holiday talk.

Sold Out: Dark Knight. This is hard to replace, I admit, but there are other big releases that should tempt some scifi fans.
Instead: Wanted and the new X Files were in stock but personally if I couldn't have Batman for Christmas a close second would be Bill Murray. There is a Ghostbusters box set with both movies for a mere $15.

Sold Out: Futurama's Bender's Big Score (the best of the Futurama DVD movies)
Instead: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 4

Books And Comics And Things:

Sold Out: Twilight Book Set
Instead: Teach your Twilight fan about the other work of Stephenie Meyer, The Host. Or go really crazy and pick up the other vampire series, from Charlaine Harris: the Sookie Stackhouse books, which are now HBO's True Blood series. But be careful, these Twilighters are a fickle breed.

Sold Out: Watchmen.
Instead: Y The Last Man in hardcover, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the Joker hardcover. Our intrepid comics reporter Graeme McMillan has put together a fantastic collection of 10 great graphic novel gifts that would also make a fantastic gifts, if the Watchmen you're looking for is no longer about.

Sold Out: Neal Stephenson's Anathem
Instead: Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell, or Karen Traviss' Clone Wars. Need more to go on? Jot down a few of these book gems from Annalee's bookish gift guide.

Sold Out: World War Z by Max Brooks
Instead: Easy — Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide.

Quick Gifts:

Box sets, I'm telling you this is the way to go. Don't get a mere chapter of a series, get the entire collection. The ones that caught my eye was a $10 DVD of BOTH Never Ending Story movies, the Resident Evil Trilogy, and possibly the most amazing thing I've ever seen the Alien Predator Pack, an 8 disc set of every single Alien, Predator and the two AVPs for $55.

But should you have more questions, you can always consult the Ultimate Scifi Gift Guide.

Never Go Through A Tunnel

It seems like a quick and easy way out, but dark and scary passageways usually house bad things that you don't want to bother with in the middle of fleeing for your life. It's simple: tunnels=death, for at least one person in the group. This is a tried and true fact of apocalyptic movies. Take for example the idiot drivers who decided to take the tunnel in Independence Day, toasted via fire ball (except for the ones who had that dog, but more on that later). Also who could forget the night vision moments in Cloverfield walking through New York's subway system. Avoid tunnels at all costs.

Do Not Join A Theme Gang

With the world ending, there will be many sad sacks who will try and recreate a Mad Max road warrior gang. Resist the urge to join anything theme-oriented. Basic rule of thumb: if you look like an idiot with a face tattoo or a fool running around in Medieval garb, you're going to get the sharp end of the death stick. Doomsday spelled this out pretty clearly: everyone who looked ridiculous got a ridiculous ending. Motorcycle gangs count too, don't forget even Romero's Dawn of the Dead leather riders got their just rewards for their hideous outfits and bad attitudes. Stick to the rag-tag refugee look, or lone wolf army motif. If you have to join a gang, stay in the back and never do anything you might later regret — like eat people.

Do Not Go Back For Loved Ones

If the world is ending, you may feel the need to find love ones that are in Princeton, a New York Library or a high rise apartment. This is a bad idea. Let go of your emotions and assume that everyone else in the world is dead, or trying to steal your food supplies. Going after loved ones almost always means your own death or the death of someone in the group. Look at it this way, it your loved one has survived and you meet up with them, bonus for you. But most likely they died from the plague, zombies, earthquake flood or whatever.

Never Be The First

I can't believe this even has to be said but no, do not go exploring in rooms, attic, caves, hallways or apartments where you are the first one in the door. My favorite character from Resident Evil Extinction, L.J., got bit by a zombie lady because he was checking out all the rooms to make sure it was safe. Let someone else do this, get a job as a medic or cook. There is no need for you to be first to go anywhere — let someone else do the exploring. If they find something really good, you can kill them and take it anyway.

Bring Your Pet

If you don't have a pet, I suggest you go to the pet store and steal one, looter style, or take care of your dead neighbors'. You may need this pet to help you keep your sanity or sacrifice its life for you, like in I Am Legend. Either way, animals are good luck when the chips are down for humans. You never know when a pair of love birds will come in handy to calm down a flock of murderous seagulls and crows. The same rule sometimes applies to children, but you will have to feed them considerably more.

Ditch The Biggest Guy In Your Group

They will turn into a zombie or rage machine, it's proven. Kill them before they kill you, or just ditch them at the next pass.

Don't Trust People In Uniform Unless They Have Defected From The System

Never trust the government, especially when the world is ending. It's a terrible idea, they would rather nuke the whole place than deal with people. If you see the military, run the other way or hide. Do not do what they say. The friendly people of Hollywood followed the advice of the government from Right At Your Door, and what happened to them? Same with the people of Raccoon City, from Resident Evil Apocalypse. Granted an ex-military person hell-bent on sticking it to the man can be a wonderful asset during the end of the world, just be sure to know the difference between the two.

Don't Barricade Yourself In

It always seems like a good idea, but 9 times out of 10 whatever you're trying to keep out gets in and now you're trapped. Think of the mess it caused for the cute little family in the beginning of28 Weeks Later and Shaun of the Dead. I say build a sky city in the trees.

Finally if all else fails, find the closest fridge, step in, and pray for a miracle.

1. People should dress like grown-ups. That means no pajamas. No shiny gold or silver fabrics. No GWAR gear. No matter what era you're writing about, professional people will wear clothes that allow everyone else to take them seriously. And space travelers will probably wear outfits that are functional and help keep them alive.

2. No jolly lectures. This is more of a book thing. When a character stands around for three pages explaining the author's philosophies in a cheery tone, it's the prose version of a giant glittery tiara. I'm looking at you, Robert Anson Heinlein.

3. Take off that shiny apron, robot! The robots of the future will be stronger, smarter and more durable than anything we have today — they'll basically be able to sever your spine with a flick of one of their little microfilaments. So it's understandable and desirable for robots to be cute or sexy to distract us from their genocidal potential. But "cute" doesn't have to include a silly cartoon voice, a catch-phrase like "beady beady" or a funny walk.

4. Rock music cannot possibly get sillier. There are limits to what even the brain-damaged tweens of the 22nd century will bop around to — and there's no way it could be dumber than Debbie Gibson or Aaron Carter. Barring radical brain mutations, future pop music will at least be sorta catchy and have a few okay lyrics. The worst is when a novel or comic book reproduces song lyrics of the future — and they're the author's bad poetry. Somehow, these things are always worse on the page.

5. Neologisms should be plausible. In other words, if you have a future technology, and you're coming up with a name or slang term for it, it should be something you could imagine grown-ups saying. Comedy shows us what not to do in serious SF, with the zany slang in Woody Allen's Sleeper: "It's not only cool, it's Koogat!"

6. Yay sex, but boo zany ironic dominatrixes. That's pretty much all I had to say about that.

7. Cut down on the eyeliner, Mr. Spock! Yes, it matches your blue top. But just listen to Yahoo Answers: light-blue eyeshadow looks "tacky and outdated."

8. In general, aliens should be alien, not human ethnic groups or stereotypes. This pertains to campiness because the number one cause of campy aliens is a failure to imagine a truly non-human lifeform. Instead of the shock of an organism whose life cycle and culture are totally at odds with ours, we get the wacky Jamaicans in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

9. And no more cultures with just one wise saying. If an alien race has managed to make it into interstellar space and develop artificial gravity, it might also be advanced enough to afford two great philosophers or schools of thought. Worst of all are the Ferengi on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, who quote the Rules of Acquisition as if they're the only book Ferenginar has ever produced.

10. If you must have villains, make them awesome. Mike Meyers did us a favor creating Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies — by giving us a template for what villains should not be like outside of comedies. Villains can be scary, or understated, or believable people whose agendas are at odds with the hero's... but they shouldn't kill us with cuteness.

11. If you must tackle religion, avoid being woo-woo. That means no priests with funny outfits. Yes, priests dress funny in real life, but they're still campy on screen. That also means no prophecies, especially ones with funny names. Visions are okay, if they're more David Lynch and less Derek Jarman.

12. Musicals are inherently campy. Do you ever find yourself watching the Buffy musical episode, or Rocky Horror, and thinking, "Gee, I wish there was more stuff like this in my science fiction?" If so, then maybe you should spend some time in fantasy-land instead. People bursting into song and doing that thing with their hands is directly opposed to the willing suspension of disbelief thing.

13. Punk is campy. Maybe it wasn't in the 1960s, or whenever you guys invented it, but it is now. Sorry. That goes for regular punk (just watch Doomsday) as well as cyberpunk (watch the Matrix sequels) and definitely steampunk. Steampunk is camp-tastic.

14. Time-travel leads to culture shock, not Culture Club. Journeying to another era shouldn't be an excuse for Renfaire/Society for Creative Anachronism goofiness. I've seen enough pithy Victorians (especially on Doctor Who) and doughty Medievals to last me a thousand time warps. And our ancestors may have been less technologically advanced, but they weren't freaking morons. (Well, okay, some of them were.)

15. Robots shouldn't pee. They shouldn't pee on people. They shouldn't pee in space. They shouldn't "vent coolant" in the middle of a hot robo-fisting scene. Robotic urine just should not be part of our lexicon at all.

16. A certain amount of cheesiness may be inevitable in science fiction. Just accept it. The difference between cheesiness and camp is that camp is self-aware and deliberate, and cheesiness is a result of someone fervently saying, "We're going to have giant robots fighting for ten minutes and it's going to be stupendous! Yeah!!"

17. Don't go retro. Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow winks so hard at classic scifi it's got a permanent squint. The 1930s fin-headed scifi was the original reference point for much of the seminal works of camp, and earns a starring role in Susan Sontag's foundational 1964 essay on camp. So looking backwards will only make you look ironic and funnily subversive.

18. Absolutely no go-go boots or sparkles. And no epaulets. Or shoulderpads. Or giant buckles, or insignias that are bigger than someone's hand.

19. No more Angelina Jolie. She's cute, but she camps up every role she's in. Just look at Tomb Raider. And the aforementioned Sky Captain. She's the main reason why this summer's Wanted will be a huge camp-fest.

20. War is hell, but shouty-jumpy soldiers belong in Monty Python. Yes, we get it — you're subverting the deadly conformity of military protocol by having your soldiers act like loons. But a little bit of armed-forces wackiness and slogan-shouting goes a long way. And that goes double for Starship Troopers' fake war propaganda.

21. Don't confuse "campiness" with "fun." You can create a fun, exciting storyline without going the campiness route. Space battles can be adrenaline-blasting, without any need for funny computer voices or zany puppet aliens. We like to watch people kickbox on the the deck of a satellite that's breaking up as much as anybody. Just, you know, without the shiny pajamas. Movie screencaps taken from Wetcircuit.

Two new villains are stepping up to take the place as the antagonist in Smallville. Expect to see the DC Comics' character Doomsday (notorious for slaying Superman) along with an unknown female baddie. But this may not be the last you hear from Luthor. Although he's no longer a series regular, producers of Smallville released a statement that hinted at a few cameos later in the year saying, "He is one of the best actors on television and has never failed to bring a new layer to the character of Lex Luthor in every episode. While Michael won't be a series regular and we won't have the pleasure of working with him on a weekly basis this fall, we like to think that we haven't seen the last of Lex Luthor."

But the real question is, now that Doomsday is coming to the show are they going to try and kill Superman only to bring him back as four other versions of Superman, like in the comics? Or will young Clark Kent kick Doomsday's ass? [Hollywood Reporter]

I mentioned the other day that Doomsday wasn't screened for critics, and it's easy to see why. I had to go see the first showing at our local theater, which was at noon — exactly 12 hours too early for this sort of movie. If you don't care about logic, or story, or characters, or pretty much anything except for seeing a hot woman dismember people in a tanktop — punctuated by some really, really over the top musical segments — then you'll love this film. It's not Shakespeare. It's not even Shakespeare In Love. But it's better than Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, the last film on this level that I saw.

Here's the plot in a nutshell: in April 2008, a deadly virus (The Reaper) breaks out in Glasgow and spreads like wildfire. The authorities decide, in a very 28 Weeks Later sequence, to quarantine the country and shoot down anybody who tries to get out. But then, 30 years later, a deeply dystopian and slummy London sparks a new outbreak of the virus (which feeds off poverty and overcrowding). The government sends a team up to Scotland to find out why some people survived the virus up there, led by Rhona Mitra's super-commando. Unfortunately, the last survivors of Scotland have fallen into total barbarism.

Doomsday won me over the moment I saw Rhona Mitra's removable eye. Rhona plays Eden Sinclair, who loses an eye as a small girl during the final evacuation of Scotland. When we see her as an adult, she has a prosthetic eye, with a tiny camera inside. The camera goes to a video screen (and digital recorder) in her wristwatch. So she can take her eye out and use it to look around corners, or make secret recordings of whatever she sees. It's really the only scifi-ish thing in the movie, but the first time we see it in action is (sorry) literally eye-popping.

And I'm happy to report that despite all director Neil Marshall (The Descent)'s talk about Mitra's character "keeping her femininity," she's a total hard-ass who doesn't give a shit about anything. We see plenty of scenes of her being a crazy bad-ass and not giving a shit, but just in case we miss it, Marshall has several characters look at her and say things like, "You don't give a shit, do you?" Right at the start of the movie, there's a great scene where her boss, played by Bob Hoskins, smokes with her and tells her that if she keeps going like this, she'll wind up one seriously fucked-up individual. Good to know, Bob. (The great joy of Hoskins these days is watching him slowly morph into Ed Asner.) She does cry once, right at the end, but it's brief and actually appropriate under the circumstances.

The movie is massively over the top from the first few minutes, with a blood spattering massacre at the new Great Wall of Scotland, and then a sequence where Mitra's character takes a bunch of random bad guys. (There's a naked woman in the bathtub, so of course she has a shotgun with her. Who wouldn't?) And it just gets crazier and crazier.

Inside Scotland, there are two groups of survivors. The first, in Glasgow, have turned to cannibalism and really excessive gothpunk fashion. If you don't take joy in watching the blond-mohawked leader of a cannibal tribe dance around to the Fine Young Cannibals, with two pole dancers in fishnets flanking him, then there's just no joy in you. I'm serious. The cannibal leader does a dance routine to Fine Young Cannibals. And then they roast a member of Mitra's team alive and eat him with their bare hands.

The other group of survivors, up north, is led by Malcolm McDowell. And here's where the movie just slides right off the rails. McDowell plays a scientist who was in Glasgow working on a cure for the plague when the country was closed off. And now somehow he's turned into the king of a castle, full of people in fake medieval garb. It's an entire Society for Creative Anachronism culture. And McDowell's scientist character recreates the Spanish inquisition and accuses Mitra of "sin" by having brought the outside world to his castle. (McDowell tries to trick his followers into thinking the rest of the world is dead — but doesn't seem that worried about showing off Mitra and her gang to his followers, even though they're evidence the rest of the world is fine.)

The final reel, when Mitra finds a mint-condition Bentley car in a fallout shelter, and manages to fill the tank with gas, is just bizarre. There's literally a moment where everybody involved seems to decide that if you've watched this far, you're in for the whole ride, and there's no point in trying to make sense any more. I don't know if I should spoil the end of the movie totally, but it succumbs to total dementia. I'm not an epidemiologist, but I'm a tad confused as to how Mitra's "cure" for the disease will work, and why she didn't just avail herself of it two hours earlier. And then Bob Hoskins develops the power of teleportation and becomes mildly psychic. And then Mitra makes some decisions that I can't fathom at all.

Oh, and did I mention that the leader of the cannibals is Malcolm McDowell's son? And that in the final showdown between Mitra's Bentley and the cannibals' ragtag collection of crappy cars and motorcycles, we hear a version of "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood? And the cannibal leader has a biohazard symbol tattooed on his back, and a leashed slave in full rubber bondage gear? And McDowell's medieval freaks have biohazard insignias — and biohazard stained glass?

Bottom line: Doomsday is a worthy addition to the Resident Evil canon of "butt-kicking babe in a ruined world" movies. Just don't ask any hard questions, like where the cannibals get all their pink hair dye and pristine latex bodysuits, and you'll enjoy the dancing, crashing, exploding, splattering, multiple decapitating goodness.

It sounds as though Rhona Mitra's mission to a plague-quarantined Scotland, to find a cure for the plague which is starting to hit the outside world, may turn out to be futile. Unless, of course, Malcolm McDowell is wrong... which is almost unthinkable.

• In Michel Gondry's next film, Return Of The Ice Kids (not Kings, as previously reported), teenagers invent water that makes you hear music while you drink it. And in one scene, a teenager relives a moment when he made a farting noise with his mouth during an exam, and everyone noticed, so he kept making noises "to cover his nerves," but it sounded like he was covering up a fart. Apparently this actually happened to the teenage Gondry. The kids in the film are "writing a book of peace," and it features some utopian scenes. [MTV movies]
• The live-action Star Wars TV series, which takes place between episodes three and four of the movies, may be about a Sopranos-esque crime family during the rise of the Empire. [IESB]
• Sam Rockwell's space traveler stranded in a moon base is "lonely but not alone," in Moon, the directorial debut of David Bowie's son Zowie, which just finished shooting. [ShockTillYouDrop]
• Lost's ageless island-dweller Richard, played by Nestor Carbonell, will be back in at least one episode later this Spring, and his return leads to "interesting revelations." Also, in one of the season's final five episodes, we meet two Bedouin horsemen and a luxury doorman of "British extraction" in a flash-back or flash-forward... and they may have something to do with the enigmatic Charles Widmore. [Ask Ausiello]
• With Lana missing for much of Smallville season eight, Clark's next love interest may be Lori Lemaris, the mermaid living among people from the comics. Also, season eight will still feature Chloe as a series regular, and may feature a fair bit of no-longer-regulars Lana and Lex too. [Ask Ausiello again]

The Descent and Doomsday both focus on women venturing into perilous situations. Do you think it's important that the heroes in your films are women? Do you write women characters differently, or are they just heroes who happen to be women?

It's certainly not some kind of career plan to have my heroes be women, it's just turned out that way. I actually wrote the story for Doomsday several years before I made The Descent. It was one of 3 scripts I tried to get made in the wake of The Descent and it was the one that Rogue Pictures chose to back, so it's really just a coincidence that my new hero is also a woman and I saw no reason to change the character into a man just because of what I'd done previously.

I try to write women as authentically as possible. Above all things, no matter how tough and rugged I make the characters, they should never lose their femininity.

The thing that seems most intriguing to me about Doomsday is that it seems to straddle genre lines, including horror, scifi, medical thriller, etc. Do you think this is true? Are you consciously trying to blend genres?

I love to blend genres. Taking the best elements from different inspirations and throwing them all into the mix is what makes it fun. Besides, I think the lines between genres have often been blurred at best, and that's no bad thing.

Most post-apocalyptic movies nowadays feature monsters (28 days, I Am Legend, etc. ) Are you consciously trying to reclaim post-apocalyptic movies from the monster-movie genre?

Absolutely! It's like there's an unspoken rule in movies now that virus = zombies! Well that's not what post-apocalyptic movies are about for me. It should be about human survival, because the day the next big global pandemic arrives, there won't be any zombies running around, I can promise you that. This is real, terrifying stuff, just as real as nuclear war was when the last great post apocalyptic movies (like The Road Warrior) came out. And that's the kind of gritty, savage world I'm trying to revisit with this movie.

• Here are those Wolverine set photos, showing Liev Schrieber's Sabretooth and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, hanging out and eating apples. Schrieber has sideburns that match Hugh's, but crazy nails instead of metal claws. The photos are not that exciting, but they do give you a sense of how closely the two "animal" mutants will resemble each other in the new movie. And this is probably from a segment where the two mutants are part of some kind of military black-ops team, hence the uniforms. Just Jared, via FirstShowing]
• Here's a roundup of mostly old spoilers for Iron Man, Marvel's new movie about a guilt-ridden weapons merchant who dresses in a suit of power armor. It does include some wacky rumors, like the idea that Hillary Swank will play the Black Widow, a Russian super-spy, and Edward Norton's Bruce Banner will turn up. [UGO]
• Here's another new clip from the post-apocalyptic disease movie Doomsday, which opens March 14. [MTV Movies]
• As you may have heard, Smallville is getting an eighth season. But it turns out Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) and Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) won't be back as regulars. They may make guest appearances, however. Also, a Smallville regular dies in the April 17 episode, the first one written after the strike. This won't be a fake death, or a clone death, but real and irrevocable. [Ask Ausiello]
• In the Kyle XY season finale, everybody goes to the prom! Wheee! Kyle struggles to plan a night that Amanda won't forget, Josh wonders what Andy has planned for their big date, and Declan resolves to show Lori his true feelings. But meanwhile Kyle's female counterpart Jessi XX has some news about her relationship with her mom, played by Ally Sheedy. And here's a Sheedy's appearance in the episode before that, which airs March 10. [Spoiler TV]

[ShockTillYOuDrop]

In Doomsday, the lethal Reaper virus nearly wipes out a small country (I think it's England, but the synopses don't make that clear), so the rest of the world walls off that country to keep the virus in. (As far as I can tell, the virus doesn't make you savage or mean, it just kills you, unless you're lucky.) Three decades pass, and the rest of the world remains virus-free. Until one day, the virus turns up in a major city. The authorities send Rhona Mitra into the quarantined country to try and retrieve a cure to the virus by any means necessary. But you just know that if two women enter this country, only one woman will leave. It's that sort of country. Doomsday, directed by Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers) opens March 14 from Universal Pictures.