You don't think of virtual worlds like Second LIfe as sensual — after all, there's no sense of touch at all — but watching the lush footage in Second Skin and hearing people talk about their hunger for Worlds of Warcraft may change your mind. Immersive virtual reality might never live up to the hype, but already more and more people are pouring so much of their hearts and minds into virtual worlds that they seem to "feel" their experiences in them.
Director Juan Carlos calls it "An Inconvenient Truth meets Errol Morris," which sounds like he's swinging for the fences. If Carlos was on death row, he'd pick Weird Science as his last movie to watch:

I've always really loved that comedy. I mean John Hughes is great, and he's made a bunch of good movies, but Weird Science to me gets the fan favorite award. The idea behind that movie was so inventive and hilarious. Plus there is just something awesome when aliens come to crash a party in the middle of a teen comedy. So I'd laugh to start, and then get a little Zen.

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• C.H.U.D.: This is probably one of the best known sewer monster movies, which is what happens when you bury nuclear waste under New York City. Luckily, a cop, a reporter, his girlfriend, and a street bum band together to fight it. And if you've always wondered what it stood for, you can quit: "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller". But wait a minute, one of the containers in the film also says "Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal" on it. Thanks for making it confusing filmmakers. It's also the name of a movie website, where it stands for "Cinematic Happenings Under Development," and they've lovingly named their message boards the "Sewer Chewer".
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• The Blob: In the 1988 remake of the Steve McQueen classic, a meteorite falls to Earth that contains a strange visitor who looks like, well... a blob of jelly. It soon starts attacking people and then retreats into the sewer system, where it can roam free and wreak havoc. (In the original film, it doesn't make use of the sewers for some reason). Written by Frank Darabont, and starring Kevin Dillion, it faded quickly into the bad remake file.
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• Them: In this 1954 film, radiation causes ants to grow to enormous size and seek out somewhere homey to set up a new nest. Namely, the Los Angeles sewer system. The ending of the film promises future atomic horrors, and it went on to become Warner Bros highest grossing film for that year. Apparently mutated ants + the sewer = big money.
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• Weird Science: While it didn't exactly come directly from the sewers, Lisa uses her science-magic powers to turn Wyatt's annoying older brother Chet into a shit monster. Literally. He becomes gross ball of farting poop until he finally apologizes to Wyatt and Lisa de-mutates him at the end.
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• Dogma: In Kevin Smith's religious comedy, the Golgothan is the excrement monster that Jason Lee sends after Jay and Silent Bob. He's made up of all the evil shit from all over the world, and even has his own action figure that farts when you squeeze it. Unlike the Charmin.
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• Monsturd: We shit you not (sorry), this is the actual title of this 2003 direct to video gem. A serial killer escapes from jail and gets chased into the sewers, where he falls into a pool of chemicals. As you'd expect, the chemicals transform him into a half-human, half-poop monster who goes on a killing spree.

Malice@Doll. (2000) Maybe the only philosophical tentacle porn anime movie ever. All the humans are dead, just like in that Conchords song, and the humanoid robots still go about their tasks. Malice@Doll is a sex robot, who wanders the streets looking in vain for human customers. One day, she follows a vision of a girl who seems to be human, and winds up getting captured by a tentacle monster, which penetrates her. A lot. And then she becomes human. She finds that her kiss can turn other robots organic too, but eventually discovers that some of the results are grotesque and horrifying. Sadly, it's not a very sexy movie, but Malice is sorta cute. Here's a still:Cherry 2000 (1987). She's the ultimate sex droid — as long as you don't get her wet. Businessman Sam Treadwell ignores this important lesson and short-circuits his sexbot. So he has to hire E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith), a tracker, to get a replacement memory chip for her. As he travels with E., Treadwell learns (bah) that flesh-and-blood lovers are better than robo-babes.

I.K.U. (2000) Japan's most famous cyberpunk porn movie. Reiko is a shape-changing sex droid from the Genom Corp., who goes around collecting "sexual experiences" by having sex with various people. The corporation collects Reiko's experiences and sells them (in vending machines) as virtual reality chips. But a rival corporation has created its own sex droids to infect Genom's sex droids with a virus, so as to steal their proprietary sexperiences. Dood!

Blade Runner (1982). Daryl Hannah plays Pris, a "basic pleasure model" born on Valentine's Day. She's designed for sex-work in the off-world colonies. She gets retrained as an assassin and uses her amazing acrobatic moves to kick Harrison Ford's ass.

A.I. (2001). Jude Law plays Gigolo Joe, a sex robot who gets framed for the murder of a client. Joe befriends the boy robot David (Haley Joel Osment) and takes him to the ultra-decadent Rouge City in search of the Blue Fairy. And no, that doesn't sound obscene at all. Here's a clip of Jude taking Haley to the decadent metropolis: Circuitry Man (1989). Danner is yet another e-gigolo, a "romeo droid" programmed to provide love and companionship and maybe a little nookie on the side. Danner's programmed to think he's in love, so his female boss can manipulate him into doing her bidding.

Weird Science (1985). This is sort of an edge case. Kelly LeBrock is a sex-bot who manages never to put out. Anthony Michael Hall (playing his usual teenage nerd role) and his friend program a government computer to create a simulation of the perfect woman, and an electrical storm miraculously turns her into a three-dimensional artifact. And then she teaches the boys about life and stuff.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2002). When psycho-nerd Warren makes himself a robotic girlfriend, Spike the naughty vampire wants one of his own... except he wants it to be just like Buffy. The resulting bot gets Spike into trouble, but then becomes one of the most valuable members of the Scooby gang. Yet another example of a sex bot who turns into a deadly operative.

Heavy Metal 2000 (2000). A sex robot is programmed to make loud and exaggerated sounds of excitement and climax. She teams up with our heroes to stop the sex lizards. Or something.

Millennium (1989). The John Varley short story and novel include Sherman, a robot who attends to Louise's needs, including her frequent sexual urges. In the 1989 movie, Sherman mostly just provides emotional support to Louise (Cheryl Ladd). (Bah.)

• My Favorite Martian: This series premiered in 1963 and starred Bill Bixby in his pre-Hulk days as a hapless human who takes in a Martian who crash-lands his spaceship near Los Angeles. He passes him off as his Uncle Martin, who proceeds to do wacky things with his Martian powers, much like Jeannie or Samantha would do with their magic. It's vintage 1960s-era television sitcom material and worth seeking out on DVD or watching on YouTube. Just ignore the horrible feature film version they made in 1999 with Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Daniels, and Elizabeth Hurley.



• Spaceballs: Mel Brooks lampooned Star Wars and a slew of other science fiction films in this 1987 movie that gave us quotes like "I see your schwartz is just as big as mine" and "Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!" Once you've seen this, it's hard to picture John Candy wearing anything except a giant furry dog suit. 20 years later, it's starting to show its age just a bit, but it's still a classic.



• Red Dwarf: This British series about the last human being in the universe and his annoying holographic shipmate was one of the best things the BBC gave us, after Doctor Who. After an accident kills everyone onboard the Red Dwarf except for technician Dave Lister, the computer keeps him in suspended animation until the radiation dies down some three million years later. The computer also brings his former bunkmate and boss Arnold Rimmer to life as a hologram to keep him company.



• Weird Science: in 1985 Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith used science, computers, and wore bras on their heads in an effort to create the perfect woman. They end up with Kelly LeBrock, who helps them change from nerds to studs with her pseudo-magic "science powers." It's vintage John Hughes moviemaking that tried to build on the success of the previous year's Revenge of the Nerds, and succeeded. Except it gave birth to a terrible television series.

• Mork & Mindy: This Happy Days spinoff appeared in 1978 and helped propel Robin Williams to stardom by letting him improv most of his scenes as a wacky alien from Ork. Mork reported back to his boss Orson at the end of every episode, telling him what he'd learned that day on Earth, which usually involved something happening with Mindy. They eventually got married and had Jonathan Winters as a baby. No kidding. I still have my Mork from Ork action figure, complete with egg-shaped space capsule.



• The Ice Pirates: This 1984 movie starred Robert Urich as the heroic Jason in search of the universe's most precious commodity: water. They spoof other science fiction films while hamming it up in b-movie style. You can also catch Anjelica Huston and Ron Perlman in this thing if you don't blink.



• Galaxy Quest: Hands down the best send-up of the Star Trek franchise and its fans. In the flick, Galaxy Quest is a canceled television show that lives on through fan conventions and autographs signings. Tim Allen parodies William Shatner excellently, but it's Tony Shalhoub steals most of the scenes he's in as the fumbling head of engineering.



• Mystery Science Theater 3000: This show made comedy out of making fun of movies and television shows that tried to be serious. Broadcast for the Satellite of Love, lone human being Joel and his two robot friends Tom Servo and Crow offered up alternative commentary on the shows that mad scientist Dr. Forrester would beam up to them. It spawned a feature film and two new alternative movie commentary programs, Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax, both from MST3K former cast members Joel and Mike.



• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: This series has been a radio series, a book, a television series, a computer game, a comic book, and a feature film. In it, lone Earthman Arthur Dent finds himself hitchhiking through the galaxy with a writer for The Hitchhiker's Guide after the Earth gets blown up. Although the effects aren't that stellar (thanks BBC), I actually prefer the television version to the movie. If that means I have to turn in my offical geek card, so be it.

India is getting about 5% less sunlight than it did 20 years ago, according to a study by Padma Kumari and colleagues at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. They studied data from the India Meteorological Department, measuring differences in solar radiation at 12 stations across India between 1981 and 2004.

They found that the amount of solar radiation reaching India's land mass dropped on average by 0.86 watts per square metre each year. The decrease was greater during the 1990s than the 1980s, and on average corresponded to a 5% drop in sunshine over the two decades.

Well, from the sun, at least.

Pollution is dimming India's Sunshine [New Scientist]

The suit would also enable touch sensations impossible in real world environments. For instance, waves of touch going from head to toe... It's likely that VR world designers will come up with fascinating new touch sensations we can't imagine here in 2007.

Also, one commenter speculates that you could use "internal muscular stimulators" to move people into the positions you want them in. You could start having nice harmless cybersex, and suddenly lose control over your own movements. It's like bondage, only potentially much creepier.

Full-Body Haptic Suits [Accelerating Future]

Plus, there's the whole cost issue. 4k to 7k, or this for a mere $20.71? Or you could pick up a Sharpie for about $1.50 and just draw the lines on yourself. Either way, you do the math.

If men start going through with this upgrade, you have to wonder... will women start checking out the gut and asking their friends, "Hey, see that hottie the bar? Think they're fake?"

Only time will tell.

Six-Pack Surgery, From Puffy To Buff [WSJ]

Famous names: Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely

Crunchy goodness: 5

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: New Line Cinema has optioned We3 as a movie, with a script by Morrison. The three animal protagonists would be all CGI.

Quotable: The animals have basic speech capabilities, thanks to computer implants. The cat mostly says "stink boss," while the dog keeps asking if it is "gud dog."

Social message: Grant Morrison uses the cute (and heavily armed) beasties to preach against animal experimentation, a theme in his work going back to Animal Man in the 1980s.

9th Art Review by Matthew Craig

Famous names: Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Jack Colvin, Kenneth Johnson

Crunchy goodness: 3

Bang for your buck: Ferrigno, as the Hulk, wore a $650 wig made out of pure yak hair. Also, one reason for the show's cancellation was that it had the highest special-effects budget in television — higher even than Buck Rogers. Network execs wanted to cut costs, letting Banner turn into the Hulk only once per episode instead of twice.

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Three TV shows, featuring other Marvel characters such as Thor, Daredevil and the Kingpin. Bixby planned to direct another TV movie, featuring Spider-man and co-starring Nicholas Hammond, who played Spider-man in his short-lived TV show. But it never happened.

Stunt casting: Mariette Hartley won an Emmy for playing a terminally ill scientist who falls in love with Banner in the two-part episode "Married."

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