Remember when Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from films? Since then he hasn’t stopped making new movies. His latest, “The Laundromat,” starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, Matthias Schoenaerts, James Cromwell and Sharon Stone. It’s coming to Netflix on September 27th after it makes the festival circuit this fall.

Soderbergh must like working with Streep. He’s already made a second movie with her called “Let Them All Talk,” and it’s based on the Elvis Costello song. It’s kind of like a “Love Boat” as three widows take a cruise– Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen. Lucas Hedges and Gemma Chan are the young people along for the ride.

How do we know? Thanks to the intrepid photographer/journalist Candice Bergen, who still has “Murphy Brown” blood in her veins. She’s posted the news to Instagram, along with a photo of Soderbergh in his tricked out wheelchair used to film tracking shots. Very clever. It seems from Candice’s Instagram that they shot part of the film– or maybe all of it– on the Queen Mary 2 from New York to Southampton, England.

There have been other biopics of actresses with tragic lives in recent years. Annette Bening did a wonderful job playing Gloria Grahame last year in “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool.” It’s the kind of role that Oscar voters eat up.

Renee Zellweger’s Judy Garland movie “Judy,” has already gotten a substantial amount of press with screenings at Telluride and another premiere set for Toronto. You may think you know Garland’s story– it’s one of those great divas in distress sagas that seems to age pretty well.

Even if you don’t know about Judy Garland’s career starting at age 2, her teen years opposite Mickey Rooney in musical comedies and Andy Hardy movies, her meteoric rise to fame with “The Wizard of Oz,” not to mention the husbands, the highs, and the lows, you will now. That’s because Renee Zellweger is so good in this role she’s going to reignite a new generation of Garland fans.

Renee already has her own Oscar from “Cold Mountain” and plenty of her own iconic roles from “Jerry Maguire” to “Chicago” to the Bridget Jones series. But she recently took a six year break from acting and attended to her own life, before returning in Rupert Goold’s tailor made star vehicle.

We know from her turn in “Chicago” that Renee can sing. And we know she can act. But as Garland I think she’s doing something we’ve never seen before. She pulls all of her talents together. Is she as good as Bening was as Grahame– yes, definitely. But then you get the value added of the singing, and Zellweger does not imitate Garland so much as embody her while still keeping her own Renee-ness accessible. It’s quite a feat.

Goold and his production team make the most of a small budget, that’s for sure. He relies on a lot of close ups– Zellweger really pulls off Judy in her late 40s perfectly even though time has ravaged the character in ways Renee could not imagine for herself. Kudos to the makeup department, set and production design people for being unsparing and sympathetic at the same time.

The movie is based on the stage play “End of the Rainbow” by Peter Quilter, adapted here economically by Tom Edge (“The Crown” among other TV scripts). When we see Judy as an adult — Goold cuts back and forth to movie mogul LB Mayer torturing her during the “Oz” shoot — she’s down on her luck. She’s 46 years old, divorced, penniless. Daughter Liza is about 22, and on her own. But Judy has two teenagers with Sid Luft– Lorna and Joey–for whom she’s fighting unsuccessfully for custody.

Into the mix comes the man who will be her final husband, Mickey Deans (an excellent Finn Wittrock) who joins her as she heads to London to make money doing shows in the West End. But Judy is so addled from pills and booze, it’s clear the clock is ticking. Even when she’s most self-destructive, Zellweger has Garland on a tight leash. She’s funny, witty, really, and endearing. And when she has to rise to the occasion and deliver a big number, she can do it.

Zellweger can’t imitate Garland’s specific, multi-colored voice. But she can approximate it enough, adding her own features, that she can find the retreating diva. The performance will earn her lots of nominations and maybe even an Oscar depending on what resources Roadside Attractions puts into a campaign. I often make fun of Roadside, they’re blown a lot of good opportunities. But if they mess this up, they won’t be taken seriously by anyone ever again. And it would be heartbreaking for Zellweger, who really turns what could have been a much told tale into a gem. If anyone ever doubted her place in Hollywood, they’ll be in a for a lovely surprise.

Twenty one years ago, in 1998, French filmmaker Olivier Meyrou filmed Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge for a documentary that was never released.

Now “Celebration” is coming to New York’s Film Forum on October 2nd after much wrangling. It’s been shown twice in the last two decades, the last time in the fall of 2018. A version premiered at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, but Berge shelved it.

In the interim two narrative films about Saint Laurent appeared, but neither one of them captured the mercurial designer. Some filmmakers have seen the documentary including Paul Thomas Anderson, whose “Phantom Thread” is said to have been greatly influenced by it. (There are said to be similar scenes.)

YSL is one of the best known brand names in the world, yet Saint Laurent himself was mystery. He retired from public view years before his death, with Berge representing him personally and professionally. Going back to 1998, right before he sold his company to Gucci, and ten years before his death, should be illuminating.

Warner Bros.’ uneasy summer of 2019 is over. Now the fun begins.

“It: Chapter Two” reviews are in, and they are very, very strong. The movie has an 85 on Rotten Tomatoes, with 47 reviews in so far. For a horror film, you can’t do much better. “It 2” should open to $100 million this weekend, even with its long running time.

Warners can then look forward to “The Joker,” also pointing at a $100 million opening soon. Plus there’s plenty of Oscars and awards talk around the Joaquin Phoenix-Todd Phillips effort. This could be “A Star is Born” all over again, with even better results.

Warners also has a sleeper, I hear, with Bill Condon’s “The Good Liar,” starring only such newcomers as Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. Everyone’s raving about it from advance screenings.

And let’s not forget “Blinded by the Light.” Even though it’s had a slow start, the Springsteen-scored comedy made more than $1 million in its third weekend. There’s life in it, yet!

And down the line, in December: Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell movie. “The Mule” made $103 million last winter with little push. This one will do as well, if not better. Clint is forever!

I told you last week that John Travolta, king of the B and C movies, was heading toward a big disaster with “The Fanatic.”

Well, in 52 theaters last night, “The Fanatic” made $3,153.00. And no cents. Its three day total is likely to be less than $10,000, with Labor Day bringing it up to $13,000 at best.

“The Fanatic” isn’t rated by the MPAA and has no actual distribution. In New York, it’s playing at the Cinema Village on East 12th, one show a day at 9:30pm. Rotten Tomatoes critics have given it an 18 out of 100. The movie will go to video in a couple of weeks.

As I wrote last week, this is Travolta’s umpteenth bad movie, unreleaseable, flop. It’s been a decade since he was in anything considered a hit. That would be 2009’s “Old Dog.” He’s squandered several comebacks, the most recent being his mid 90s run with “Pulp Fiction” and “Face/Off.” He was in one film back then that I really liked, “Phenomenon.” But otherwise, it’s a resume of crap.

What killed Travolta’s career? Scientology? His bizarre personal life? All his hair pieces? Hard to say. But he hasn’t taken his career seriously, and the result is he’s pretty much hit bottom.