Woody Harrelson

Plus see their “Those Were the Days” side-by-side with the original

With each passing year, the possibility of ever seeing Zombieland 2 seemed less and less likely, which makes today’s news a pleasant surprise. Director Ruben Fleischer and original screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are officially getting the band back together for the long-teased follow-up to their 2009 horror-comedy hit. No, really. It has an actual release date and everything.

Last night my wife and I attended the 7:10PM screening of War for the Planet of the Apes. This is the third installment of the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise that started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes...

There is a sinister circular logic to the Planet of the Apes series. Characters journey to the stars and wind up … back on Earth. They travel back in time … and directly cause the events that lead to the rise of their dystopian future. Even as War for the Planet of the Apes concludes the story of the ape leader Caesar, it brings the franchise’s overarching narrative closer and closer to its origins on a desolate, sun-swept beach, one that looks a lot like the one Caesar and his monkey mates gallop across during their quest for revenge. That’s what makes these movies so troubling. It’s not the monkeys with machine guns or the gorillas with grenade launchers; it’s the sense that collapse is inevitable, that even when people (and apes) act with the best of intentions, they can’t escape the cruel hand (or paw) fate has dealt.