SS-20XX and shorts.

From Brendan Dawes's Don't Look Now

Well, Alex Lencicki took it upon himself to think of the children. That is, suppose Sammy Studios hasn't spiffed up the original quite enough? Suppose the kids nod off between the fights? He wrote a letter:

I understand why you felt it necessary to move the action from feudal Japan into the distant future, and to substitute the 40 bandits with hoards of killer robots, but I really do think you should consider trying to adapt some of the more quiet moments of the film. I've come up with some ways to spice up a few of the key slow-scenes for future upgrades, and I hope you will consider using them.

Hilarity ensues. But then even more hilarity ensues: "I heard back from Sammy Studios, and they sent me the following list of the six most memorable film-to-game-moments in the Seven Samurai 20XX. Yes, this is for real."

Meanwhile, Filmbrain designs the cover for the PS2 version of Ikiru.

John Cleese, Judi Dench, Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe are just a few of the names who've lent their voices to videogames and "it's not hard to see why," notes Clive Thompson: "They're a quick route to digital-age street cred."

While we're browsing Slate then, today's review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: David Edelstein. Also: Bryan Curtis's latest roundup of the best and worst of the SXSW Film Festival. Quite a batch, too, over at AICN: Brief reviews from Monki, Tom Joad and A Kellerman.

"No Asian-American actress has had a career that has lasted as long as Anna May Wong's and she died more than 40 years ago," writes Chuleenan Svetvilas for Alternet. But should we really be holding out hope that Lucy Liu might be the next Anna May Wong?

The People's Party of Spain has threatened to sue Pedro Almodóvar for mentioning in public a rumor he'd heard on election night that PM José María Aznar and Co might attempt to stage a coup. Giles Tremlett reports for the Guardian. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine taking such a rumor seriously; on the other, you have to keep in mind the sense of emergency at the time and the fury that spread once Spaniards realized they were being lied to. More on Almodóvar's situation from the Advocate. Back to the Guardian:

• Photos by Jack Cardiff; many more at the BFI.
• "One of the most interesting things about family secrets is that not everyone in the family wants to keep them a secret." Andrew Jarecki on his film, Capturing the Friedmans; and Oliver Burkeman talks to Jesse Friedman.
• A rabbi, a vicar and a priest walk into a column by David Mamet.
• John Patterson, reporting Stateside: "With the country as deeply divided as it has been since the late 1960s, perhaps it's not surprising that Hollywood film-makers have absolutely nothing to say about contemporary politics."
• Fiachra Gibbons meets Peter Dinklage.

• And then, via John L Walters, the eye-popper of the day, Cinema Redux: "Graphic designer Brendan Dawes has sampled his favourite movies, one frame per second, and arranged them to make giant digital posters." And, exploring further, Don't Look Now, a graphic representation of Nicolas Roeg's 1973 film, stacking every single frame of the film against the next, though each are rendered one pixel wide by 300 pixels high.

And finally for today, in the New York Times, William Grimes pegs us pretty well: "I scanned the first 20 titles listed under 'film noir' and found six films not offered by Netflix."

Posted by dwhudson at March 19, 2004 8:37 AM