BLOGTOWN

As I entered the theater to see Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, I tried to come up with some things I hoped to get from this movie that didn’t get neatly wrapped in a nice bow in 2014’s Maleficent. I just wasn’t sure what else about this story needed telling.

The first Maleficent provided some much-needed backstory on the powerful and so-called “evil witch” from the animated Disney classic Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is actually a dark fairy who can control natural elements like roots, plants, and the weather. She can also cause other creatures to shape-shift. And for all means and purposes, Maleficent is also Aurora’s godmother. In the first film, we learn that despite the fact that she cursed a newborn baby—to get revenge on Aurora’s power-hungry father, who drugged Maleficent and, tragically, removed her magnificent wings—Maleficent watches over Aurora throughout her life, tries to revoke the curse, raises her to love the Moors, where fairies and other magical woodland creatures live. Eventually, the two form a deep bond, and it’s revealed that Maleficent’s maternal kiss (of true love!) is what broke the sleeping curse—not Prince Philip, who Aurora had only met once. During the film’s violent climax, Maleficent grows a new pair of wings, returning to her rightful glory once more. [SIGH] I love a good re-telling, a la Wicked. One of my favorite things about this re-telling of Sleeping Beauty from Maleficent's perspective is the way it highlighted dissenting societal ideas about family, acceptance, and diversity.

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Paul Rudd started trending on Twitter today, which seemed to alarm a lot of people, who weren’t sure why the actor would be in the news unexpectedly. Don’t worry, everybody! Paul Rudd is not dead! He’s not in trouble! He simply has a new Netflix show premiering tomorrow! It’s called Living with Yourself and it’s totally okay!

Rudd’s trending on Twitter specifically seems to be the result of a promotional appearance he made on the Youtube series Hot Ones, in which he eats some very, very spicy wings. As with other interviews he’s done, Rudd’s age-defying charm is put to good use—he’s just a funny, genial guy who seems like he’d be super fun to hang out with. That charm is also the key ingredient in Living with Yourself, which gives us twice the Rudd: He plays a fellow who accidentally clones himself after undergoing a mysterious and very expensive rejuvenating process. This is a good idea for a show! Paul Rudd is funny and fun to watch! Doubling the number of Rudds in your television program is a can’t-lose proposition!

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The problem with comedy sequels is that it's hard to tell the same joke years later, but funnier. Despite the ravages of time and changing tastes, filmmakers must suplex the lightning back into that bottle, hoping everyone's down for another helping of that one bit everyone quoted in college, except now with too many celebrity cameos. (I'm very deliberately looking at you, Anchorman 2). But despite lurching into theaters a full decade after the original, Zombieland: Double Tap avoids those pitfalls while delivering a suitably zany Zombieland experience with the easy charm of an off-brand Mike Judge picaresque.

Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone all return to banter and blast zombies, and their wry camaraderie speaks a seemingly genuine desire to play in this viscera-splattered sandbox again (rather than, as with many long-delayed sequels, simply the desire for a new beach house). Added to the mix are a spate of goofy newcomers, including a delightfully unapologetic flibbertigibbet (Zoey Deutch) and a pair of dirtbag doppelgangers (Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch). It's more a live-action cartoon than a serious entry in the zombie canon, but as a low-key genre comedy, it totally works. Best of all, the celebrity cameos remain sparingly deployed. (Still looking at you, Anchorman 2.)

Steven Soderbergh's put himself in a weird position. The insanely prolific, insanely diversified filmmaker—sometimes he's making one of the Ocean's movies, sometimes he's making Magic Mike, sometimes he's making The Knick, sometimes he's making Traffic, sometimes he's producing Bill & Ted 3, sometimes he's making booze—is so good, at so much, that just any project he takes on is worth getting excited about. Such were the expectations for his latest, the Netflix-bankrolled The Laundromat, a look at the Panama Papers scandal, adapted by screenwriter Scott Z. Burns—who's previously worked with Soderbergh on The Informant!, Contagion, and Side Effects—and boasting a cast with the likes of Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Sharon Stone, Jeffrey Wright, and more. (Even Will Forte pops up, for one entirely too-brief cameo.) Maybe it was wrong to expect something along the lines of Adam McKay's excellent The Big Short, which examined a similarly complicated matter with sharp, gutsy wit, but where it should cut, The Laundromat merely leaves a faint bruise. Wrangling together a handful of storylines—held together by commentary from the legitimately hilarious/reprehensible duo of high-level con artists played by Oldman and Banderas—The Laundromat never gels into a whole, and as good as some segments and characters are (Meryl! of course Meryl!), the end result feels surprisingly hollow. Which, given the elaborate bullshit schemes that were revealed by the Panama papers, is fitting, I guess. Maybe this story should all feel like a house of cards. But still.

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The Laundromat is currently playing at the Hollywood Theatre, and streams on Netflix starting Fri Oct 18.