William B. Davis, who played The X-Files's enigmatic Cigarette Smoking Man, discusses the character's quasi-reprisal in the upcoming thriller Passengers and hints at his hopes for a third X-Files film.

Q: What attracted you to Passengers?

A: The story itself is fascinating. They did -- as you probably know -- some kind of amazing effects on the beach, crashed the craft and so on. It's one of the roles where I'm a mysterious person in the background. I frequently hover and watch.

Q: That sounds a lot like Cigarette Smoking Man, your character on The X-Files.

A: And I think that was going through [the producers'] heads. Not that they necessarily wanted to make it seem like I was the same person, but there's a certain kind of aura I present that emanates in the public mind. Thankfully I get to sometimes play other roles as well, though.

Q: What makes you such a good lurker?

Continue reading "Masters of SciFi - The X-Files's William B. Davis Discusses the Art of Lurking" »

J.J. Abrams, you have secured your place as the new god of the geek set. Fringe continues to ride high -- and happily, has yet to be bogged down by overly convoluted plot lines a la Lost. The freshly unleashed Star Trek PR machine is casually destroying all comers. You've done the impossible and made Gene Roddenberry relevant again and for that, we salute you.  

And don't think that Life on Mars not making the list this week means the quality has dropped off -- 'cause it hasn't. There's just too much other stuff going on out there. Don't feel bad, David E Kelly, Fringe didn't make it either.

SciFi Power Rankings
Rank	LW		Movie, Show or Comic
1	-		Star Trek Star Trek is suddenly everywhere with images and interviews scattered throughout the web. There haven't been this many people this excited for a Trek movie since The Wrath of Khan.
2	-		The Odyssey The director of Mad Max taking on Homer's The Odyssey with Brad Pitt in the lead?  And the whole thing moved to space? Sure, Miller's been spotty, but yow.
3	-		Forever War He once famously declared that scifi is dead, but Ridley Scott has changed his mind, and added Forever War to his slate. He'll be filming that back to back with Brave New World. The last time Scott did back to back SF? Just Blade Runner and Alien.
4	-		Kevin Smith SciFi Picture Because SF doesn't need to be doom and gloom all the time, here comes Clerks director Kevin Smith to join the fray. He doesn't have a title yet, but he's hard at work on what could be the Spaceballs of this generation.  And, yes, this is a good thing.
5	1		Watchmen Has the Watchmen PR machine hit the saturation point or was the first screening of the full film just overshadowed by all the other big news this week?  People are definitely talking, but not quite as much as you'd expect.
6	-		The Road John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post apocalyptic novel is back on the list but not for a good reason: The release has been bumped back at least until December. Have the Weinsteins lost faith?  Discuss.
7	5		The Lovely Bones Another week, another star talking about Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. This time it's Mark Wahlberg and while he doesn't get into specifics, it's enough to keep the interest up.
8	-		Avatar Enough talking James! It's time to give us some footage! Huge film, huge director; expect Avatar to be on the Rankings for a good long time yet.
9	-		Repo: The Genetic Opera From huge film, huge director to small film, small director, it's Darren Bousman's little movie that could.  Lionsgate has left this one to die, but Bousman's stoking the Repo fires with a savvy street level campaign and a stack of killer new pics.
10	-		Looper Anticipation has been running high since Brick director Rian Johnson announced that he'd be venturing into SF territory: Time travelling hitmen! Whee! - and he's finally spilling details. Yes, please.

StarWars.com lists a gallery of appropriate political cartoons to consider for this important election season.

• The show's hit-or-miss and not pulling in the sort of numbers you'd expect from the franchise, but Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got a full season ordered.

• Terrence Howard has been replaced as Jim Rhodes by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. Surprised? So is he. I think it's a good call, though: The man's positively limp compared to Stark.

• A gorgeous collection of scifi ray guns.

• io9 lists some of the more surprising Transformer toys you've never heard of.