If summertime remakes give you reason to shudder, then looking back at the original classics is often a welcome antidote. It helps that the studios, never at a loss for a marketing strategy, like to re-release things to celebrate the new junk being released.

Jonathan Demme has remade The Manchurian Candidate, but it's most difficult to imagine how he could improve upon John Frankenheimer's horrifying original (co-directed with George Axelrod), which features the stellar cast of Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury and Frank Sinatra. The DVD MGM is releasing this summer includes illuminating audio commentary by the late Frankenheimer and interviews with Sinatra and Axelrod.

Also in the re-release department comes an abbreviated The Best of the Thunderbirds, featuring a number of episodes chosen through fan sites. This has got to be one of the weirdest cult TV shows ever, the crown jewel in Gerry Anderson's wacky oeuvre. I'm not quite sure how the live action version of this thing is going to work. Isn't, um, the whole charm of the thing due to those butt-ugly puppets?