Seth MacFarlane’s feature-film directing debut mines two of his favorite devices: anthropomorphism and ’80s pop culture. In Family Guy we got a talking dog; in American Dad, a talking fish (and an alien); in The Cleveland Show, a family of talking bears. Now, in Ted, we get another talking bear. It goes without saying that MacFarlane voices all of them, blending outsider commentary with the tics of whatever creature’s spouting it. And as for the ’80s pop-culture references, well, MacFarlane’s spent nearly two decades mocking one.

Ted’s ostensibly a coming-of-age story about 30-something John Bennett’s (Mark Wahlberg) choice between a normal, adult life with his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) and his pot-smoking, hard-drinking state of arrested development, represented and enabled by his talking teddy bear. However, maybe because it’s a comedy or whether it’s MacFarlane’s ego, the film has no interest whatsoever in its human characters .

So much so that two of the three main subplots — Ted getting a job at the local supermarket and Ted getting stalked by a deranged fan (Giovanni Ribisi) revolve, naturally, around Ted. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because every time the scene shifts from Ted to Wahlberg and Kunis, it’s like a symphony of chalkboard scrapers and wailing cats led by Dully McMyBrainIsOnFire.

Last year, Beenox took a drastic departure from the Spider-Man video game experience by not only taking the open world sandbox enviroment out of play, but also for the first time creating a game that had multiple Spider-Men at the player’s fingertips with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.

This year’s iteration of the Spider-Man franchise brings a different experience as well. While the Spider-Men in Shattered Dimensions all shared a common goal, their actions were independent of each other.

Now, in Spider-Man: Edge of Time both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 must work together to save the past as well as the future from a mad scientist who has interfered with the time stream by causing the death of Spider-Man.

Gameplay:

Much like the previous Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Edge of Time focuses on contained levels instead of a free roaming city. The story is kept fairly on rails with little room for full exploration, though there are hidden collectibles that can be used to upgrade the powers of both Spider-Man and his 2099 counterpart throughout the game. As a result, the focus on much of the game revolves around combat.

Sixteen years ago, Joel Schumacher took the man who had stolen the show in Heat and Top Gun and transformed him into Batman. Val Kilmer was at what should have been the pinnacle of the super hero movie world. Instead he is remembered for being in one of the most poorly received super hero films that strayed so far from the original vision of the character that many will still shed a tear of sorrow for Batman Forever.

Now, Val has turned to the dark side as he becomes Walker Sloan, an evil scientist of Alchemax. In Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Sloan will become the bane of existence for both the modern day Amazing Spider-Man as well as Spider-Man 2099 from his own time. Take a peek below at Kilmer’s behind the scenes interview as he explains the motivation behind Sload and how he becomes a man who might unmake the world in his own image.

In addition to Val Kilmer, Beenox has released a behind the scenes video with Laura Vandervoort talking about her role as Mary Jane. Vandervoort herself is no stranger to the super hero or sci-fi world after her role as Kara / Brainiac / Linda Danvers on Smallville or Lisa on V. A number of actresses have tackled the Mary Jane role including Kirsten Dunst in the most recent film trilogy and singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb in MTV’s animated version.

Take a look below at Vandervoort’s thoughts on the character as she talks about her respect for Mary Jane. Also get a quick peek at how the story itself not only crosses through time between Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 but the characters themselves even cross eras.

Make sure to stick right here for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time coming out October 4th for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

During our ongoing investigative reporting into the final season of Smallville, we knew it was integral to speak with the brains behind the operation: Executive Producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson. Over the course of the last decade, Smallville has shifted from its one-off episode style to an ongoing mystery into the world of Krypton‘s favorite son. This season the mysteries will be resolved.

While the Greeks had Zeus and Athena, in modern times we have our own mythology in the form of superheroes. Like epic poems passed down myths, Smallville illuminates Superman’s origins with dramatic flare. After fighting Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Zod, you’d think Clark Kent would get a nice vacay. Instead, his hero’s journey will only really begin after the final episode is over.

Yesterday we spoke with Souders and Peterson about episode 200, Kristen Kruek and more. This time we’re talking with the producers about Clark’s legendary journey thus far and what they have in store for our Man of Steel. Note: This interview may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.

The Flickcast: Smallville’s plot structure has evolved from being a “Freak of the Week” structure to having an ongoing mythology. Can you describe why the choice was made?

Kelly Souders: Well, I think anytime you’re on the air for that long, you have to reinvent it. If not for just that we’d all get bored if we kept doing the same thing, but so that the fans have something new to grow with too. I mean ten years, you change a lot. We change a lot, each fan is going to change.

I think it’s evolving has a lot to do with it surviving. I think we tried to make the show as organic to real life as possible. If we don’t all change, find out new things about ourselves, or try to make changes within ourselves- the same thing would happen (to us) and we’d kind of stall out.

With the last season of Smallville off to a rollicking good start, we snatched up the chance to sit down with Smallville long-time executive producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson. While they were a touch shy about spilling the Kryptonite on this season’s surprises, we never-the-less used our super strength to investigate the return of former cast members and historic episode 200 (set to air October 15th).

It seems this season will be strewn with super heroes and villains from across the galaxy.  Giving Kal-El a run for his money, Laura Vandervoort returns in brilliant blue and red style as Supergirl in episode 3, airing October 8th.

The Flickcast: Can you tell us about any plans to bring back favorite cast members from past seasons?

Brian Peterson: Having Annette O’Toole back as Martha Kent and Michael McKean as Perry White- we worked all season to get that to happen. It was fantastic, they were so great, it was such a great episode.

We’d like to, it’s hard because all of these actors, it’s not always up to us, like they have TV shows and careers and theater. You know Glover, we would love to have John Glover back and that man is on Broadway from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.

So, that’s our goal, absolutely, to try to get people like Perry, and Martha Kent, and Lionel Luther back, or at least maybe an appearance.

FC: Last season, Smallville‘s epic episode entitled, “Absolute Justice”, featured the monumental members of the Justice Society. Any talk of a Justice Society spin-off series? Will any members of the Justice Society be making future appearances this season?

BP: I know people are so excited about that and right now, to my knowledge, there are not (spin-off series). I think there’s always opportunities.

But as far as episodes, we’re definitely going to have some of the Justice Leaguers and Justice Society people back in the show for sure (check out episode 2). But as far as a spin-off, I wish that was something I could see into the future and know, but I don’t know.