Cleopatra 2525 (2000)

Some of you called this a guilty pleasure, I still don't understand how. Maybe it straddles the "so bad it's good" ratio, but still, come on — this is awful. This came from Sam Raimi's production team. Cleopatra, the stripper not the historical figure mind you, gets frozen and wakes up in 2525. Cue machine CG and colorful outfit armor.

All Souls (2001)

Think of it as Grey's Anatomy meets Disney's Haunted Mansion Yep, that's about it.

Black Scorpion (2001)

Female police officer by day, hooker crime fighter by night. And a Power Ranger too apparently. This dismal SciFi Channel series was based on the Roger Corman movies, which is a questionable judgment right from the get go.

Alien Hunter (2001)

"The Crocodile Hunter" in space. The only thing this show had going for it was Doug Jones' "sick of this shit" alien crew member. He was actually funny, unlike everything else on this show.

Birds of Prey (2002)

Birds of Prey's failure stung the most because it was a great idea, but executed so poorly. They didn't care about the characters, story or mythology at all. I really wanted Batman and Catwoman's baby to be a bad ass crime fighter, but her personality never took off. Still, it did generate decent ratings for the WB for a while.

Special Unit 2 (2001-2002)

Yet another TV show that has a cult following for no understandable reason. This series followed Chicago's top secret paranormal police division that chased down odd happenings or "links," as they unfortunately called them. How many paranormal police shows are there now? Plus one of the characters always freaked me out.

Mutant X (2001)

It's like X-Men for idiots, and those people already have X-Men cartoons. This actual Marvel creation focused so much on making sure the team of new mutants was sexy, that there was very little time left to develop personality or interesting character traits.

Baby Bob (2002)

This CBS sitcom was such a disaster I can no longer find any clips of it anywhere! New parents find out their baby can talk, and instead of throwing this demon in a well decide to keep it around. This was one of those genius "inspired by a commercial" TV shows. Truly terrible.

Bionic Woman (2007)

We were all so excited for this dark Bionic Woman reboot from David Eick — then it started and just went totally off the rails plot-wise and accent wise. Eventually the main character's attitude, the side character's one-dimensional insanity and waste of Katee Sackhoff, all compounded into one giant "meh."

Caveman (2007)
Even though comedian Nick Kroll, who played one of the cave people is hilarious, we all make missteps along the way. The saddest thing about this show was that there were decent jokes in there, they were just totally thrown away on a series no one in their right mind would watch.

Knight Rider (2008)

The new Knight Rider gets the crown as the worst TV Show of the decade. Forget the fact that all the plots centered around finding a way for the main character to take off his shirt. Billy from BSG actually LEFT BSG to do this show. And couldn't do a repeat cameo later on when President Roz was having acid dreams. Yes, this show truly is a work of pure evil. And it didn't even have turbo boost.

Flash Gordon (2007 - 2008)

Terrible acting, ideas and concepts. Every week we died a terrible cheesy death with this SciFi series.

Heroes (2007-2009)

Every season of Heroes except the first belongs on this list. From the tattoo super powers to making the cheerleader a sometimes lesbian. Not even a carnival or killing a character twice can save this series.

Eastwick (2009)

Midlife-crisis witches and Paul Gross' penis were the entire cast of this series. Too PG to ever be anything than a "cute" series that told dick jokes. Sigh, the threeways that could have been.

But even though we all have twenty nine brains and a stomach that speaks Swahili, we shouldn't condemn Hollywood without considering the evidence. Here's the evidence for the prosecution:

1. Hollywood's unseemly hatred towards mutants.

Just consider the wealth of movies and TV shows about people who start spontaneously converting into something beyond their original human design, thanks to a genetic change or exposure to strange substances. Like the vicious ex-humans in Night Shadows aka Mutant, who terrorize a small Southern town. "Mankind's deadliest threat will not come from the skies," it proclaims.

There are also terrifying mutants in Hell Comes To Frogtown and a number of other movies. And on shows like Star Trek, whenever a character (usually a dweeb like Lt. Barclay on Next Gen) starts developing a super-mind — or evolving into a super-lizard — it's always portrayed as a bad thing.) Not to mention the murderous disease-altered mutants of movies such as 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Omega Man and many others. (These aren't as well known as Night Shadows, of course, but they still have an impact on our mutant-hating culture.)
Counter-examples: Comic books come to our rescue. Mutants come off quite well in shows like Heroes and movies like the X-Men trilogy, which are either based on comic books or obviously derivative of them. Obviously, we should be using our superior posthuman intellects to boost the comic-book industry.

2. Why does Hollywood persecute cyborgs?

Again with the Star Trek hate: Trek gives us the Borg, who are the most hurtful representations of cyborgs imaginable. My friend Zzarglboz had to hide his swizzle-shaped head implants on the street for a year after First Contact came out.
They're like Frankenstein, only cyber! (And actually, some of our posthuman friends are partially dead, and the Frankenstein story is very unfair to them.) In the original Robocop, being turned into a cyborg makes Officer Murphy into a heartless killing machine. And for some reason, regaining his "humanity" is seen as a good thing. Says Cyberpunk Review:

As Murphy begins to realize who he was, and worse, what he's become, the question asked is what degree of Murphy's humanity remains? Murphy's partner, Anne Lewis (played by Nancy Allen) serves to surface these concerns, as she still thinks that Murphy is inside somewhere. Yet, every aspect of humanity has been taken away from Robocop - he doesn't have a home, but instead returns to a borg-like podchair at night to regenerate. Even if Robocop eventually considers himself human in some sense, it's no longer clear what that even means. At best, Robocop is part of that strange category we call "post-human."

3. Hollywood hates it when we merge with aliens.

In movies and TV, alien creatures that want to merge with poor ordinary humans and uplift them to a higher level of consciousness and ability are never "benefactors." They're always "parasites," or at best "symbiotes." For once, comic-book movie aren't even our friend, either — Spider-Man gets an awesome boost from the inky black creature in Spider-Man 3, but it's still portrayed as a terrible thing. Even though it makes his hair so much better! Plus in The Invasion, the alien "parasites" are horrible and awful, even though they clearly make Daniel Craig the most James Bond-esque he's ever been. The same goes for The Puppet Masters. And it's hard to find happy representations of people inter-breeding with aliens, either — it's always nasty and fatal, like in the Alien films or the Species films. When everybody knows that in real life, merging or interbreeding with aliens often works out great. (It's just like marriage, though — don't get hitched until you try living together for a while first.)
Counter-examples: Star Trek has one of the few I can think of, with its happy Trills, the symbiotes that make Dax and the other spotted-neck people all cheerful and ageless with the wisdom and the cute "old man" nicknames.

4. Movies and TV spread the hate against genetic engineering.

Just look at this hall of shame of genetic engineering movies and TV shows. You have your GATTACA, where genetic engineering upgrades the human race, but poor Ethan Hawke gets discriminated against because he's genetically inferior. (Which anybody who saw Reality Bites already knew.) And then there's the dark future world of Dark Angel, where people practice genetic engineering on humans, including the super-killer main character. And of course the aliens in the X-Files are practicing genetic engineering on humans. Not to mention, TV shows are always full of genetically advanced superhumans — including Khan's superior people in Star Trek and the subtly named Nietzscheans in Andromeda — who are all evil and intent on conquering everybody else. And in the forthcoming movie Splicers (or Splice), Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley create a scary-sexy human-animal chimera that turns out to be too much to handle. Why, oh why, can't movies and television ever celebrate the specialness of our genetically hacked brothers and sisters?
Counter-examples: Star Trek is the frenemy of the genetically upwardly mobile. On the one hand, there's Khan's gang and their whole Ceti-Alpha-Two keeping it real craziness. On the other, Trek does offer us Deep Space Nine's doctor Julian Bashir, who's a bit smug and obnoxious but otherwise a pretty decent upgraded human. So we'll call it even.

What can you do to stop the posthuman hate?

1. If you have mental powers as a result of mutation or some kind of alien implant, then use them on the producers and "suits" in Hollywood. Maybe if the blood vessels on their foreheads start swelling to the size of cantaloupes and everything tastes like bad salmon to them, they'll rethink their anti-posthuman prejudice. Otherwise, we may have to wait until the posthuman revolution happens, and then all of the regular humans will be tasped encouraged to treat us more fairly.

2. Support books. Books have been way more favorable to those of us who have moved beyond our human limitations. We'll have a post tomorrow detailing the pro-posthuman books that you as an aspiring posthuman, should read and support.

Top image adapted from photo by Lampeduza.

He said:

I'd have to have you do it for me, because it's really hard to get in and out of this thing. There's a zipper in the back, so I guess I'd have to just rip everything off and destroy my expensive suit here that I've spent a lot of time and effort on.

Jackman says he's a fan of the Wolverine character, "... like everyone else. That's why I keep holding on to the character." He promises that Wolverine's arch-nemesis Sabretooth and the anti-mutant zealot William Stryker will both play a huge role in the film. The plot? A younger Wolverine "discovers the world of mutants and, ultimately, the ominous Weapon X program, which turns people into living weapons." Weapon X already played a fair part in X-Men 2 He also lets us know that there will be both familiar mutants and new faces in the film, including some big cameo roles.

The only question is, do you really want every facet of Wolverine and every dark secret exposed on film? We've already seen flashbacks of Wolvie geting injected with adamantium, we know he was part of a government project, and we know he's a rebel and a loner. Do we really need a whole film to tell us why? We'd prefer a film that follows the storyline from the comics where Magneto pulls all the metal out of his body, and it nearly kills Logan. Later, during a Danger Room training sequence, he discovers he has bone underneath those claws. First Look: Gavin Hood's X-Men Origins: Wolverine [First Showing]

According to the study that revealed these dire statistics, a HEPA filter could stop many of the mutations from happening. A release about the study says:

Mice breathing unfiltered, polluted air downwind of a large industrial area [near two steel mills and a major highway in Ontario, Canada] developed 60 percent more mutations in their sperm than mice whose air was cleaned with HEPA filters . . . The report expands on previous research and suggests that the mutations are not due to the animals' mixed genetic background.

AP Photo/Color China Photo

Germ-line mutations, DNA damage, and global hypermethylation in mice exposed to particulate air pollution in an urban/industrial location [PNAS]

Okay, we know that's probably an address reading "109" on the top of that building in the background, but it's fun for us to pretend that they decided to feature our nanotech-grown Tokyo headquarters in this new "teleport your ass everwhere" movie. We wouldn't have taken any product placement dough in return, just the ability to leap through space and leave jumpscars all over the world.

The megaversion of the above photo can be found here, or you can gather the codes and stuff that you need to jump to Tokyo on the Jumper site here.

The American Gladiators aren't competing in a professional sport, so why do they need to be subjected to weekly pee-in-a-cup sessions? If they want to amp themselves up with human growth hormone and horse steroids, then shouldn't it be their own business? These people are trying to stop the puny humans from winning the dough, so they need to be able to crush them, just like the Hulk.

We say, bring it on and give us an all-steroid using cast that doles out massive doses of punishment in order to keep the cash in their coffers. These are American GLADIATORS, for pete's sake. They have names like "Crush," "Venom," and "Mayhem. They're supposed to be huge and scary. Plus, are they testing any of the regular joe contestants? And what about host Hulk Hogan?

NBC Testing Gladiators For Steroid Use [TV Squad]

We've broken the hour-long movie down to its best parts in the video above, while trying to maintain some semblance of a story. However, since it still doesn't make much sense (although it seems a lot clearer than the whole film), we'll break it down for you.

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• The grooviest part of the movie are the opening credits, which actually feature some Terry Gilliam-esque animations. If the whole film had been done this way, we might have loved it.
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• A scientist accidentally concocts a serum that unleashes the "killer instinct" in lab rats. They attack his assistant, and chase her inexplicably out a window. He saves her as she dangles from the ledge. What a hero
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• The scientist takes the serum in a simple Mason jar down the the ocean, and tosses it in to get rid of the evidence. But not before taking a huge whiff of the contents. Good quarantine procedures, doc.
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• The serum ends up in a shopping bag, and gets caught by a local fisherman. He decides to hang onto the jar (what?) and takes it to another fishing location, this time in a stream in the woods.
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• Whoops, he knocks the jar into the stream where it smashes to bits. A few feet downstream, the weird gardener at a nudist camp drinks some of the serum-laced water. It makes him crabby and grumpy, so his blonde sister chains him up in a shed. You know, just like a doctor would recommend.
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• The lab assistant and her fashion model roommate both turn out to (surprise!) be members of the nudist camp, and they come in for a party weekend to celebrate their friend Claire's birthday.
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• The monster, enraged by barren flesh we suppose, tears loose from his chains and sets off with his newly ugly mutant face and an axe in search of nubile flesh.
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• A call gets put in to a bored military commander who brings the cavalry, and they blow the poor monster to bits. Actually, a very small bit. They turn him into a rock or... something.
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• The group is momentarily sad, but then point out that the sun is coming out, so they strip off and enjoy life once again in the nude, and now monster-free.
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When the Brotherhood comes calling, it forces potential members to undergo brutal tests and wear funky LED handcuffs to determine if they're worthy or not. The film has good-looking special effects and has a The Matrix meets The X-Men feel, with a dash of bondage thrown in. Looking forward to seeing this one when it hits stateside (it's variously listed under the English titles Brotherhood of Legio and Brotherhood of Legion).

[Quiet Earth]

Will you be getting a real name at some point instead of just being referred to as "The Haitan"?

I have a name, actually. They were going to use it on the second or third episode, but then they realized that "The Haitian" was catchy, and it added a lot of mystery to the character. My partner's name is Noah, so maybe you'll find out that I'm Moses! They might be using my real name soon.

Are you hoping they'll continue to expand your backstory?

I hope so, because he's a very interesting character with a lot of depth. They'll probably have to because we don't know what he's up to or what his relationship is to the other heroes, with Mama Petrelli, with Bob at the company and all the other people. But at the same time, they can do whatever they want!

Who would win if you went head to head with Sylar? He wouldn't have his powers then, so who would come out on top?

I don't know if you've seen that scene with Peter and the Haitian, but if The Haitian can take Peter down, then I'm sure he probably can take Sylar down as well.

The other thing is that I have a feeling that The Haitian is very dangerous, which is why they have to play him very slowly. Otherwise, he might become slightly "too big." Right now we know he can erase people's memories, and he can stop their powers, but what else can he do? It's very exciting and hopefully we can find out after the writer's strike!

Here is Oswalt on Lucas:

I want to kill George Lucas with a shovel. Okay, let me clarify, I don't want to kill him now because he adopted some kids and he's got that beard to take care of, but I want to go back to 1992 and just beat him to death with a shovel. Star Wars is fucking awesome, but I just want to prevent the prequels, that's all I want to do. Let's imagine I just ran into him in 1992:

"Oh my god! You're George Lucas! I just want to say you're amazing, I love you! Star Wars is awesome. Just.. thank you."

"Well, you say you like Star Wars? You know I'm about to start working on some prequels."

"Wait, you mean, you're gonna do Chapters One through Three? Oh my god! YES! I've been waiting so long for this!"

"So, do you like Darth Vader?"

"Do I like Darth Vader? Oh god I LOVE Darth Vader! With the cape and the mask and the lightsaber? He's a badass!"

"Well, in the first movie you get to see him as a little kid."

"I... what? Wait, you mean he's like Damien in the Omen, right? He's going around killing people with his mind and stuff right?"

"Well, no he's just a little kid and he gets taken away from his mommy and he's very sad."

"Yeah, well...I kind of like the helmet and the cape and the sword, you know?"

"Well don't worry about that because guess who's in the second movie? Boba Fett!"

"Holy shit! Boba Fett?! That's even better than Darth! With the suit of armor and that helmet and the cool ship? He's a badass bounty hunter!"

"Yeah, and in the second movie, you get to see him as a little kid!"

"Wait.. what? So you mean he's got the helmet on and he's shooting people and stuff, right?"

"No, he's just a little kid and his daddy dies and he's very sad."

"Oh. Well, I kind of just like where he's a bounty hunter and he's shooting people and stuff."

"Well, don't worry about any of that because guess what's in the third movie... the Death Star!"

"Oh my fucking god, the Dea... wait a minute. What is it doing?"

"Well, it's just being built and Darth Vader is looking at it."

"I kind of just like it when it's done and it's blowing up planets and stuff. I don't really care how they put the air conditioning and the toilets in, you know?"

"You seem very sad."

"Yes, you're right. I don't give a fuck about any of that stuff. That sounds... horrible! I would never go see that."

"Would you like a dish of ice cream?"

"Why, yes I would l like some ice cream. That would be very nice!"

"Well here's a big sack of rock salt!"

"What? You said I'd be getting ice cream?"

"Well, when you add the cream and sugar and ice and do a little mixing and then presto, you have ice cream!"

"I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHERE THE STUFF I LOVE COMES FROM! I JUST LOVE THE STUFF I LOVE! Hey, do you love Angelina Jolie? Does she give you a big boner? Well then here's Jon Voight's ballsack! That's right! The sweaty, pink ballsack she swam out of. Now jerk off to that, you lucky so and so!"

While Brian Cox was firmly tied to Wolverine's background as William Stryker in X-Men 2, the studio has been talking to Liev Schreiber about taking the role over, since this film is set seventeen years before the first X-Men film. Cox was willing to take the role back, and was hoping they could make him look younger via CGI, like they did with Professor Xavier and Magneto in X-Men 3. Although, that scene made them look like smooth-skinned mannequins that were shot on a lens coated in vaseline. Yuck.

The film aims to answer questions about his background, which was also the theme that ran through the first two films. However, that's about the only thing it has going for it right now. Fox announced that the title has been officially changed from Wolverine to X-Men Origins: Wolverine for reasons we can't understand. Maybe Fox equates movie success with the amount of space the title takes up on a marquee.

How in the world will this film be ready when they turn the cameras on in just a few weeks? Thanks to the writer's strike, there won't be any "day of" rewrites going on. If they encounter any messy problems, they're just going to have to try and do what Hollywood does best: fix it in post. We say, stick this back on the shelves and wait out the strike.