Wow - I’m surprised I haven’t come across this before. Being both FIlipino and a sci-fi geek of the highest order, this seems like a publication custom-designed for my consumption. The Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler is just what it sounds like - a free, online sampler platter of sci-fi/fantasy writing from the land of my forebears.

I haven’t read any of it yet (hey, there’s a limit to how much I can slack off at work) but it looks pretty promising. The Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing gave it a nod, so it can’t be all that bad, right?!?

This interview with Star Trek alumnus William Shatner (and since he was dis-invited to appear in J.J. Abrams Star Trek, I suppose we can refer to him thusly…) gets all passive-aggressive on George Takei about his former co-star’s recent wedding. Invited or not, Shatner clearly has some deep-seated issues with Takei.

He rails on about Takei’s decision to come out of the closet (’Who cares?’ says Shatner), about the supposedly fabricated ‘problems’ between himself and Takei that the latter has written about at some length (Shatner claims he barely knows Takei despite their nearly 40-year working association), and even offers some armchair psychoanalysis on Takei, whom he regards as a singularly twisted individual.

Worth a watch (even if the video is obviously pro-Shatz).

Don’t get yer panties in a bunch - this has nothing to do with Stephen Spielberg’s proposed Ghost in the Shell film…but last night I was lying on the couch like a beached whale watching Neil Marshall’s Doomsday on Time Warner Pay-per-View, and it struck me how similar Rhona Mitra’s character was to our favorite cyborg spec-ops hottie, Major Kusanagi.

Mitra’s character, though she has a proper name, is referred to simply as ‘Major’ for the entirety of the film, and has nearly the exact haircut as Kusanagi, minus the purple tint. Add a minor cybernetic enhancement (a removeable right eye which she can use as a surveillance camera) and some serious military hardware - and I think you know where I’m going with this. If they go with caucasian actors for the GitS film (and let’s face it - they probably will), I think they could certainly do far worse than Ms. Mitra.

As for the film itself, it is stupendously retarded - and yet incredibly entertaining. I may actually spring for the DVD…

io9 posted a tidbit today that Seven Samurai is receiving a sci-fi facelift from a certain Shane Salerno (no, I’m not familiar with him either, although io9 claims he penned the Shaft remake - which I quite liked actually).

And no, this isn’t the other remake they keep talking about.

I could probably work up a lot of bile over this if I wanted, but it’s probably not worth the effort. Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai has been re-made so many times at this point it seems pointless to get worked up over yet another re-hash, and conversely it’s just as hard to get excited.

The script’s current title isn’t much to write home about, either. Doomsday Protocol? Wasn’t Vin Diesel just in that? I don’t know - and frankly I don’t care. The attention-deficit young adult crowd will probably eat it up like high-powered ritalin, but I’m past the point of caring.

Although it does make me want to go home and watch the original.