Red Dawn

It was a few weeks ago that our friend and neighbor, Chad, informed me that one of his young daughters had met a teen idol. “We were walking the puppy down the street and guess who we saw?” he asked.

“Um,” I said, not having a clue. Chad can be like an excitable puppy who barks like mad at the sight of a leaf blown by the wind, so for all I knew, he and his daughter could’ve seen a squirrel. “I give up.”

“Josh Peck!” he crowed.

“Josh Peck!” I replied in surprised.

“I know! Josh Peck! Right there on the sidewalk! Right?”

I caved. “Who’s Josh Peck?”

Josh Peck turned out to be one of the stars of Drake & Josh, a teen comedy on Nickelodeon, of which Chad’s daughter is apparently a huge fan. I, being somewhat outside the demographically either mentally (Chad) or physically (his daughter), had never heard of it. “They’re in town for the remake of Red Dawn,” Chad explained. “They’re filming right around the corner.”

“Did she get to talk to this Josh Peck guy?” I asked.

“No,” admitted Chad. “But he petted the dog!”

I’m willing to bet that’s one dog who never gets washed again.

Michigan’s been used more and more over the last couple of years for the filming of a lot of Hollywood projects, and it’s seemed as if my little suburb has been one of the epicenters of it. Probably the most visible project with which we had to cope was Sigourney Weaver’s Prayers for Bobby a couple of years ago, which tied up the Mont’s church, the restaurant next door (a stylish enough eatery that somehow doubled as both a scary, seedy gay bar and the fern-covered restaurant frequented by middle-class suburban moms), as well as most of Royal Oak’s downtown streets. There was also a month in which it was impossible to dodge the filming of dueling Christina Ricci and Drew Barrymore movies, no matter where we seemed to go.

Lately the neighborhood’s been completely invaded by Red Dawn, however. Whenever I drive out on an errand, I see signs for cast and crew parking. The other day when I drove home from Target, I passed a small battalion of armed and uniformed communists taking a Doritos break on the side of the road. Even when we leave Royal Oak, we’re running into the production. One night when we went to our favorite karaoke bar, a good ten miles north, we found the street in front completely blocked off and shut down. Tanks were pointed at the bar’s front door and military vehicles completely surrounded it. Despite the loud music and the festive atmosphere inside, the place looked as if it were under siege. A glum security guard stood on guard to make sure no one climbed on the tanks. Which was tempting.

But honestly. Isn’t Red Dawn one of those movies that should never be remade? And no, I’m not saying it in the way that some movie executive should have when they heard that Melanie Griffith wanted to one-up Born Yesterday. I’m saying it more like this: wasn’t one Red Dawn enough? I think the death of Patrick Swayze has made some people a little sentimental for his movies, but surely this was among the least of them.