Does ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Have What We’re Looking For?

May 27, 2025

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A couple of schemeers (Credit: Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.)

Starring: Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham

Director: Wes Anderson

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Gunshots, Plane Crashes, and Mid-century Tobacco

Release Date: May 30, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s 1950, and businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) is at an impasse. He’s trying to complete a major infrastructure project, but he finds himself the victim of several assassination attempts and a consortium of rival tycoons trying to box him out from all of his moneymaking endeavors. Sensing that his demise may be imminent, he summons his nun-in-training daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) from the convent to inform her that he’s making her his sole heir. Then the two of them journey off along with his sons’ tutor Bjørn (Michael Cera) to close the funding gap for his project and maybe also discover who killed Liesl’s mother years ago.

What Made an Impression?: Is Redemption Possible?: Zsa-zsa is introduced as a ruthless capitalist who pretty much deserves to be assassinated. He might have even also killed Liesl’s mom! But does this rapscallion have the capacity for change? I must say, it’s hard not to notice some softening. Maybe it’s the visions of pearly gates, maybe it’s Liesl’s pious but nonjudgmental influence, but somehow someway he’s inching towards respectability. By the end, there are still plenty of grievous missteps on his ledger that he must accept responsibility for, but I mostly bought the redemption.
They Shoot, They Score!: My favorite scene in The Phoenician Scheme features Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as a pair of brothers playing basketball against Zsa-zsa and Riz Ahmed’s prince character. They call it 2-on-2, first-to-5, but it’s really a round of H-O-R-S-E. But who cares about technicalities when H&C relish tossing the rock this much? They might be AARP-eligible, but they’re looking more athletic than they ever have.
Silly Voices and Such: I’m not a super-fan of Wes Anderson, but I enjoy him well enough to consistently appreciate his fastidious eye for detail and ability to ground over-the-top fashion and quirky architecture. That works best in this feature in terms of the ridiculous accents that are occasionally revealed as put-ons for outlandishly simple disguises.* I chuckled heartily. (*Richard Ayoade, in contrast, deploys what I believe is his adorably natural voice as a communist revolutionary.)
A Star Takes Her Vows: Del Toro may be Number 1 on the call sheet, but I suspect that Threapleton will be enjoying the majority of the buzz. She’s the daughter of Kate Winslet and Jim Threapleton, so gird yourself if you have an aversion to nepo babies. But regardless of her heritage, she sets herself apart as a unique screen presence as she pulls off the neat trick of making us fall in love with a bride of Christ. Or maybe that’s actually the easiest task in the world, because of the taboo aspect of it all. Either way, she nails it.

The Phoenician Scheme is Recommended If You: Have an Endless Wes Andersonian Appetite, Forever and Ever, Amen

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Hand Grenades

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ is Maybe a Little Too Chill

March 21, 2024

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Ghostbust a Move (CREDIT: Sony Pictures)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Dan Aykroyd, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Alyn Lind, Celeste O’Connor, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton, James Acaster, Annie Potts, Bill Murray

Director: Gil Kenan

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Paranormal Freakiness

Release Date: March 22, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Ghostbusting generations old and new are back in business again. And not a moment too soon, because New York City is about to be targeted with some apocalyptic shenanigans. When an opportunistic slacker (Kumail Nanjiani) sells a suspicious orb to Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), the captive spirits in the Busters’ firehouse start acting rather fishy. Well, fishier than usual. It turns out that a millennia-old supernatural being named Garraka might just be trying to make a comeback. And if he has to freeze the Big Apple in the middle of summer to pull it off, well, then that’s just what he’s going to do. Meanwhile, Phoebe Spengler (McKenna Grace) is feeling adrift, because she’s still a minor and can’t fully participate in the family business. So she starts hanging out with a seemingly friendly ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), although Melody may just have her own machinations in mind.

What Made an Impression?: What’s Cooler Than Being Cool?: Frozen Empire is in no rush to deliver on its core premise. The icy villain doesn’t show up in full until the final act, so his ultimate defeat isn’t exactly filled with tension. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made more sense to invert this approach. That is to say, let New York freezing over be the inciting incident, and then figure out from there how to thaw it out. Instead, director Gil Kenan and co-screenwriter Jason Reitman (who inherited the franchise from his father while directing 2021’s Afterlife) mostly aim for a hangout vibe, with a bunch of random ghosts creating mild chaos while the human characters chit-chat about their favorite paranormal topics.
The Gang’s All Here: One of the major promises of Afterlife was the return of the original Ghostbusters, but that basically just amounted to a glorified cameo. This time around, Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts are all actually fully fledged members of the cast, which somewhat downplays the need to just play the greatest hits. So while Frozen Empire isn’t overly burdened by fanservice (give or take a scene of Paul Rudd earnestly admitting that busting makes him feel good), it’s never fully clear what the context of this world is, vis-a-vis the wider public’s recognition or lack thereof that ghosts exist. They sure seem rather ubiquitous, but there are still authority figures (like William Atherton reprising his role from the original) trying to shut down any busting operation, when it feels like the citizenry ought to be demanding that the Ghostbusters be added to the list of government-provided emergency services.
Who Believes in Ghosts?: If there are more Ghostbusters adventures to come, and I think there just might be, why not take an approach similar to that of the Fast and the Furious series and invite back into the fold everyone who’s ever been in a Ghostbusters movie? Frozen Empire kind of utilizes this approach, but the next chapter could take it even further by re-enlisting the likes of the Lady Ghostbusters. Then just focus on crafting a sufficient new big bad and ignore the fight to win over the hearts and minds of the public. That battle’s surely already been won! Frozen Empire hints towards this maximalist approach, but it’s a little too attached to its underdog roots to really run with it.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is Recommended If You Like: Talking to ghosts, but pretending that you’re too cool to talk to ghosts

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Proton Packs

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Review-a-mania

March 12, 2023

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Oh my God, Ant-Man admit it! (CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Kathryn Newton, Jonathan Majors, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Dastmalchian, Katy O’Brian, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Corey Stoll

Director: Peyton Reed

Running Time: 124 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: February 17, 2023 (Theaters)

I liked the beginning of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, because it was bright and sunny, both literally and metaphorically. I also liked the end, because it was once again bright and sunny. But I didn’t like the parts in the Quantum Realm as much, because they were quite dark. I saw it two days after my birthday, and it definitely wasn’t the best birthday movie, so it’s good that I didn’t see it on the exact anniversary of my expulsion from a uterus.

While the credits were unspooling, a youngster of about six told his dad, “I hate this movie,” as he walked past me. I try not to hate, but I kept holding my head at a weird angle while watching, and that wasn’t good for my neck. Both literally and metaphorically.

Grade: Infinity Plus 3 out of Infinity Times 2 Kangs

‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is Very Similar to the First ‘Ghostbusters,’ and I Would Be Very Surprised If Anyone Argued Differently

November 16, 2021

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (CREDIT: Screenshot)

Starring: McKenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Bokeem Woodbine

Director: Jason Reitman

Running Time: 125 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Shooting Lasers at Those Ghosts

Release Date: November 19, 2021 (Theaters)

Ghostbusters: Afterlife plays all the biggest hits of the original Ghostbusters, but in rural Oklahoma instead of Manhattan. A gluttonous spook chomping away, squishy treats running amok, hellbeasts hooking up, “Who you gonna call?” – it’s all right here! It’s like a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live: perfectly professional, and it probably works best for those who haven’t seen the first edition. As for those who were around for the original, there’s the thrill – or sting – of familiarity. This time around, the main busters are a few precocious kids, as opposed to a crew of childlike adults, so the vibe is at least a little different, although pretty much everyone involved takes great pains to capture that 1984 mojo as best they can.

I frequently wonder why repetition is demonized so much more in cinema than it is in other mediums. Revivals are an essential piece of live theater, musicians are expected to play the same songs over and over at their concerts, superhero comic books thrive on retelling the same stories, etc. But when you trot out a repeat at the movie house, you might draw big crowds, though you likely won’t win much critical praise, at least not as much as you did the first go-round. It probably has something to do with scale and budget. It takes years to assemble sequels and reboots, so there is a lot riding on them to be worth it. Ghostbusters: Afterlife plays it safe, so we’ll probably continue to see proton packs around town for decades to come, but I don’t know if anyone will also start emulating Paul Rudd’s plaid ensembles. (Well, maybe they will, but less because of this movie and more because he’s the Sexiest Man Alive.)

I didn’t want to be preoccupied by all this context while watching Afterlife, but it’s kind of unavoidable when you’re as plugged into culture as much as I am. When I try to think about this movie in and of itself, I can at least say that I appreciate that Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard were free to do their own thing, more or less. And there is one scene that I must admit is just undeniably satisfying, and that is when a bunch of Stay Puft marshmallows impishly run amok in a brand name department store. It’s cute and chaotic – an eternally winning combination. It’s also curious and a little unpredictable, which are qualities that the rest of the movie could have definitely benefited from.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is Recommended If You Like: SNL recurring sketches, the Minions going shopping in the first Despicable Me, Dead actors resurrected by technology

Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Spooks

‘The French Dispatch’ Presents a Journalistic Panorama

October 19, 2021

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The French Dispatch (CREDIT: Searchlight Pictures. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved)

Starring: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, Wally Wolodarsky, Anjelica Bette Fellini, Anjelica Huston, Jarvis Cocker, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, Tony Revolori, Adrien Brody, Léa Seydoux, Lois Smith, Henry Winkler, Bob Balaban, Denis Menochet, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Alex Lawther, Mohamed Belhadjine, Nicolas Avinée, Lily Taleb, Toheeb Jimoh, Rupert Friend, Cécile de France, Guillaume Gallienne, Christoph Waltz, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Winston Ait Hellal, Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Hippolyte Girardot

Director: Wes Anderson

Running Time: 103 Minutes

Rating: R for Art Model Nudity, Surprising Sexual Partners, and Some Language Here and There

Release Date: October 22, 2021 (Theaters)

The French Dispatch is about the staff and subjects of an American magazine that covers a small but colorful fictional French town. It’s published as an insert in the Liberty, Kansas Evening Star newspaper, so it’s basically like a midwestern Parade, but with the vibe of The New Yorker. Which all begs the question: who is the intended audience of The French Dispatch*? (*The fictional newspaper, that is, not the movie of the same name. [Although by extension, you could ask the same thing about the movie, though that conversation would be a little different.]) It feels like somebody dared Wes Anderson to create an anthology film of the most esoteric stories ever and he then declared, “Challenge accepted.” As I watched I wondered what made these stories worth telling, and I believe that the answer is: they’re worth telling because they’re worth telling. So in that way, The French Dispatch is very much like Little Women.

The fictional French town in this movie is called Ennui-sur-Blasé, which literally translates as “Boredom-on-Blasé,” but there’s no way you’ll be bored while watching a film that’s as overstuffed as this one. Overwhelmed, perhaps, but not bored. (But if somehow you are bored, please let me know about your experience. It’s interesting when someone’s reaction is so different than mine!) The anthology structure is composed into five sections, two to set the context and three to dive deep. First up is an introduction of the staff, particularly editor-in-chief Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), a my-way-or-the-highway type, except when he readily makes concessions to his writers’ peculiarities. Then travel writer Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) takes us on a bicycle tour to provide color for the town. The fleshed-out stories include the journalist-subject pairings of Tilda Swinton covering incarcerated artist Benicio Del Toro; Frances McDormand covering student revolutionaries led by Timothée Chalamet and Lyna Khoudri; and Jeffrey Wright as a food journalist covering the story of a police officer’s kidnapped son that also features a very talented chef.

The French Dispatch is a love letter to a time and a place when you could throw whatever budget you felt like at whatever story you felt like covering. Based on the accounts of people who were involved in that era, that characterization actually isn’t that far off from how 20th century American journalism really was run. But it’s so different from journalism’s current state of affairs that it might as well be from another universe. Appropriately enough then, The French Dispatch felt to me like it was beaming in from an alternate dimension. I don’t know how these stories could have ever possibly been conceived, but I’m glad that I’ve now experienced them.

The French Dispatch is Recommended If You Like: The New Yorker, Symmetrical geometric arrangements, French pop music, Skinny mustaches

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Bylines

Movie Review: ‘The Dead Don’t Die,’ And Neither Does the Droll Energy in Jim Jarmusch’s Zombie Goof-Off

June 10, 2019

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CREDIT: Abbot Genser/Focus Features

Starring: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, RZA, Carol Kane, Selena Gomez, Tom Waits, Austin Butler, Eszter Balint, Luka Sabbat, Larry Fessenden

Director: Jim Jarmusch

Running Time: 103 Minutes

Rating: R for Ironic, But Visceral Zombie Violence

Release Date: June 14, 2019 (Limited)

Sometime around 2010, it was determined that it was every filmmaker’s God-given right to make their very own zombie movie. In the case of Jim Jarmusch, he was divinely matched with The Dead Don’t Die, a droll, occasionally fourth wall-breaking portrait of ravaged-by-the-undead small town life patrolled by Police Officers Bill Murray and Adam Driver. In a post-Shaun of the Dead world, The Dead Don’t Die is far from necessary, but it is sufficiently diverting. It adds an environmental wrinkle to the zombie mythos, as fracking is implied to be the culprit behind the upending of nature. If Jarmusch is crying out for us to protect the Earth, that warning is perhaps a little too late, considering how disastrous climate change has already become. But that’s no big deal (for the movie, that is – the planet is screwed), as he seems to have more goofball ideas on his mind anyway.

The zombie blood and guts are sufficiently hardcore, with the bodily fluids as wet and unleashed as the dialogue is dry and bottled-up. But the main attraction are not the ghouls so much as the characters and their unique ways of being human and/or inhuman. That is to say, while Tilda Swinton has badass sword skills as the town’s new undertaker, it’s more amusing that she gets to lean into a hardcore Scottish persona. This is the type of movie in which Selena Gomez tells Caleb Landry Jones, “Your film knowledge is impressive,” after he mentions some pretty basic info about George Romero, and then Larry Fessenden refers to Gomez and her friends who are passing through town as “hipsters from the city” and “hipsters with their irony” (the odds seem to be that they’re from Cleveland). If that sounds hilarious to you, you know who you are, and you can expect to mostly be satisfied, though you may (or may not) have issues with the shaggy, shambling plot structure.

The Dead Don’t Die is Recommended If You Like: Remaining at an ironic remove, but not being too-cool-for-school about it

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Diner Coffee Pots

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Isle of Dogs’ is an Adorable Allegorical Adventure About the Dangers of Fascism

March 20, 2018

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CREDIT: Fox Searchlight Pictures

This review was originally published on News Cult in March 2018.

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Kunichi Nomura, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Akira Ito, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Mari Natsuki, Fisher Stevens, Nijiro Murakami, Liev Schreiber, Courtney B. Vance

Director: Wes Anderson

Running Time: 101 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Dog-on-Dog Violence and Dictatorial Tendencies

Release Date: March 23, 2018 (Limited)

“Whatever happened to man’s best friend?” Nothing, right? We human beings still love dogs, and that cannot possibly ever change! But what if something so terrible happened that it could make us turn on them? One of the functions of fiction is training ourselves to handle horrible hypotheticals. Thus, with the stop-motion animated Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson has delivered an invaluable how-to guide for if the world should ever turn so severely on our furry companions.

Twenty years in the future, Japan has banished its entire canine population to the bluntly literally named Trash Island, due to a widespread outbreak of snout fever and dog flu. The two conditions appear to be connected as how HIV can lead to AIDS. In this dystopia, the fear from those in charge that the disease could spread to humans is enough to override any bounty of puppy love, despite promising progress for a cure. So intrepid folks must step up on their own to save the dogs, like the young boy Atari (Koyu Rankin), an orphaned ward of the state adopted by his distant uncle, Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura). Atari ventures to Trash Island to save his canine protector Spots (Liev Schreiber), who also happens to be the outbreak’s Dog Zero. Joining up with him in his quest are a group of other cast-off dogs with variations on the same sort of name – Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum) – as well as Chief (Bryan Cranston), the fiercely independent stray who has always lived on his own.

An island entirely populated by dogs might sound like the pinnacle of Wes Anderson giving into his most indulgent instincts, but the darkness of the premise is enough to assuage any of those concerns. Plus, the animation does not hold back from the more aesthetically displeasing elements. These pups are mangy, with fur falling off and distorted pupils. They are also fairly irritable; one early standoff results in an ear getting bit off. Isle of Dogs works as an adventure film as well as it does because it does not back away from the danger, while still bringing plenty of fun to that peril. Fight scenes are portrayed in cartoon chaos clouds, while an accidental trip through a trash incinerator is met with droll acceptance. The set pieces are whimsical, but the stakes are life-or-death.

Isle of Dogs could easily be appreciated just for its surface level sensations, but like so many talking animal flicks, there is an allegory lurking not too far below. And considering current worldwide political trends, Wes Anderson’s anti-fascist storytelling is profoundly welcome. Quarantining a contagious population is an understandable disease control tactic, but what happens to these dogs is more banishment than quarantine. And when a solution appears to be possible, Mayor Kobayashi hides that development for the sake of retaining power, trotting out clearly fraudulent election results in the process. BoJack Horseman-style anthropomorphic dogspeak (“my brother from another litter”) helps it go down easy, but these are heavy ideas that deserve and are granted careful consideration.

A few more items worth noting: even though the setting is Japan, the dogs just about exclusively speak English, even when communicating with humans speaking Japanese. In fact, there is a good deal of American and Japanese cultural mixing. All the political machinations are translated by an interpreter (Frances McDormand), apparently for American and other English-speaking audiences, and an American exchange student (Greta Gerwig) leads a revolt against Kobayashi. The bilingual setup feels woven together mostly seamlessly, though I do wonder if Asian audiences might have a different take on the matter than I do. And I would be terribly remiss if I did not mention Alexandre Desplat’s excellent score, pounded along by unrelenting taiko drums, keeping the tension both constantly uneasy and delicious.

Isle of Dogs is Recommended If You Like: Wes Anderson Symmetry, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Animal Farm, Zootopia, The Goonies, BoJack Horseman

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Puppy Snaps