Dollhouse TV series finale (January 29, 2010)

In the Dollhouse TV series finale broadcast on January 29, 2010, the heroes are living in or have copied themselves into the nightmarish world of 2020 after something they did created zombies out of much of the world's population. At the end of the show the world's set right though the apocalyptic devastation remained.

SocialVibe badge removed

There seemed to be a problem with the SocialVibe Web site and as a consequence the SocialVibe badge in the sidebar was not displaying anything. I've removed it for the time being. Use the Help Support Disaster Relief page instead to find agencies and organizations to which to donate in aid of victims of disasters.

Doomsday Clock moved back by one minute

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock back by one minute on January 15, 02010 according to this CNN.com report.

NYC: Tornado Terror (2008) TV movie

New York City gets destroyed by a tornado-like storm cell that's likened to the superstorm on Jupiter that creates the Red Spot and is also reminiscent of, ok, actually it was ripped from the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow in which tornadoes destroyed Los Angeles. That's the premise of the 2008 TV movie NYC: Tornado Terror broadcast on Canada's Showcase network on January 14, 2010.

Children of Men movie (2006) and novel (1992)

Set in London, England, in 2027, the 2006 movie Children of Men, based on the P.D. James novel The Children of Men (1992), projects a world in which children can no longer be conceived. The last child at age 18 has just died and London is descending into chaos until a woman is discovered who is pregnant. Fanatics want her dead but her protectors will do anything to keep her alive and deliver her to a safe haven.

The Hunger Games (2008) novel

Suzanne Collins young adult novel The Hunger Games (2008) is set in a post-apocalyptic North America. Out of the ashes a new nation called Panem emerged. Panem consists of Capitol and twice numbered districts, the thirteenth having been destroyed by Panem during an uprising. In retribution the rulers of Panem created the Hunger Games in which youth between 12 and 18 are selected by lottery to participate in a survivalist game to the death in a vast wilderness area and broadcast on live TV. This sounds like a cross between the Vietnam War lottery and other games-based post-apocalyptic entertainments such as the movie Deathrace 2000 (1975) and Death Race (2008), which is, oddly enough, set in 2012.

The Book of Eli (2010) movie

Denzel Washington stars in the 2010 post-apocalyptic movie The Book of Eli. His character Eli, a former Kmart employee, is protecting a book with information that can assist in the rebuilding of civilization, at least that of the nuclear war devastated United States through which he's been traveling for three decades. The book is The Book, a King James Bible. Traveling alone he encounters bandits a la the Australian post-apocalyptic trilogy movies Mad Max and a warlord (Gary Oldman) who's been looking for his own copy of the Bible so he can use it as a weapon to control more minds and places.

There's an unusual twist at the movie's end, so I won't spoil it by giving away the finish, but there is hope for humanity, ironically found in Alcatrez Prison on an island with a ravaged San Francisco landscape for a backdrop.

One of my criticisms of the movie is that given the level of bomb damage, it seems unlikely that anyone would even still be alive or that individuals such as Eli or Oldman's character, whose name is Carnegie, would not have succumbed to radiation sickness long before. In a voiceover Eli indicated that survivors had spent up to a year underground after the war.

As the movie opens we see what appears to be a kind of nuclear snowstorm falling, at least that was my interpretation, and Eli's character is there in a gas mask with no other protection other than his clothes. A while later and he's out of this forest and into a desert-like landscape.

One interesting thing is that although there are young people around, we see very few children. In one poignant scene in the town controlled by Carnegie that Eli visits, a shopkeeper asks him if he has any toys with which to barter the recharging of his portable long-life battery that powers Eli's iPod.

It's also odd that there's virtually no vegetation and we also see no evidence of underground or indoor farming activities, so just how and where are all these people getting their essential food groups? Given the level of violence in the film and the several hints and mentions of cannibalism, I was surprised not to see anyone munching on human flesh, something we see plenty of in horror films, especially of the zombie variety.