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When Hollywood can't decide if they want to remake, reboot, or leave a popular franchise alone, they often turn to the video game designers to help keep a popular brand alive. Fortunately the folks at Universal have decided to entrust their Back to the Future and Jurassic Park properties to an outfit called Telltale Games. And gaming fans will be quick to remind you that this is the team the produced some really high-end games based on Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner, plus they have some very well-regarded original titles like Monkey Island and Sam & Max.

USA Today brings us the early word on what the Back to the Future game will look like, and personally ... I think it looks pretty cool. Turns out that producer / screenwriter Bob Gale will be working with Telltale on the five-episode game series, and it's always a good thing when the original filmmakers are involved with a video game design. The game company's website has a page covering the Universal projects right here, and (hat tip) Slashfilm has a lot more details on the nuts & bolts right here.

All I wanna know is this: will I be able to trick a Tannen into being covered with manure of some kind?

What's that old Klingon proverb again? I believe it's "Revenge is a dish best served cold." The proverb is meant as an admonishment to revenge seekers to use intellect and rationality and not passion and emotion in seeking vengeance. It's also not a Klingon proverb (it dates back several hundred years). When it comes to cinematic vigilantes, revenge is usually best served with blood-drenched, bone-crunching fury. The subject of today's Cinematical Seven, vigilantes on/in film, has been written to coincide with the release of Michael Caine's turn as a retiree-turned-cold-blooded vigilante Harry Brown (out on DVD/Bu-Ray today for your viewing pleasure).

First, we'll start with one bright-line rule: masked avengers, costumed superheroes won't appear anywhere in this Cinematical Seven. So no Batman, no V (as in V for Vendetta), no Kick-Ass, or any other vigilante who wears a cape and cowl (or a mask and costume) will appear on this list. By refusing to hide their faces behind a mask, non-costumed vigilantes are closer to the real world and, consequently, farther away from the fantasy world of masked crime-fighters like Batman or his many imitators.

We also won't count the expansive cops-turned-vigilantes sub-genre that kicked off the 1970s with Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry. Cops in this sub-genre willfully break the law, usually tossed away with a glancing, derogatory mention of "legal technicalities," supposedly in the service of a higher, natural law. They, of course, get to decide (moral) right and wrong and act accordingly to the detriment of evildoers in their path, but again, it's the righteous (self-righteous?) non-law enforcement vigilante who I find offers the most to think and write about.

[Insert the usual "Spoiler Alert" before the jump.]

Cannibals, crooks, vampires, aliens and geeks galore are all lined up to invade Austin for Fantastic Fest next month, and if you think that we harp on this particular film festival a bit, A) you're right and B) it totally deserves every effusive word.

We've got the whole list of newly announced titles after the jump, but right off the bat, I can tell you that we're looking at the U.S. premiere of crime drama Stone (starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton and Milla Jovovich), the world premiere of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, North American premieres of Hatchet 2 (which just received a warm reception at Frightfest over in the U.K.) and Ong-Bak 3 (just please have less dancing than 2), and a double bill of a restored print of 1960's The Housemaid and its recent remake.

All of this on top of Opening Night Film Let Me In and a slew of super-secret screenings in the mix? You bet your ass that we're gonna be there covering it from September 23-30.

He would have turned 40 today. Unfortunately, River Phoenix died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside LA's Viper Room as Johnny Depp performed on stage inside. Not just because it's his birthday, and a significant one at that, we are missing the forever-young actor this August and wondering what he might have been doing lately had he lived. Would he have any involvement with brother Joaquin's enigmatic retirement and subsequent rap career, or at least appear in the (faux?) documentary I'm Still Here? What would he have thought of Dinner with Schmucks, which reminds me of his underrated drama Dogfight? Might he have been able to take over the Indiana Jones franchise so we didn't get the old-man version we're currently stuck with?

And if not that, what other series would he be starring in now? You know he would have been another Depp or Robert Downey Jr., putting more talent into a franchise that didn't seem to deserve him at first. Could he have been a superhero? Or, would he have focused more on dramatic roles and easily won an Oscar or four after losing that nomination for Running on Empty? Given that Phoenix showed us remarkable talent so early and had diverse roles in sci-fi, westerns, action-adventure, drama, black comedy, coming of age, spy caper and gay modernizations of Shakespeare (My Own Private Idaho). And he seemed to get along with a number of his collaborators, many of whom, like Sidney Poitier, Keanu Reeves and Dermot Mulroney (and sort of Harrison Ford) he worked with more than once.

Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what's new and upcoming in the world of independent film. Pictured above: Chris Messina and Rashida Jones in Monogamy.

Opening / Expanding. A different (?) kind of war doc, a frothy comedy, and a space doc highlight the limited releases opening and/or expanding this weekend.

• The Tillman Story. Professional football player volunteers to fight terrorists and is killed by friendly fire.
• Mao's Last Dancer. Chinese ballet dancer heads to Houston, discovers romance and a burning desire for freedom.
• Soul Kitchen. From director Fatih Akin (Head On, The Edge of Heaven) comes a light comedy.
• The Army of Crime. A poet leads a clandestine battle against Nazi occupation.
• Happythankhyoumoreplease. Josh Radnor's debut comedy: young people, relationships, New York City.
• Altiplano. Riot in a Andean village brings things to a boil for a married couple.
• Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard's new wave classic continues; now in 6 theaters.
• Hubble 3D. The space doc moves into 151 theaters after nearly six months of release.

Deals. Early next year, the pensive mystery/drama Monogamy will theaters, according to indieWIRE, thanks to the film's recent acquisition by Oscilloscope Pictures. Directed by Dana Adam Shapiro (Murderball), Monogramy follows engaged yet bored wedding photographer Chris Messina as he becomes obsessed with "sexy exhibitionist" Meital Dohan. Rashida Jones plays Messina's intended bride, an aspiring singer / songwriter. The film premiered at Tribeca, where our own Eric D. Snider caught it. "As a director and writer," Eric writes, "Shapiro demonstrates a knack for authenticity ... that makes Monogamy a thoughtful and engrossing character study."

Between my junior and senior years of college, I studied abroad in Great Britain and Scandinavia for a month studying the film movements in those regions. I had a great professor who showed us all sorts of terrific old British and European films, introduced me to filmmakers like Bergman, Tony Richardson and Derek Jarman, and in the spectrum of attendees, who vacillated between shopaholics looking for an excuse to visit Hard Rock Cafes in London and folks sincerely interested in learning about international cinema, I was more or less the group's ultimate film nerd.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were two of the filmmakers we learned the most about, although in the span of one month, we covered so many other simultaneously I didn't get to show them my full attention. Since then – a pathetically long 14 years – I've been otherwise occupied with classics like That Darn Cat and Patch Adams, and have devoted far too little time to catchin up on their collective achievements, even if I've since become a hardcore fan of Powell's Peeping Tom.

All of which is why I was especially excited to revisit one of their greatest films, The Red Shoes, when the good folks at Criterion re-released it on Blu-ray. Already a marvel of color and cinematography, I could scarcely imagine how good their classic might look in high definition. But does it still seem as magical and moving some 62 years after its initial release? That's what I was eager to find out in this week's Shelf Life.

It wasn't the first film based on L. Frank Baum's classic series of books, and it clearly won't be the last by a long shot, but MGM's 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz will likely forever be the favorite adaptation of Dorothy Gale's Oz-dyssey (its dialogue will still be quoted in the year 2154, if Avatar is any fortune teller). If you're a human being you've likely watched Judy Garland and friends skipping down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City at least once or at most a billion times in the last seven decades. So join us in wishing the film a very happy birthday. To celebrate the 71st anniversary of its original release (did you notice the Google tribute?), we've collected some thoughts on and memories of the film from the Cinematical team. Here, first, is my reflection:

As much as I've gone through phases preferring other takes on Baum (The Wiz, Return to Oz, the old silent films), there is no denying the MGM version's hold on my conscious. Whether because it's an historical icon as popularly celebrated as any image of the 20th century, or an essential part of cinema appreciation or just that brilliantly memorable on its own, this is one classic that will always be fondly and necessarily revisited (most recently I saw it with a 3-year-old and was reminded of its captivating powers). Like only a handful of movie since, it is seemingly what motion pictures were invented for.

I can't recall my introduction to The Wizard of Oz, but I've grown up overly analytically fascinated by its cinematic and narrative devices, specifically the transition from black and white to color -- I do remember that I once thought this was the first film to feature color -- and its implication that Dorothy's trip to Oz was all just a dream. It's one of the few movies we all tolerate despite this revelation. Of course, I love the film on more basic levels too, especially for the music and the art direction.

See what our other writers have to say about The Wizard of Oz after the jump and then share a memory of your own in the comments.

I Heart Huckabees' director David O. Russell really just can't catch a break. Or more accurately, his reputation, his current actions on-set and some things that he (gasp) can't control have conspired against him so that he can't catch a break. He's gone from being attached to one dead-in-the-water project stuck in post-production to another that's been in pre-production for months. Production on Russell's latest film Nailed has notoriously shut down four times now and has left some of its crew members, actors James Caan included, feeling alienated.

Russell officially quit Nailed in July. At the time, the Hollywood Reporter announced that producers Douc Wick and Lucy Fisher "were being to cut their fees in half," presumably by financier Ronald Tutor, who owns the rights to Nailed.

It's officially been in post-production for months now. It's a political spoof that deals with healthcare and based on Russell's last film and the production woes, it's impossible to know what kind of tone the film will take now that Russell has out-and-out disowned it and a second director is coming in to pinch-hit.

- Jennifer Aniston does her best Barbara Streisand for Harper's Bazaar. I love this type of magazine photo shoot in which a modern actor or actress channels an elder in recreations of classic roles. Here we have an updated version of Funny Girl.

- Guy Pearce, who can be seen in the phenomenal Animal Kingdom beginning next weekend, and Maggie Grace will star in Luc Besson's Lockout, about a wrongfully accused convict in a SPACE PRISON who has to save the President's daughter during a SPACE RIOT. I capitalize because it's just so silly. Basically it's like Escape From New York meets Taken (with Grace in the same role!) meets Alien³ (minus the aliens). Still, anyone who doesn't like the sound of that just doesn't love movies.

I was properly wowed the first time I heard a videotape played back through a stereo VCR. (It was The Princess Bride.) I invested more money than I could afford in laser discs (at least some of the big covers still look cool, and I can watch Han shoot first.) I have hundreds of DVDs stacked up in my closet. And, increasingly, movies have become available to stream or download from the good old Internet. So I've resisted the impulse to jump into the Blu-ray pool, which has been difficult since I write about new Blu-rays every other week at this very site.

Quite unexpectedly, though, a Blu-ray player has entered my life, and I feel like a blushing, middle-aged bride. My first Blu-ray experience was The Fifth Element, which looked stunning; I quickly got wrapped up in the eye candy dancing across the screen. The Dark Knight followed soon thereafter, and then, on the recommendation of Cinematical's Todd Gilchrist, I rented Speed Racer, which sent me into insulin shock (AKA image overload).