What makes a movie a classic? Is it some kind of social significance? Or, is it what the movie meant to people when it first came out? Or maybe its just fondly remembered for its amazing cheesiness and being so bad its good? I’m pretty sure Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars falls into that last category.

However, even if it happens to be made of 100% real cheese, that doesn’t stop it from also begin pretty awesome and, shall we say it, a classic. Now this film is getting the Blu-ray and DVD treatment it deserves with a super special 30th anniversary edition, soon to be released by Shout! Factory.

To begin to understand the scope of this film’s cult classic status, you have to take a look at the people involved in it. They represent some of the biggest names working in movies today. Back then, they were just a bunch of kids with an idea for a space movie.

Here’s a small list of those involved. See if you recognize any of the names: John Sayles, Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon, James Horner, Gale Anne Hurd and, of course, Roger Corman. Oh yeah, James cameron also did the special effects for the movie. He’s come a long way since then.

Click throuhg for the full info from Shout! Factory. Look for Battle Beyond the Stars in stores on June 12th. Also after the break we’ve included the original trailer for the film as well. It’s not great quality but watch it and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

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Spy films of the 1960′s have a reputation of getting terrible remakes. It happened with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in 1998′s The Avengers. It happened with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan in last year’s The Prisoner. But that all may change, now that Steven Soderberg has expressed interest in taking on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Here’s the official word from THR.

Steven Soderbergh is in early talks to take over directing duties on the long-in-development film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. at Warner Bros. Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Soderbergh’s The Informant and the director’s upcoming medical thriller Contagion, is negotiating to come aboard as writer.

The show was a basic serialized spy drama from 1964 starring Robert Vaughn, who found a strong career later in life on the hit BBC show Hustle. The plan is most likely to gear the film towards the action/comedy hybrid, which is what original screenwriter Max Borenstein was tasked to do.

Now that Scott Burns is taking on the script, you can expect to see elements of both The Bourne Ultimatum and The Informant–Burns’ previous films–to arise in this script. The only question remains: will we see Matt Damon as the titular Man?

When NBC and Universal decided to remake Knight Rider with the voice of Val Kilmer as K.I.T.T., we said OK. When AMC announced that they were doing a remake of The Prisoner in the form of a miniseries with Jim Caviezel, we said OK (not knowing at the time that it would blow). Now, it seems that the fan community needs to put their collective feet down, as Warner Bros. is moving forward with their big-screen reboot of the 1960′s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The original, which ran on NBC from 1964-68, introduced the world to Robert Vaughn, who went on to do some pretty amazing things like BASEketball and BBC’s Hustle, and David McCallum, who fell into animated voice-over obscurity went on to co-star in CBS’ NCIS. After years of rewrites and script proposals, Warner seems to have found their writer. From Heat Vision:

Max Borenstein has been tapped to write the latest draft of “Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” Warner Bros.’ big-screen version of the 1960s TV show.

David Dobkin is attached to direct the long-in-development project and will produce with John Davis and Jeff Kleeman.

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This Week’s pick is yet again another World War II classic, the 1969 John Guillerman (King Kong 1976) film The Bridge At Remagen which stars George Segal (Lt. Phil Hartman), Ben Gazzara (Sgt. Angelo), Robert Vaughn (Major Paul Krueger), Bradford Dillman (Major Barnes) and screen great E.G. Marshall as General Shinner.

The film opens in March of 1945 as the American 9th Armored Div began to push elements of the retreating German army back towards the Rhine River. The German high command wants all the bridges over the Rhine destroyed in order to halt the advance of the allies from reaching the heart of Germany.

But one high ranking officer, General Von Brock (Peter Van Eyck) enlists the help of Major Paul Krueger (Vaughn) to keep one bridge, the bridge at Remagen up in order to allow the German 15th Army and its seventy-five thousand men to retreat and avoid capture. Krueger accepts the mission believing that a large force stationed at the bridge will stop the advancing Americans.

The Americans however want the bridge destroyed, but in the end keep it up as a way to help shorten the war. Both the Germans and Americans don’t realize it yet, but Remagen will become one of the last decisive battles of the war in Europe.

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