As most of us know, ABC’s V made its triumphant return after LOST last week to a pretty warm welcome. The show averaged about 7.2 Million viewers last week, which is one of the best ratings that the slot has gotten in quite some time.

With that in mind, ABC is upping their marketing ten-fold. We brought you an interview with one of the stars of the show, Laura Vandervoort, yesterday, and she gave us the scoop on some of the great things we can look forward to seeing this season.

Today, we’ve got another cool treat for you, as ABC sent us an exclusive, un-aired promo for tonight’s episode, entitled “Pound of Flesh.” You can see in the promo that they’re taking an interesting turn with Morena Baccarin’s character in sexualizing her quite a bit.

Check out the clip after the jump, and be sure to catch an all new V on ABC tonight at 10pm ET, right after LOST: The Final Season.

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Another week and more comics. Fortunately, it never seems to end and we keep getting fun stuff to read. This week, we’re interested in a few titles including the latest Marvel Zombies, Avengers: The Origin and the premier of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1.

Remember, comics go on sale this Wednesday so get to your favorite comics store early for best selection. Don’t know where your nearest comic store is? Use this handy guide to find one.

Comics On-Sale:

AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN #1
CAPTAIN AMERICA/BLACK PANTHER: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS #1
DEADPOOL & CABLE #25
DEADPOOL & CABLE #25 LIEFELD VARIANT
DEADPOOL CORPS #1
DEADPOOL CORPS #1 LIEFELD 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
DEADPOOL CORPS #1 SKETCH VARIANT
ELECTRIC ANT #1
ELECTRIC ANT #1 MACK VARIANT
IRON MAN MAGAZINE #1
IRON MAN POSTER BOOK
MARVEL ZOMBIES 5 #1

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As usual, lots of spoilers ahead.  Take heed.

Well nothing like a little Danny Trejo cameo to start things off with a bang, huh?  Trejo plays Tortuga, who is wetting his whistle in a watering hole when he is visited by Juan Bolsa, from the cartel.  Juan makes some small talk with Tortuga, and tells him he has a birthday present waiting for him in a back room.  Tortuga is giddy to see a giant tortoise, but the rest of us know that the last time we saw a giant tortoise, it had a head attached, so this can’t possibly end well.

Juan tells Tortuga he is going to sign the creature, and he paints “Hola DEA”.  Now, I’m no knife expert, but I believe that Tortuga was then bludgeoned to death by a machete, which is a delicious  little wink to the upcoming release of  Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, which just happens to star a one Danny Trejo.

So, I went back to find photos of that tortoise with the head, and damn if that isn’t Tortuga’s head, and the tortoise says, “Hola DEA”.  So was that a flash forward in episode “Negro Y Azul” from season 2?  I thought we were seeing everything in chronological order, but I must be wrong.

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Last week, the much anticipated Stimulus Package of five downloadable maps for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released to the XBox 360. For a company with tons of experience in the downloadable content market, it ended up being a very shaky launch. Because of technical issues, these five maps were basically unplayable with a variety of glitches. As a result, Microsoft announced today over their XBox Twitter account that anyone who purchased the Stimulus Package on its launch day, last Wednesday, would receive a free seven day extension to their XBox Live Gold subscription.

As we previously reported, the Stimulus Package which sold for 1200 Microsoft Points (or $15.00) contains five maps. Two of these maps, “Crash” and “Overgrown” are returning fan favorites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Three additional maps, “Salvage”, “Bailout” and “Storm” are new additions to the series. Currently, these five maps are only available on two select playlists from the game’s multiplayer menu, “Stimulus” and “Hardcore Stimulus”. With playmodes like Team Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag, Headquarters Pro and Demolition, players get a real taste of what these levels bring to the COD: MW2 table.

“Crash”, one of the original Modern Warfare maps brought back continues to prove its value for objective based games. With well balanced teams, it provides a great locale for Demolition. Set in the middle of a Middle Eastern town, the central area surrounding the crashed helicopter quickly becomes a killing field from snipers on the nearby rooftop as well as all the alleys where players can hide in. It is however a small map in comparison and feels crowded when full 12 man games are going on. Still, a great choice to return to the series.

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Catch-22 (1970) is one of those films which falls into several genres. It’s a war film, it’s dramatic, and is considered by many to be a “black comedy.” Mike Nichols directed this screen adaption, which was written by long time collaborator Buck Henry and on the Joseph Heller novel about a group of U.S. Army pilots stationed on a tiny island west of Italy during the tail end of World War II.

Legendary comedic actor Alan Arkin stars as Captain John Yossarian, a veteran bombardier with the fictional 256th Bomber Squadron who are forced to fly countless missions by their commander, Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam). Yossarian has flown over twice the required missions allowed by bomber crews before they are eligible to rotate back home for non active duty.

Yossarian feels that the more times he climbs into the nose of his bomber, the more chances he has at dying. Trying to fake insanity in order to be grounded, invokes the policy known in the army as “Catch-22″ meaning that if a pilot tries to get out of flying missions, he isn’t really crazy and therefore can’t be grounded under the basis of instability.

Yossarian confides in Dr. “Doc” Daneeka (Jack Gilford) to try and have him committed for the duration of the war, yet Doc doesn’t want to rock the boat and feel the pressures of not only Col. Cathcart, but his even tougher adjutant, Lt. colonel Korn (Buck Henry).

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Since WonderCon is basically in Lucasfilms’s backyard, fans should expect some extra love from the company when the Con is on “home turf.” This year, fans who were able to pack into room 103 were treated a discussion led by Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo, and featured Jamie King (Aurra Sing), Daniel Logan (young Boba Fett) and supervising director, Dave Filioni.

Plenty of time was spent discussing the role of bounty hunters in the series (especially this season), and how it’s not so easy to label them as “villains.” In discussing the character of Aurra Sing, actress Jamie King said that for her character, “it’s always about the money and the power.”

Since we’re dealing with the present and future Boba Fett, of course the topic of Slave 1 came up. King was genuinely excited that it was “her ship” for the moment and that it also looked like “and upside down C-3PO head” from the back.

Logan was giddy with relief on finally being able to talk about his work on The Clone Wars, and publicly thanked everyone who voiced their support of his involvement in the show.

The highlight of the panel, however, was the debut of the trailer, which featured a young, scowling and conflicted Boba Fett; a smirking Aurra Sing; and my favorite bounty hunter Boskk. King also announced that Filoni wrote and directed the three-part finale.

The Star Wars: The Clone Wars season two finale will begin airing on April 23.

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ABC has quite a lot going on this season, between the final season of LOST, and the very first season of V, it’s a pretty big time for hour-long science fiction. We recently got the chance to sit down with one of the stars from V, Laura Vandervoort, to talk about her character Lisa. Prior to V, Laura was best known for also playing Kara, a.k.a. Supergirl, on a season of Smallville, which we also discussed.

The Flickcast: What can we expect to see for the rest of this season on V?

Laura Vandervoort: Oh boy! Quite a bit of action and drama because a lot of the main characters that haven’t interacted before are going to, and that’s going to add a lot of plot points and conflict.

There will be explosions, the Fifth Column is going to be creating some havoc, the romance between my character and Tyler (Logan Huffman) thickens, there’s a pregnancy, a death, so much! I think the audience is going to be shocked every time they watch.

TFC: Were you a fan of the original series when you came onto this project? How much did you know about it?

LV: I’m actually embarrassed to say that I didn’t know about V when I was first introduced to the project. I was quickly told, and I looked it up, and found it’s huge cult following from the 80s. So I went out and bought the miniseries, watched it since, and I really enjoyed it.

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As we have seen over the past few weeks, Machinima comes in many forms. Some is created using video game footage while others are inspired by content in games. Geometry: Everything You Need to Know is one of the latter examples as it takes a look at the modern classic Geometry Wars in South Park-esque paper stop motion animation.

Early in the XBox 360 life cycle, there wasn’t much of a launch lineup to keep players busy for the early months of the system. This provided a great opportunity for XBox Live Arcade games to step up. The one that did it the best was Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. With a simple two stick control scheme and intense music and beautiful visuals, GWRE2 racked up thousands of players in its online leader boards competing for its top spot.

Geometry: Everything You Need to Know replicates this brilliantly simple formula in stop motion fashion. Exquisitely animated and synched to actual game sound effects, this Machinima does a great job of recreating a low-res game of Geometry Wars for the viewers enjoyment. Take a peek below and let us know what you think.

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Hard to believe, but this Wednesday marks the one month countdown before we get to witness Iron Man 2 in theaters across the country. Quite a journey the fans have been on, from the very first set photos that were released, to the first news of Olivia Munn’s casting in the film to the first trailer.

Now that time is coming where marketing is getting bigger and better, in anticipation for the film’s May 7th release date. With that comes a brand new clip from the film, which shows off Iron Man making his way to a big fancy stage in the center of Stark Expo. This is basically a much longer cut of the scene we’ve seen in several trailers.

Check out the clip after the jump, and be sure to catch Iron Man 2, starring Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L. Jackson, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sam Rockwell, in theaters and IMAX on May 7th.

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With any new device, folks gravitate to certain tasks first. Some want to get their Internet connection up and running, setup their various e-mail accounts and start browsing their favorite sites on the web. Others want to import all of their pictures, videos and music to get a feel for how the new platform can manage, organize and display their media collections.

Perhaps it’s the avid gamer in me, but the first thing I want to do is check what games are available and how well they run on the new platform. If that last category sounds like you, one look at the iPad’s large and bright screen, it’s 10-hour-plus battery life and it’s easy portability, and your first thought was how well this new device might deliver that on-the-go gaming fix you crave.

If you succumbed to Apple’s new tablet for precisely this reason, let’s see just what sort of gaming goodness is in store. For the purposes of this article, we will take a typical console gamer’s budget and see how much mobile-gaming awesomeness we can put together for $50. Ready? Let’s go!

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Well, there wasn’t much of a box office battle this weekend as Clash of the Titans easily slayed the competition with a total weekend haul of $61.4 Million. Some weekend totals are reflecting Thursday night earnings as well, which brings the total closer to $64 Million.

Despite the fact that most critics were horrified by the look of the post-production 3D of the movie, and practically begged audiences to see the 2D instead, it seems that roughly half of the weekend revenue was from 3D screenings (LA Times.) The 3D money train marches on, at least for another weekend.

It is of interest to note that the movie did drop almost 20% from Friday to Saturday, which can be a direct result of bad word of mouth.

Tyler Perry pulled out yet another surprise as Why Did I Get Married Tooearned $30 Million. Perry has an an unconventional marketing strategy-he never pre-screens his movies for critics. His movies always enjoy an opening day unfettered by any reviews, positive or negative.

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Yesterday, we gave you a first peak at some screens from Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth film in the series which comes to theaters in 3D on September 10th. Today, we’ve gotten our hands on the first trailer for the movie and it has us a little worried. It has been an ongoing debate about the benefits of 3D in movies coming back as the big film trend. Some movies have used it in ways that it has provided added value to an already good flick while others have only had 3D effects to try and help cover a weak central story.

From the look of the trailer below, it looks like the main push of Resident Evil: Afterlife will be its 3D effects. Instead of focusing on the story or successes of the past three films, the trailer makes sure to name drop the use of James Cameron and Vincent Pace’s Fusion Camera System which was used in shooting Avatar. From the looks of the trailer, much of the movie is going to emphasize these stereotypical 3D effects of objects flying towards the screen at the audience.

While it obviously remains to be seen whether Resident Evil: Afterlife will be able to stand on its own or if it is dependent on its visual effects to get by. Take a peek after the jump and let us know what you think about it and make sure to stick right here for more on Resident Evil: Afterlife as it becomes available.

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