Early reviews of the forthcoming Star Wars Blu-Ray disc set have been hitting the Interwebs. And I have realized a terrible truth about myself.

I want it. I really, really want it.

There are several reasons why this is beyond stupid, but the top two are these:

• I already own all six films on DVD.
• I do not own a Blu-Ray player.

That latter one is an especially good reason, I tell myself.

Yet, the fact remains that in my heart of hearts, I want to caress this box and hold it to my bosom. I want to revel in its splendiferous high-definition images. I want to watch the legendary deleted scenes over and over.

I know how this sounds.

And I know that the old frustrations remain. The original versions of the Original Trilogy will stubbornly continue to be unavailable, replaced by even-further revised “special editions.” Greedo will shoot first.

I find it amusing that the above reviews tout the Blu-Rays for correcting many of the flaws of the previous DVDs, even those that were presented as intentional choices. When audiophiles noticed that John Williams’ score had been flip-flopped on the left and right rear audio channels of the Star Wars (aka A New Hope) DVD, the response from Lucasfilm was a literal we-meant-to-do-that. Yet now it’s been corrected.

It occurs to me that if George Lucas invents a time machine, he will spend all of eternity changing the past so that reality will match whatever version of his invented history he will have, for the moment, decided upon.

And yet. And yet.

Why can’t I quit you?

Dave Star Wars George Lucas is a hack and a ne'er-do-well

Movie remakes. Like trailers that give away the plot, they’ve been around about as long as has the cinema itself, but people still love to bitch about them. They’re a symptom of Hollywood’s lack of new ideas, they besmirch the good names of the originals, and blahbity blahbity blah blah. Blah.

Me, I’ve made my peace with remakes. In the world of theatre, no one bats an eye when someone mounts a new production of Othello or Our Town. There’s an appeal in seeing how a fresh cast and director interpret a familiar work. So, what’s so awful about someone taking another crack at a decades-old flick?

1985′s Fright Night was a minor classic and a clear antecedent to the monsters-in-suburbia comedy-thriller Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Chris Sarandon* played Jerry Dandridge, a centuries-old vampire who moved in next door to a single mom and her teenage son, Charlie. To combat the menace, the boy called on the help of Peter Vincent, a washed-up actor and alleged undead-slayer stuck introducing old monster movies on the local UHF TV station.

Fright Night was a great deal of fun, but it’s very much a product of its era. It’s not just the disco scene, either. Horror hosts have all but disappeared from the airwaves–Chicago’s Svengoolie a famous exception–and the sort of Famous Monsters Generation kid personified by Charlie Brewster now would be obsessing about ’80s slashers rather than ’60s Hammer Films bloodsuckers.

The redux Fright Night changes some elements and ditches others. Gone is Jerry’s ghoulish live-in handyman, as well as most of the gay subtext of the original. Peter Vincent is now a Criss Angel-like Vegas magician with a massive collection of supernatural memorabilia. And Charlie himself has abandoned his nerdery; it’s his former friend Ed who is monster-obsessed and convinced of Jerry’s undeadedness.

For the most part, the changes work. While it’s somewhat convenient that Charlie just happens to live within driving distance of a man with an entire armory of vampire-fighting hardware, it’s no more unlikely than having a Peter Cushing-level actor slumming on local TV. I did miss the slow build of the original; in the new version Ed just shows up and tells Charlie that his neighbor is a vicious beast.

The script is by Marti Noxon, who was the showrunner for the Buffy TV series during its most controversial run of episodes and therefore should be something of a red flag. But honestly, I think Noxon nailed the frothy fun of the original Fright Night while allowing for plenty of bloodletting. Make no mistake, jokey tone or not, there’s a torrent of the red stuff on the screen.

I liked that the movie subverted some genre tropes. There’s far less of the “nobody will believe me” schtick than usual. And I was glad to see the old “vampires can’t enter a house without an invitation” wheeze addressed in the way it never was in seven years of Buffy.

David (Doctor Who) Tennant plays Peter Vincent as a cross between the Tenth Doctor and Jack Sparrow, and his manic energy is matched by Colin Ferrell’s creepy, menacing intensity as his vampiric foe. Anton Yelchin, who was an adorable Chekov in the Star Trek remake, makes a good Charlie. His girlfriend Amy is played by a young actress with the highly unfortunate name of Imogen Poots.

Also unfortunate is that it’s unlikely we’ll see the further adventures of Peter Vincent. The movie took a stake to the heart at the box office this past weekend. It seems that vampires are only a draw if they’re shiny abstinence metaphors. Not even Colin Ferrell in a wife-beater and David Tennant in next-to-nothing were enough to attract a sizable audience.

Too bad, because the new Fright Night is a worthy remake and a heckuva lotta fun.

*Sarandon apparently makes a cameo in the remake, but I somehow missed him.

Dave Movies Fright Night, reviews, vampires

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching so many would-be blockbuster movies, it’s that an August release is usually an evil portent. If a studio is confident in a popcorn flick, they won’t wait until the summer is winding down to unleash it.

So why is it that Rise of the Planet of the Apes is pretty damned good?

It seemed that Planet of the Apes, the original sci-fi film franchise, was dead and gone. Tim Burton, the go-to director when you’re looking for someone to entirely miss the point, had taken a shovel to its simian skull in his 2001 remake. Which made it a bit of a surprise when Fox announced Rise of the Apes.*

Rise is simultaneously a sequel and a prequel, a remake and a reboot. It covers roughly the same ground as that of 1972′s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, in which an intelligent ape named Caesar led a monkey revolt and set in motion the apocalyptic world visited four years earlier by Charlton Heston. However, it’s clearly establishing its own continuity, substituting genetic experimentation as the rationale for its evolved primates rather than the time-travel paradox of the original Apes cycle.

Renaissance man James Franco takes time out from his packed schedule** to appear as the scientist whose desire to cure his father (John Lithgow) of Alzheimer’s blinds him to ethical lapses in the creation of an intelligence-booster. A virus that makes super-smart monkeys? What could possibly go worng?

Of course, the real star of the show is Andy Serkis, who cements his reputation as this generation’s dot-covered Olivier in his motion-captured performance as Caesar. I make fun, but it really is a remarkable fusion of acting and technology. Whatever pathos the film has is entirely on his furry shoulders. A sideways glance here, a head tilt there, and the audience is under his spell, mentally urging the apes to win out over those horrid humans.

For a film that excels in large part due to its measured pace and its wordless passages–particularly in the primate sanctuary/prison section of the narrative–it’s decidedly less subtle in its frequent homages to the 1968 Apes. Some likely go unnoticed by all but the most devoted Ape-ophiles (for example, the orangutan named Maurice in honor of Maurice “Dr. Zaius” Evans), but when Draco Malfoy Tom Felton shouts “It’s a madhouse!” it’s a bit too on-the-nose. The most groan-inducing indulgence unfortunately undercuts what should have been the movie’s biggest shock. (I won’t give it away, but you’ll know it when you hear it.) I see what they were doing there, trying to turn one of the iconic moments of the original Apes on its head, but it’s just a quote too far.

Still, I don’t want to dwell on the occasional misstep. Rise is overall a very good installment of the venerable Apes series, and an entertaining, touching film in its own right. I suspect that we haven’t heard the last of Andy Serkis’ Caesar.

*I believe that it was of a reflection of the sorry state of the Apes franchise that the film was originally planned without a proper “Planet of the” title.

**During production, Franco achieved two more graduate degrees, composed an epic poem about the invention of the Linotype and created an Apes-based line of frozen confections. He is currently writing his 11th Master’s thesis and building a Mars rocket.

Dave Movies Planet of the Apes, reviews