Well, we’re at the end of the summer blockbuster season, and oh, wasn’t it lovely. Why settle for a few art house meanderings with a hand-held camera when we can watch Steven Spielberg multiplex a classic novel with a few hundred million dollars?

Whether or not you deem Berg’s adaptation of the H.G. Wells’ cult phenomenon a success, it is undeniable that this summer’s roster was a bit more saturated with remakes. Johnny Depp floated upstream on a river of chocolate in Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Jackass star Johnny Knoxville kicked up dust with Jessica Simpson in “Dukes of Hazzard” and a familiar Orwellian theme rode the psyches of “The Island,” starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.

What can be attributed to these months’ mounting remakes? The obvious route of logic would be to assume Tinseltown is cashing in on past successes, as it is tradition for many of the major industries to ride on the shoulders of retired pioneers for a quick buck. In these days of war certainties are becoming scarcer with the evaporating morale of our country and its exponential incline of dissenting international opinion.

Perhaps Hollywood is beginning to sense the mounting public concern over what will become of our country and is trying to mother us with the narcotic euphoria of memory recognition.

After recent terrorist attacks, including some subway bombings across the pond, a third round with miniature hearthrob Tom Cruise in the “Mission Impossible” series doesn’t seem all that uninviting anymore. There is familiarity among the characters, high-tech gadgets and of course, the theme song that helps us forget the entirely awkward global state around us, even if only for a couple of hours.

Let’s be honest, how many of us have popped in an archaic, VHS copy of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” when we were feelin’ down and tried to remember the good ol’ days when gas was a buck a gallon and Mia Sara still looked good in a pair of pink sweatpants?

And we will keep going back for our fix of how things used to be with extra helpings of “The Pink Panther,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and hopefully — pray for it — more of “The Incredibles.”

“The ‘Frat Pack'”

Long gone are the days when Frank Sinatra and his team of comic playboys dazzled the movie screen, the socialite page in newspapers and just about every club on the Vegas strip.

Yet it was only a matter of time before a new entourage pushed its way to the front of the line. Lovingly dubbed “The Frat Pack” by yours truly, actors Ben Stiller, brothers Owen and Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell are blowing open the industry as front man Vince Vaughn picks up Sinatra’s reigns for their lap around victory lane.

Slightly less postured and slightly more beer-guzzling, the “Pack” can be seen in multiple combinations, with cameos offered to the rest in such films as: “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Dodgeball,” the new and fantastically hilarious “Wedding Crashers” and the film that started it all, “Old School.”

Actors these days are trading alliances faster than the Florida Marlins, yet Vaughn and crew have added some of that — pardon the pun — “old school” flavor to the industry by becoming the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

It seemed Vaughn might have already formed a coalition with costar John Favreau in the cult classic “Swingers,” but his current situation commands equal respect.

Look for him and “Crasher” costar Owen Wilson to star in another, presumably hilarious, duo performance in “Outsourced,” coming to a theater near you in 2006. The film has barely started production, which leaves plenty of time for Vaughn to call up his buddies for more cameos.