Chuck returns to NBC on January 10th.

Jones created The Passenger entirely by himself, doing everything from the modeling to the editing to the musical composition solo. He completed the short in 2006, but just put it online and is offering high quality version on DVD.

[The Passenger via Neatorama]

The film comes out July 16th, 2010.

[via Apple]

Now let's take bets, how much screen time do we think Michelle Rodriguez will get until she is killed off in a flurry of shouting and gunfire?

Plus here are two new featurettes one about the story and another about the planet in particular. The first is actually quite brilliant because it has Sigourney Weaver narrating like she would for The Planet Earth documentaries.

[via IGN]

The English-dubbed version of Indonesia's Lady Terminator contains the only English phrases you'll need to get through your day: "Is there any man who can satisfy me?" "I'll come back in a hundred years and have revenge on your great-grandaughter." Oh also, "I'm not a lady, I'm an anthropologist." And: "Hey listen, Jack and I have seen more dead bodies than you've eaten hot dogs. So just shut up and eat."

"It says here all three of these guys died with their cocks bitten off. Could be a small animal." "An eel?" "I've heard of the ultimate blow job, but this is too much."

Lady Terminator, made in Indonesia in the late 1980s, is that rare rip-off of a U.S. movie that forges off in a new direction, and approaches its own levels of sublimeness. The slogan, "First she mates, then she terminates," pretty much says it all. I love the flickering blue lightning coming out of her eyes and trashing the room — not to mention the "if the car is rocking" scene. Oh, and the guy scratching his head with a submachine gun.

Grad Student Madness explains what the hell this movie is about:

Here's the story: Years ago, the South Seas Queen, a figure from Javanese folklore, was perfectly happy killing men by letting the snake in her vagina bite off their dingly-danglies during intercourse. Unfortunately, some jerk yanks the snake out of her cootch and turns it into a dagger. She's pissed (who wouldn't be?) and vows revenge on his great-grandaughter. His thought, no doubt, at this point is, "Okay, Crazy, good luck with that grandaughter thing!"

Fast-forward to the 80s, when Tania, an anthropologist, is investigating the South Seas Queen. We know she's an anthropologist because of the immortal line: "I'm not a lady! I'm an anthropologist!" Anyway, Tania is scuba diving in the general vicinity of the old South Sea Queen place when her boat is capsized by a tsunami and she is dragged to the bottom of the sea and onto a bed in a perfectly dry room (No, I can't really explain that) where that sea serpent enters her vag (via really bad animation) and possesses her.

Tania emerges from the surf possessed and naked and the film proceeds to blatantly rip off entire sequences from Terminator as she hunts the grandaughter, who is an Indonesian pop singer, and get hunted by a cop with the worst mullet this side of country music. Countless people get shot, numerous scenes get lifted, clothes get shed with abandon. What's amazing to me about Lady Terminator is how it adapts James Cameron's movie for the Indonesian working-class audience by incorporating so much local mythology. It looks like the film we know until it gets into sea serpents and witchy queens who live at the bottom of the ocean. It's all fairly strange.

Big props to YouTube user Slasherfan, who put up 20 minutes of the best moments from this instant classic online. Here's another 10 minutes of Lady Terminator goodness:

[via Laughing Squid]

Monday

With Heroes and House both taking a break for the holidays, it falls to Syfy to keep us entertained today, and they're definitely trying their hardest, with Stargate: The Ark of Truth at 9am, followed by Stargate: Continuum at 11.

Meanwhile, if you went down the rabbit hole last night, you'll be happy to know that Alice continues (and concludes) at 9pm.

Tuesday

Even if the day wasn't almost entirely otherwise devoid of SF entertainment, the return of ABC's Better Off Ted (ABC at 9:30pm) would still be at the top of our to-do list. In the first episode of its new run, the employees of Veridian Dynamics find their thoughts turning to reproduction, as Ted and Linda meet their genetically compatible matches, while Veronica tries to convince Lem to donate to a sperm bank. Oh, Ted. How did we get by without you?

If satires on corporate America are a little too close to the bone, then try the first episode of Outer Space Astronauts on Syfy (also 9:30); it's a new sitcom set in outer space - Maybe you missed that in the title - but we're a little worried about it based on the episode description being "Capt. Ripley invites aliens over to the O.S.S. Oklahoma for a pizza dinner, but the aliens want the ship, too." Uh, hilarity may ensue?

Wednesday

Oh, Syfy. With a Jericho marathon from 8am through 3pm, you know how to spoil us. From there until 9pm, it's a bit of a science fiction wasteland in terms of things that aren't re-runs, so consider it the Television God's way of telling you to leave the house and go and do some holiday shopping or something. Then be back in front of the visual entertainment box in time for 9 o'clock, when Discovery has a new episode of Mythbusters, with Jamie and Adam putting more gunslinging myths to the test.

Thursday

Remember 1990s SF vampire series Kindred: The Embraced? I definitely don't, but Syfy is looking to remedy my oversight with a marathon of the entire 1996 series starring former Soul Man C. Thomas Howell, starting at 8am.

Otherwise, with FlashForward, Vampire Diaries and Supernatural already in reruns, it falls to Fringe to keep the science fiction flag flying with its new episode "Grey Matters" at 9pm on Fox. Featuring the return of Leonard Nimoy as William Bell:

Friday

Get your day started off in the right way with Syfy's Outer Limits marathon, starting at 8am. You'll only wish it was Twilight Zone a couple of times, honest.

Depending on who you believe, there's either a rerun or new episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold on Cartoon Network at 7pm (If it's a new episode, then it'll be the Plastic Man-guesting "Long Arm Of The Law," but some schedules have last season's "Duel of The Double Crossers!" listed. Your guess is as good as mine at this point).

But even if it is a new episode, that might not be enough to steal your attention away from Syfy's Sanctuary mini-marathon, starting at 7pm and ending with a brand new episode, "Penance," guest-starring Amanda Tapping's fellow former Stargate cast member Michael Shanks, at 10pm.

Or you can keep up with the latest double bill of Dollhouse on Fox at 8pm, with the "Meet Jane Doe"/"A Love Supreme" match-up offering Topher discovering the potential effects of science, Echo losing control of her multiple memory downloads, and the return of Alpha.

Once that's done, you might find yourself switching over to Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow on Cartoon Network at 10pm, just to look at how shiny the whole thing is.

Saturday

It's All Disaster Movies All Day on Syfy, starting with Earthstorm (9am) before offering up Meteor (11am), miniseries 10.5: Apocalypse (1pm), Ba'al: The Storm God (5pm), Ice Twisters (7pm), Annihilation Earth (9pm) and finishing with Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York at 11pm. Why so many disaster movies? Why not? Over on BBC America, there's a Doctor Who triple bill of edited versions of "Journey's End", "The Next Doctor" and "Planet of The Dead" starting at 7pm, but you should really wait until tomorrow, for reasons you'll discover in a second.

Sunday

...What's that, you say? A Doctor Who marathon on BBC America starting at 1pm, including 1hr 15 minute (ie, unedited from U.K. broadcast, apart from ad breaks) versions of The Next Doctor and Planet of The Dead? I thought you'd say yes. The full rundown of episodes is:

1pm: Voyage of The Damned
2pm: Turn Left
3pm: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
5:30pm: The Next Doctor
6:45: Planet of The Dead

All of this is a lead-in to next week's premiere of "The Waters of Mars," and the following week's "The End of Time," of course. But do you care why it's happening, as long as it's happening?

This episode was the much-dreaded murder mystery SGU. When we first heard that there would be a moider aboard the good ship Destiny, followed by an investigation, the news was met with a general gnashing of teeth and fist shaking. And as much as the "murder" was a silly gimmick, the event itself forced out the plot that we'd all been waiting for, the Rush-and-Young showdown. It's about damn time.

The episode starts with a light-hearted bit, Greer's, "you say potato, I say disgusting," taste-test of the new alien food they picked up from a random planet. It made me chuckle and reminisce about a time when Stargate often featured silly little jokes being played on random crew members. It was a nice return to the comedy we know, even if the punchline was predictable.

But there's no time for laughs murder is afoot — Angry Bald Guy has been found dead, thanks to a bullet to the head. Suicide, everyone cries — but wait, where's the gun?

Young gathers everyone into Destiny's parlor room and exclaims, "there's been a murder, we're all suspects, nobody is leaving this mansion until we figure out who done it." Eli yells out, "twas Miss Scarlet, in the mist shower, with the lead pipe!" So they all gather up in the Gate room and Young does the most logical thing: identifies the only people with alibis and puts them in charge of searching everyone's quarters. There's push-back, naturally because — well, they are aboard an alien ship that is running out of food and water and frankly bullet to the brain usually means suicide, missing gun or not. And for the first time in my long history of hating Rush, I was on his side when he decided that this is silly and, "We have work to do." But like I said it pays off, and the "means justify the end."

But besides the final payoff, the murder mystery episode also satisfied two of my SGU needs: killing off Angry Bald Guy and revealing what his pill addiction was. I'm happy that Bald is gone, as his rage was exceedingly one-dimensional, but I'm pissed as hell that his addiction was to SLEEPING PILLS... but more on that matter later.

While the new Destiny detectives rummage through the ship looking for the missing weapon, the investigation comes to a hold in Young's room. Whattayaknow the moider weapon is discovered in the air vents in Young's quarters. Clearly he's innocent because we all know hiding a weapon in the air vents is the first place people would look. We've seen No Country For Old Men. The plot thickens.

This damning new evidence makes everyone a little cray-cray, especially Camille Wray, who can smell her big leadership opportunity just moments away. Being the noble old man that Young is, he steps down, giving his power to Wray, fulfilling yet another personal plot desire we've had for some time.

Quick like a bunny, Wray gathers up some crew members and begins prosecuting Young. The Senator's daughter serves as Young's "defense counsel," because she went to Harvard or something...sigh. Meanwhile sneaky old Rush slithers up to the new boss, Wray, and congratulates her on her new-found power. He asks only that his new found confidence in her be rewarded by granting him complete control over his science team. And now it's all starting to make sense. Rush has never really had full power over the science team, because Young always kept him in check. Wray has no idea what this request ultimately means, as she shouldn't, because her character has never really been a power player in this series. And now we see her peripheral status up till now bearing fruit. Is it a weak excuse for keeping this interesting character barren of development? Yes. But it works here. The evidence is mounting.

Within moments, Rush has his science team assembled at the great mind chair, and all but tells these starving, sad, homesick scientists that this is the key to getting them all home. Thus enacting his master plan. He's too chicken to risk his great brain by sitting in the chair, but he has no qualms with sacrificing the minds of others. By dangling this steak in front of the starving masses, he's guaranteeing that one of them will plop down and take the risk, and that's just what they do.

This is when the shit hits the fan, and it's fantastic. It's what we've all been expecting and waiting for. Granted, this all could have happened many episodes earlier, but at least it's happening now. Franklyn is in a coma, because he sat the big sit in the Ancient mind-chair, the kino tapes conveniently pop up revealing the actual murderer — no one — and Destiny finds a new planet to visit. Wray watches as her new found power crumbles around her, thanks to Rush's manipulation, and she retires, giving Young back his authority. But like a kid in a candy store not even Rush can stop himself from getting off the ship to see the new alien world. Even though the ship is suffering a veritable governing break down, Rush gallops off to explore the new planet with a pissed-off Young behind him.

After dismissing the away team Young confronts Rush, alone on the desert planet. And all hell breaks lose. Young bashes in the face of the madman, knocking him out cold after a few swings, and leaves his scrawny trouble maker behind. Ha ha, take that meddling wild card with the Nick Burns the IT Guy attitude towards helping the Destiny survivors.

Young crosses the Gate and tells the crew that Rush was stuck under an rock slide and they didn't have enough time to get back. Rush is now alone with nothing but a old alien spaceship to keep him company. And the crowd goes wild. Finally, the action, the drama, the grit and the ugly world we were promised. I never really cared about Young's sex life switcheroo with the Earth-bound wife, these are the people I wanted him to punch in the face and leave for dead on some remote planet, because I'm invested in these characters. It was a brilliant twist, and I can't wait to see how these two get out of this dilemma. Cause, come on — Rush isn't going anywhere just yet, and Young is never really off the hook.

All in all, it was a fantastic episode that used the murder-mystery gimmick to its advantage, so much so that halfway through it was no longer a murder mystery, so much as a showdown between two great big characters. So in a way this was the first real pairing of Stargate humor and gimmicks with actual gritty drama, and it worked like a charm. Sure, I still feel like the women were yet again pushed to the sidelines. Especially since Wray only had power for a hot moment, and T.J. hardly spoke — but it was nice to watch the Senator's Daughter and Wray go head to head, again, if only for a short while. Let's hope there's more of that to come in the future.

My biggest problem was the reveal of Angry Bald Guy's medication to be sleeping pills. A marine loses his mind over sleeping pills? I was expecting much more from the from all the previous foreshadowing in past episodes. Perhaps he had some illness he was keeping in check — or maybe it was an addiction to something that will really mess you up. But if you're selling me suicide based on a lack of sleeping medication, well... that's a hard pill to swallow. Thankfully Baldy does get to utter one of the most profound sentences uttered in SGU. Which, honestly reveals his true motives: "these people don't even realize, they're in a big floating coffin." In hindsight they should have just let it at that, and left the sleeping pill reveal out entirely.

But they are small issues with an over all amazing episode that restored my faith in this series and solidified my early sense that Young is the best character out of the bunch.

In honor of the upcoming Ultraman movie, Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie, several monsters from the Ultraman franchise appeared on a Japanese variety show to "audition" for parts in the movie. They showed off their most menacing dance skills for the assembled Ultramen, an impressive feat given those unwieldy-looking rubber suits.

Ultra Monsters dance to ‘Thriller' [Pink Tentacle]

The Popeater blog had the exclusive online debut of "I See You" this weekend, and on first listen, it's an inoffensive if unexciting piece of balladry fluff (Meaning that we may get our wish for the return of movie ballads after all). But, considering all the hype and hoopla surrounding James Cameron's apparently-groundbreaking new movie, am I the only person who's disappointed by how familiar and by-the-numbers this sounds? Especially with lyrics like "Your love shines the way into paradise/So I offer my life as a sacrifice" and "And my heart was never open/And my spirit never free/To the world that you have shown me." Yeesh.

Still, at least she gets to hit all the traditional big ballad moments, including an attempt at the money note, and I'm sure it'll give her a chance at that coveted Christmas Number One slot.

Leona Lewis 'Avatar' Theme: 'I See You' Premiere [Popeater]

First up, I wanted to add an impromtu "steal this pitch" to all you indie filmmakers and fans out there. This week on It's Always Sunny, the gang pitched what could be possibly the best independent film ever. Please make "Crime Stinks: The Smell of Penetration" happen!

Diagnosis Death:
This supernatural horror flick is made up of all our favorite Flight of the Conchords characters, including Murray. It's a mix of shock and laughs, but from the look of this new clip, it's mostly laughs. The DVD will be out December 29th.

Plus Bloody Disgusting has a clip, below, where Murray makes a cameo!

A supernatural force brings together two lost souls undergoing radical treatment at an experimental drug-testing facility, but when the facility is locked down for the weekend and the drugs take effect, the human guinea pigs experience sinister hallucinations pointing to a horrific double murder.

Unsure of where reality stops, the apparitions become more and more threatening until the only way to leave the facility alive is to solve this haunting secret.

Black Lightning:
Timur Bekmambetov's latest trailer for his high flying car adventure movie is geared towards the ladies! Check out this slick new chitty-chitty-bang-bang that helps seduce the womens. Plus a translated older trailer.

And, because I know a few of you were asking, here's the older Black Lightning trailer with subtitles:

Telepathy:
Quiet Earth pointed out Lesley Manning latest endeavor, and just the description gives us chills...

A pair of identical twins are separated by Russian scientists to determine if they can communicate with each other while one is kept on earth and the other is launched into space.

As someone who firmly believed she had a twin and was switched at birth, much to the dismay of her parents, this movie freaks me out. You may remember Manning from the fake series that tricked a few souls titled Ghostwatch. Well she and her Ghostwatch buddy Stephen Volk, came up with this script and it's staring Kevin McKidd as the twins. I'm already sold, enjoy.

IEP:
It wouldn't be a Cult weekend without a child with wings. Check out the full trailer for the Dutch film, IEP, the story about a little baby bird girl who was taken in by a kindly old couple. But when she gets older, she tries to fly South for the winter, oh uh! Do not miss this, the baby bird puppet is hilarious, and the little girl is adorable.

[Via]

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows EXCLUSIVE VIEW + TEASER *HQ/Official Video* from Dragon on Vimeo.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 will be released November 19th 2010. [Via /Film]

SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.

As of right now Slinger's just a concept for a TV show. But hopefully there will be six more full episodes coming our way next year. It was written by Mike Sizemore, who hopes to shoot the pilot in 2010. Slingers is directed by Steve Barron and stars Sean Pertwee, Adrian Bower, Tom Mison, Margo Stilley, Haruka Abe, Gun and Junior. This is the slick, poppy, fast-paced and well-edited television show that science-fiction lovers deserve.

Warren Ellis tweeted it as, "our favorite new TV show," and he's right.

STS-129 Ascent Video Highlights from mike interbartolo on Vimeo.

[via Laughing Squid image via NASA]

Lost Season Five comes out on DVD next Tuesday, Dec. 8, to give you a couple of months to relive the time-traveling insanity before the show returns for its last season. Here are some early preview clips:

Bloopers:

Filming the "White Light" sequences was a major headache:

Building 23 And Beyond with Michael Emerson:

The Others' Secret:

Kaliet:

Deleted Scenes:

Behind The Scenes: He's Our You:

Space Tourists
Switzerland (Director: Christian Frei) - A humorous and laconic view of the way billionaires depart our planet earth to travel into outer space for fun. North American Premiere

Sundance 2010 Midnight Screenings

Splice

France, Canada (Director: Vincenzo Natali; Screenwriters: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant, and Doug Taylor) – Clive and Elsa are young, brilliant, and ambitious. The new animal species they engineered has made them rebel superstars of the scientific world. In secret, they introduce human DNA into the experiment. Cast: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac, David Hewlett. North American Premiere. (Commenter Goldfarb worked on this film.)

The Violent Kind
USA (Directors and screenwriters: The Butcher Brothers) - A group of rowdy young bikers party it up at a secluded farmhouse when they're tormented by a mysterious force and things take a turn for the worse. Cast: Taylor Cole, Christina Prousalis, Tiffany Shepis, David Fine, Joseph McKelheer. World Premiere.

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
USA (Director and screenwriter: Tim Rutili) – A fortune teller lives and works in and old house crowded with ghosts. When a mysterious light appears in the woods, the ghosts realize they are trapped and begin to rebel. Cast: Angela Bettis. World Premiere

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers Trailer from Califone on Vimeo.

[via Topless Robot]