Back To The Future fans, listen up! You may or may not be familiar with the story of the late John DeLorean, car engineer and former GM executive, who started his own company only to produce one vehicle before going out of business: the DeLorean DMC-12. The car didn’t sell as well as he had hoped, and DeLorean’s own arrest on drug trafficking charges in 1982 put the kibosh on it for good. But the car was featured as a time machine in the hugely successful movie Back To The Future and captured the imagination of all who saw it. Today its legacy lives on. With an estimated 6,500 still on the road, and an 8 month waiting list for rebuilds from a Texas company that bought the rights to the name, the car clearly still has a dedicated following. And now it looks like it may be making a true comeback in 2008.

According to the L.A. Times, the new DeLorean Motor Co. has plans to put the car back into limited production sometime next year. The idea is to start small, with maybe 20 new cars being produced per year. Whether or not manufacturing will increase from there remains to be seen, but if the demand exists, I would think it’s a possibility. On the other hand, if everyone had one, I suppose they might not seem so special anymore. Hey, by the way, my birthday’s coming up in November people. You know what to do.

Wanna hear one wild and crazy rumour? Various sources around the web are reporting that Disney will be remaking their classic story Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a martial arts epic that takes place in colonial China. Jet Li and Natalie Portman are attached to star, with legendary choreographer Yuen Woo-ping in the director’s chair. The film’s budget is estimated at a cool $70 million. Don’t believe it? Well, the story is certainly gaining a lot of steam both in the American and Chinese media.

The new retelling (dubbed Snow and the Seven) is said to break down something like this: the evil stepmother of a young woman is trying to reclaim the scattered pieces of a magic mirror that has been guarded for thousands of years by the monks of a Shaolin temple. The temple sends seven warriors (led by Jet Li) to protect the young woman and the mirror. The script for the movie was even supposedly co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. Despite how far-fetched it might seem, I can actually see Disney attempting something like this; they’ve been trying to break the mold lately with movies like the upcoming live-action film Enchanted. And considering the fairy tale nature that a lot of these martial arts flicks have, I think this is just crazy enough that it just might work. Thoughts?

Update: It looks like Francis Lawrence will be directing, not Yuen Woo-ping. Still no word on the cast however.

This is what you’ve been saving those pennies for right? It’s definitely a huge DVD release day, with 300 alone guaranteed to sell truckloads probably within the first day of being on shelves. Heck, it may even help sell some HD-DVD or Blu-ray players too. Also in stores today is the very funny Hot Fuzz, the critically lambasted Pathfinder, and Douglas Coupland’s first script to make it to the big screen, Everything’s Gone Green. Also worth mentioning are a handful of documentaries including Roving Mars, Rock The Bells, and The Rap Sheet: Hip Hop and the Cops. There’s also a new version of Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle out today.

300 (DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray)
Hot Fuzz (DVD, HD-DVD)
Roving Mars
Pathfinder: Unrated
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales
Kung Fu Hustle: Axe-Kickin’ Edition
20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition
Rock The Bells
Firehouse Dog
Everything’s Gone Green
The Darwin Awards
Yellow
Played
Night Junkies
Dallas: The Complete Seventh Season
Hawaii Five-O: The Second Season
Popeye the Sailor - 1933-1938: Volume 1
The Rap Sheet: Hip-Hop and the Cops
Darkman (HD-DVD)
Sea of Love (HD-DVD)
Shaun of the Dead (HD-DVD)
Shooter (HD-DVD, Blu-ray)

So in case you hadn’t noticed, the new trend in TV is to take a cheesy old sci-fi series and update it with serious storylines and complex characters. It’s the Battlestar Galactica runoff, with NBC launching a new Bionic Woman show this year and The Sci-Fi Channel giving us a new Flash Gordon series as well. I have to wonder how Flash Gordon could end up being taken seriously at all, but then again, I probably would have thought the same thing about Battlestar Galactica a few years ago. It doesn’t help that they keep promoting it with the Queen theme song from the 80’s feature film, even though they claim it won’t actually be used in the show. Apparently it’s not quite as dark as BSG, which is probably for the best. The new show premieres in only a few weeks, and I’m a bit surprised we haven’t seen anything more than this super short promo teaser just released online. According to one review over at TV Squad, screeners of the pilot episode that were sent out were still missing effects shots, so it seems like they are racing to get it finished in time. The new show stars Eric Johnson (who played Whitney Fordman on Smallville) as Flash and John Ralston (Life with Derek) as Ming the Merciless. Check out the teaser and a photo gallery over at the official website (linked below). Flash Gordon premieres on Friday August 10th at 9 pm EST.

Or right click and ‘Save As’ here for high quality version. (Recommended)

With all of the members of the so-called Splat Pack still trying to one up each other by creating the most gruesome horror movies possible, there comes a point when you have to ask, what do you do for an encore? Hot on the heels of an announcement that Saw IV may go NC-17, Saw IV director Darren Lynn Bousman has revealed plans for something completely different: a musical starring Paris Hilton! Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate are co-financing the project, called Repo! The Genetic Opera, which is described as a “futuristic thriller framed around musical numbers”. The story involves a deadly plague that threatens the human race, with organ transplants being the only hope for survival.

While everyone seems to be harping on the fact that it will star Paris Hilton, I have to admit this does sound like campy fun, perhaps in the vein of Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical. I give Bousman full credit for trying something new here, even though I can’t see it having very much mainstream appeal. Apparently the movie is based on an actual stage production that was written by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich, and directed by Bousman. For more info, including video clips and MP3s, visit the official website at www.repoopera.com.

A while back when we were contacted by Jonathan from Cinema Fusion about participating in a Top 100 Movies list, a sort of response to the AFI Top 100, we thought it was a great idea, not just to provide a new perspective on film, but also as a way of bringing together all of the online film critics, bloggers and writers out there as some sort of community. Together, volunteers from Cinema Fusion and Movie Patron pored over the nominations from over 50 contributors and came up with a combined list that is, surprisingly, not all that different from the AFI’s list. I guess no one can accuse the online community of having poor taste, although I am a little disappointed that this list wasn’t very radical or “progressive”. Check out the Top 20 below, or follow the link below to read the whole list. Were there any major surprises for you? Stay tuned for our individual Top 100 Lists.

1. The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
2. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
5. Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
6. Blade Runner (R. Scott, 1982)
7. Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
8. The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974)
9. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
10. Alien (R. Scott, 1979)
11. Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
12. Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
13. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Lucas, 1977)
14. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
15. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
16. The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont, 1994)
17. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
18. Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
19. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
20. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)