New clips: Rise of the Planet of the Apes; Fright Night

 
I have to give 20th Century Fox some credit. They're slowly but surely winning me over with all this new footage for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  While the film has always looked amazing from a technical standpoint, with the action sequences involving the creatures out of this world, I thought the slower moments looked a bit ridiculous. John Lithgow appears to be at the top of his game playing one of the early caretakers of Caesar(Andy Serkis, who provides an intro to the below clip), and the scenes between the two have a ton of emotion. There's a Project NIM quality to a lot of it, and I was surprised by how real the digitally created animal's facial features were. This new clip is an extension of one we've seen before, with Lithgow's coming under assault by an a-hole neighbor until Caesar leaps to his violent defense.

I like that bit from Serkis about how this is a story being told uniquely from the ape's perspective, which is a definite change of pace, and I think accounts for why I see so much of Project NIM in it.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is directed by Rupert Wyatt, starring James Franco, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Andy Serkis, Brian Cox, and Tom Felton. It hits theaters on August 5th. We'll be having a screening giveaway for it in the next day or two, so stay tuned!

And next up is Fright Night, which  remains one of the great summer mysterious for me. Remaking the 1985 original didn't seem necessary to me, but I like what's been shown so far. Director Craig Gillespie(Lars and the Real Girl, Mr. Woodcock) appears to have struck just the right balance of darkness and humor. It's going to be in the film's two most outlandish roles where it will be won or lost. Colin Farrell appears to be having a great time chewing up scenery as Jerry Dandridge, the vampire who just moved into town and starts killing folks. And then there's David Tennant as Peter Vincent, the flashy magician/vampire expert who helps our hero Charlie(Anton Yelchin) in putting Jerry into the ground.

The latest clip, introduced by Tennant himself, focuses squarely on Vincent and what a douche he can be...

Yep, definitely channeling a little bit of Criss Angel there, but I dug  the bit with him ripping off all the facial hair.  I dunno, I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. 

Fright Night hits theaters on August 19th.