In case you haven’t heard, the next project for Peter Jackson after his Lord of the Rings trilogy will be another remake of this venerable 1933 creature movienot that it really needs improvement (as the 1976 version proved). He’ll up the special effects with CGI, of course, but doubtlessly with a nod to the pioneering stop-motion work done by Willis O’Brien, which was dazzling in its time and is poignant now because it lends the giant ape a touch more fragility. (Knowing how much time and effort went into every gesture, every shot, you hate to see him die.) The rest of the cast is an afterthought; Fay Wray plays the blonde object of simian desire”It was beauty killed the beast”in a role currently being dangled before Naomi Watts. Wisely, unlike the ’76 version, Jackson will retain the original ’30s settingand, we hope, its charms. (NR) Grand Illusion. Fri. Oct. 30-Thurs. Nov. 6 (closed Mon.). BRIAN MILLER

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