The idea behind Maleficent (Disney, 5.30) is to re-imagine Sleeping Beauty along feminist lines so as to reach a female audience that has no use for the old fairy-tale mythology about put-upon female characters finding happiness by hooking up with a gentle dashing prince at the finale….and who can blame them? Malificent is about commanding woman power in the form of Angelina Jolie‘s vengeful sorceress of the flaming cheekbones, no longer a wicked fairy godmother and Mistress of All Evil but a girl who was betrayed and mutilated by a loathsome turncoat (Sharlto Copley, who always plays scurvy creeps) so who can blame her for wanting a little revenge? She’s never entirely sincere about being evil, in short, and even if she seems wicked-ish at times she certainly has her reasons so calm down and give the girl a break.

Did the dysfunctional family reunion dramedy begin with Arsenic and Old Lace or The Big Chill or…where did it begin and when did it become a genre? Everybody comes home for a funeral or because someone is dying, and they all hash their lives out and one or two fall in love with someone new. One of my favorites is Thomas Bezucha‘s The Family Stone (’05). The 21st Century has seen a few films in this vein (okay, more than a few) but I don’t mind seeing another one. I like the title and I’m definitely down with anything Jason Bateman does, but I’m a tiny bit scared of “directed by Shawn Levy.” But no reason to fret. Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne (who has costarred in a lot of films lately), Corey Stoll, Jane Fonda, Dax Shepard, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant and Kathryn Hahn. Warner Bros., opens on 9.12.14.

It’s a bit after 6 pm. I saw Maleficent (decent, handsomely composed but basically the same old family-friendly CG fantasy package that turns up at the start of every summer) but not until roughly 3 pm today so I just got back to the pad. Now I have to catch Doug Liman‘s Edge of Tomorrow at 8 pm at a Gaumont plex on the Champs d’Elysee…starts in 50 minutes. Update: After I heard from a WB staffer around 11 this morning that it was fine for me to attend, a senior Warner Bros. publicity who had been cc’ed on the approval message met me at the door of the Champs d’Elysee screening to tell me I couldn’t attend as there was no room due to overbooking. That wasn’t the reason, of course, but since when has Warner Bros. publicity made an exceptional effort to be friendly to Hollywood Elsewhere? Then again it’s just another summer movie. I won’t be back from Paris in time to catch the June 2nd all-media so I’ll just have to see it opening day.

The laid-back boogie rhythm and rolling bass tones are partly what make “All Shook Up” sound soothing and yet fresh each listening, which has to number in the hundreds if not thousands. But the biggest stand-out element, in my head at least, is the absence of drums. The beat is kept by someone (possibly Elvis) tapping on an acoustic guitar or…I don’t know, a phone book? Recorded in January 1957 and released two months hence, “All Shook Up” is one of the very few percussion-free cuts of rock’s classic era…just that relaxed, almost slapdash vocal delivery (which Presley reportedly copied phrase for phrase from songwriter Otis Blackwell‘s original demo) and the instruments — piano, lap steel guitar, stand-up bass…what else?

In a 5.27 Cannes Film Festival wrap-up by Hollywood Reporter staffers, senior critic Todd McCarthy is the first big-leaguer to strongly agree with my view that Leviathan was shafted by the jury — a great film totally hosed.

I’m planning to catch the 1 pm showing of Malefique at the Les Halles plex. General critical approval is prevailing thus far. Except for the Telegraph‘s rarely fully satisfied Robbie Collin, of course, but even he was more or less okay with it. Sasha Stone and her daughter may be looking forward to this, but I’m not. At least it only runs 90-something minutes.

A day or two ago Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen posted angry Twitter responses to a piece posted last weekend by Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday. It suggested that perhaps the resentful anti-social feelings of Isla Vista murderer Elliot Rodger were somehow exacerbated by “male fantasies of wish fulfillment and vigilante justice” generated by Hollywood downmarket filmmakers. She mentioned Neighbors in particular, presumably because it’s fairly recent and is chockablock with depictions of college-age bacchanalia, and that’s what set Rogen and Apatow off. Here’s Hornaday’s measured response:

Amat Escalante‘s Heli (6.13, NY & LA) “is a starkly drawn, no-frills, deeply ugly Mexican art film about the ravaging of Mexican society by drug traffickers and how poor people always take it in the neck,” I wrote on 5.13.13. “I respect Escalante (Sangre, Los Bastardos) and his austere mindset, but there would have to be something wrong with anyone who says they ‘liked’ this movie. It uncovered every dark and fatalistic thought I’ve had about my life and about life in general, and generally sent me into a black-dog mood pit.

“Heli is about a family of poor Mexican rurals living near the very lowest rung of everything — income, education, opportunity, consciousness. I would rather kill myself than live a life like this — no computers, no wifi, no Blurays, no film festivals, no love, no laughter to speak of. The movie is basically saying life for these guys goes from drab and depressing to flat-out ghastly due to the drug-dealing malevolence that’s plaguing much of Mexico.

Smelling flowers, staring at the stars and falling in love are delightful and free, yes, but if you haven’t found at least some financial comfort or stability in life you’re probably going to be so anxious and fretful that you’ll never even think to smell flowers or stare at the stars. And no woman is going to give you the time of day if you’re living hand-to-mouth, much less fall in love with you. You really do need dough to be happy. It takes the edge off things and allows you to smile every so often. It allows you to wear better socks and high-thread-count T-shirts and ride cool bicycles and belong to health clubs and afford an occasional dinner at a nice restaurant. They say that money can’t buy you love in this world, but it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine and a 16 year-old girl in a great big long limousine on a warm September night. Now, that may not be love but it is all right.

I spoke earlier today to screenwriter, producer and novelist Terry Hayes, who was in Toronto plugging his new novel, I Am Pilgrim, a half Le Carre and half-Ludlum spy thriller about fierce conflict between a tortured western intelligence agent and a jihad-committed Islamic nutter. The cheerful Hayes, a steadfast HE reader who enjoys the general air of eccentricity (including, he says, the postings of LexG), is best known as the screenwriter of George Miller‘s The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Phillip Noyce‘s Dead Calm, Brian Helgeland‘s Payback and Albert and Allen Hughes‘ From Hell. He didn’t work on George Miller‘s forthcoming Mad Max: Fury Road (5.15), the reboot with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron but he swears it’s a game-changer or words to that effect. We talked for about a half-hour and pledged to meet some day in Los Angeles, perhaps with Mr. Noyce making it three. Again, the mp3.

I Am Pilgrim author Terry Hayes.

Yesterday Indiewire asked me to contribute to their tabulation of favorite films and performances by Cannes-attending critics. They won’t be posting the final results until tomorrow (i.e., Wednesday), which feels a teensy bit drag-assy. The Cannes Film Festival has been over for four days now, Variety posted their critics’ faves yesterday and the world is moving on. So in the spirit of “time waits for no one” and “no dawdling,” here are the picks I sent along yesterday:

Best Film: 1. Leviathan, 2. Wild Tales, 3. Maps to the Stars, 4. Foxcatcher, 5. Lost River (A for effort, at least cribbing from the right people).

Complaint: Why have I been the only one to bluntly state the obvious after-fact that Leviathan was shafted by the jury? The 3D Godard film gets to share the jury prize and Leviathan gets a piddly screenplay award? Those who attended Cannes and saw all the films know what bullshit that was, and yet after the award ceremony they all said “oh, excellent, fine…the jury has spoken!” and “what a great year it was!” and other alpha-softball stuff.

Best Lead Performance (either gender): 1. Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Leviathan; 2. Julianne Moore, Maps to the Stars; 3. Erica Rivas, the angry, vengeful bride in Wild Tales, 4. Anne Dorval, Mommy, 5. Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night.

Note: I couldn’t understand more than half of Timothy Spall‘s performance in Mr. Turner as he spoke from deep inside his throat with a lower-class accent. I might have voted for him if there were subtitles.