Author Archives: Doc

The Phoenician Scheme

Posted on by

Man, who could possibly guess who directed this movie?

I am being sarcastic because this movie is about as much of a Wes Anderson movie as you are ever going to see. There are traits about a movie directed by Wes Anderson and this provided just about every one of them.

For me, Wes Anderson movies are hit or miss. I loved Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore. Asteroid City and The French Dispatch are examples of Wes Anderson movies I could do withotu.

The Phoenician Scheme was a lot of fun and I found it to be totally funny.

According to IMDB, “Wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda appoints his only daughter, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins.“

I think what made this work for me was the comic timing of Benicio Del Toro, who played Zsa-zsa Korda. He had chemistry with every actor he interacted with and he delivered these eccentric lines of dialogue with just the right amount of sincerity that made it really funny.

While there was no sign of Edward Norton, the Anderson cast of actors that appear in a lot of his movies were here too including Michael Cera, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Scarlet Johansson, and Bill Murray. You could add some other great actors such as Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Rupert Friend, Steven Park, and Richard Ayoade.

Along with all of these established veterans, starring opposite Del Toro was Mia Threapleton. Threapleton, who is Kate Winslet’s daughter, showed that she is anything but a “nepo baby” as she was outstanding in her role as Liesl. She exuded the tone of a Wes Anderson movie perfectly, really helping set up Del Toro’s lines and scenes.

The dialogue was rich and exciting in this film. I really enjoyed just listening to the actors deliver these lines and how they were able to play off of each other. The dialogue helped balance out the craziness that was going on in each scene.

If you do not enjoy Wes Anderson movies, this one is not for you. However, I found this to be very enjoyable and humorous.

4 stars

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina

Posted on by

The first spin-off movie from the world of John Wick was released this weekend. Ballerina featured Ana de Armas as Eve, a character that appeared originally in John Wick: Chapter 4.

This film is a prequel to John Wick: Chapter 4 as Keanu Reeves appears in the film as John Wick and, of course, he “died” in the last John Wick movie.

According to IMDB, “An assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father’s death.”

So I like this movie. I love Ana de Armas and the action is really great. My problem with Ballerina is the same I have with the John Wick franchise. There is just so much fighting and shooting that it, at times, becomes sort of repetitive. There are some moments that the action can become boring. Most of it is great, but it feels as if I could use some more breaks during the runtime.

And that is a minor gripe. I think most of this is really solid and, as I said, I like the characters and the story.

The cast is great. Along with Armas and Reeves, we get other John Wick performers such as Ian McShane, the late Lance Reddick, and Anjelica Huston. We also have Gabriel Byrne, Norman Reedus, Ava Joyce McCarthy and Catalina Sandino Moreno.

The movie gave us another viable franchise to use in the John Wick universe. Who knows how long Keanu Reeves’ body can hold up to do this type of action, but Ana de Armas could definitely hold her own.

3.8 stars

Wick is Pain

Posted on by

June 6

The June Swoon documentary day continued.

Since I am heading out to see Ballerina later this afternoon, I figured this would be a good day to use Wick is Pain as the June Swoon 4 film.

The doc details the creation, filming, and the inside stories behind the filming of the John Wick franchise. Keanu Reeves is sprinkled throughout the doc with his thoughts on what was going on. Many times, you can see the excitement of Reeves over the imagery or action on the screen.

The doc goes into detail on the death of the dog in the first film and how it almost did not get made because of all of the struggles and challenges.

The spent a lot of time with the stuntmen of the series. There was an insane footage shared of a certain fall where the stuntman, Jackson Spidell, landed on his head and then had to do it again.

John Wick director Chad Stahelski, who was Reeve’s primary stunt double earlier (including The Matrix), is included heavily in the thoughts.

This is a lot of fun and fans of the John Wick franchise should love this documentary.

3.75 stars

The Only Girl in the Orchestra

Posted on by

June 6

It is documentary day in the June Swoon.

Because of busy day at the theater, I decided that today I would watch the Academy Award winning documentary short for the first film of the day. It was called The Only Girl in the Orchestra, and it was a celebration of Orin O’Brien, the first woman to become a member of the New York Philharmonic.

O’Brien played the double bass the doc came about as she was retiring from her position.

It felt like this was too short and that this topic could sustain a much longer documentary. O’Brien was an interesting topic as someone who just did not want to be in the spotlight. She said, in the doc, “I didn’t have any ambition of being a soloist, I liked being in the background.“

She even revolted against the very idea of the documentary focusing on her. O’Brien’s niece, Molly O’Brien directed the documentary and tried to convince her that she a valuable topic.

Her passion for music definitely came through in this doc, even if it is too short. Oren O’Brien is a fascinating character that shines in the short.

A Working Man

Posted on by

June 5

A Working Man is just about what you would expect from a Jason Statham movie. He plays basically the same character he has played for many years now. That being said, a good revenge/one-person army thriller can be decent, especially if you know what you are getting, and this one is not terrible.

It’s not great either though.

According to IMDB, “Levon Cade (Statham) left his profession behind to work construction and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he’s asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counter-terrorism.”

I actually had some hopes at the beginning of the movie. They dropped a couple of ideas that made me think this might be more than just what I was expecting. Some character bits that, if expanded upon, could make this a surprise. Unfortunately, those bits were dropped as quickly as they were mentioned, and it absolutely went straight into the kind of movie that we have seen countless times.

Jason Statham is good in this type of role, but there is almost nothing new here. David Harbour appeared in the film, but his role was really small. Still, you can never go wrong with David Harbour.

There was a major plot thread left dangling, probably leaving it open for a potential sequel. However, that does not make it as satisfying as it could have been.

This is disposable entertainment and that can be okay at times. Again, if you are after that kind of movie, you could do worse than A Working Man, which felt like a poor man’s John Wick.

2.5 stars

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

Posted on by

June 5

This is another big week of books with a bunch of choices. I’m not even including the beautiful variant C cover for Pop Kill #4 by J. Scott Campbell because, though I did buy it, it was not for me. It would have definitely been in the conversation.

Because this is the second week with tough decisions, I have instituted a new section called the Also-Rans. These are the covers that were in consideration, but did not quite earn a medalists.

Also-Rans: Amazing Spider-Man #5 (Cover A), Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion #1 (Foil Variant), Be Not Afraid #1 (Virgin Cover), and Amazing Spider-Man #5 (D Cover)

We also have a second time ever TIE for the bronze. I just can not choose between the final two so…

Medalists…

Tie!

Bronze Medalists

The Terminator #8

Cover art by Declan Shalvey

I love this cover with the different grey squares as the Terminator skull is in the background. The Terminator covers have been solid during this run, but this is the first to medal.

Tie!

Mark Spears Monsters #5

Variant Cover C

Cover art by Mark Spears

Mark Spears continues his domination of the Favorite Covers of the Week with yet another awesome Monsters cover. The werewolf is wonderfully scary and I love the Todd McFarlane homage.

Silver Medalist

The Immortal Thor #24

Cover art by Alex Ross

This is a powerful image of Thor, done by the one and only, EYG Hall of Famer, Alex Ross. The lightning coming off Thor and mixing with the title is fabulous. Love this.

Gold Medalist

Return of the Living Dead #4

Cover art by Mark Spears

Brains! They are tasty… but not near as tasty as this new zombie cover from Mark Spears. There are so many details on his painting work that something as played out as zombies have an all-new feel to it.

Memoir of a Snail

Posted on by

June 5

The June Swoon entry today is the final of the 2025 Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Feature, Memoir of a Snail. It is an Australian stop motion film.

According to IMDB, “A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel – a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea pigs.”

The voice cast featured some of the top level Australian actors including Emmy and Tony Award winner Sarah Snook, Academy Award nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee, Academy Award nominee Jacki Weaver and actor Eric Bana.

This animated film is not one for kids. It is a distinctly adult story told in the stop action format. It is a funny film, with a very tragic feel.

The film was written, directed and produced by Adam Elliot and it was loosely based on his own life.

Even though the movie was dark, it had a remarkable flair for life and the eccentricities of the human condition. The film is chocked full of adult themes mixed in with the humor. It is powerful and deeply affecting. It is a wonderful example of what is possible in the animation style.

Screamboat

Posted on by

June 4

When I saw this for rent on Vudu, I expected it to be another film in the same vein as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. It had two movies and both were in the top 5 worst movies of their respective years. Taking the Steamboat Willie cartoon from public domain felt like the same kind of sad and pathetic attempt.

Make no mistake, this is a terrible movie….

But…

I don’t know… I guess I came in with the expectations of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, but Screamboat was better than that. It’s not good. Just better than Blood and Honey.

According to IMDB, “A seemingly routine late-night ferry ride in New York City descends into chaos when an ordinary mouse undergoes a terrifying transformation. This mutated creature unleashes a reign of terror upon the unsuspecting passengers, forcing them to fight for their survival. As the body count rises, the remaining survivors must band together to find a way to escape the deadly vessel and confront the monstrous threat“

The piece that felt better than Blood and Honey was this had a satiric side to it. The Steamboat Willie character itself had some funny parts. He would whistle just before killing his victim, much like Mickey would in the original Steamboat Willie animated movie. I kind of liked the backstory of Steamboat Willie, involving the man known as Walt. Some of the kills were sufficiently gross. There were a couple of characters that I wanted to survive the trip on the ferry.

What was bad about the film? Oh, let’s see… the acting, the dialogue was horrendous. Most of these characters were one-dimensional and there were these “bad girls” that I really wanted to get killed by the mouse. I was cheering for Willie when they did. The characters did some really stupid things and made some really stupid choices. Plenty of the choices made no sense. Of course, stupid characters are not uncommon for some horror films, especially the slasher ones. A couple of the deaths of our main characters felt underwhelming.

If I am being honest, there are some funny moments in the movie and they actually felt like they were intended it to be funny. There was one line of dialogue that made me laugh out loud. One character fired a flare gun at Willie and said “Say cheese, mother f@#$%.” I thought that was exceptionally funny.

This is nowhere as bad as either of the two Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movies and if you want a stupid movie to watch that has some dumb laughs and a murderous version of Mickey Mouse, you could do worse than this movie. Just know what kind of movie this is and do not expect much, and you might even have a passable time.

2.1 stars

Flow

Posted on by

Today’s entry in the June Swoon is an Academy Award winner, and you can see why. Flow won the Oscar for the Best Animated Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards, knocking off such luminaries as Wild Robot, Inside Out 2 and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

Flow follows the life of a dark grey cat that was living in a forest. A massive flood swept through the land, leading the cat to struggle to survive in a variety of ways.

During the film, the cat meets up with a group of different animals that form a sort of crew, especially while they were on a felucca. The cat joined up with a yellow Labrador Retriever, a ring-tailed lemur, a capybara and a secretary bird.

These animals were not anthropomorphic. They acted like the individual animals would act. The dog was playful and clearly looking to please. The lemur was a thief, collecting trinkets and shiny objects. The capybara, which is a type of rodent, laid around. There were some moments where it felt as if the animal characters transcended their natures and became something more.

The cat served as the POV of the film, as we see things through its eyes. The survival instincts of the cat was on display throughout the film in such a harrowing instance that you could not help but root for these animals.

I am a cat lover and so it was very easy to get into Flow. There were multiple perilous events along the path of this adventure that placed the cat in jeopardy. The whole showdown with the flock of secretary birds was tense and frightening.

There were a couple of scenes that went past just survival and looked at themes of life and death. One, involving the secretary bird, was a lovely moment that leaves you to deduce what exactly had occurred. There was a second scene involving a mutated whale that had saved the cat from drowning earlier in the movie. This scene was heartbreaking.

Flow was beautifully animated with such amazing visuals across the board. The artistic mastery created an incredible tone throughout Flow and some of the visuals with the cat and fish in the water was astounding.

With no dialogue, Flow was able to tell this story through some amazing characters and some fantastic music. According to Wikipedia, the cat of sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas provided the meows for the cat in the movie, which I thought was a funny piece of trivia. It also provided that realistic sound that enhanced the viewing treat.

While I am not sure if I would have given Flow the Oscar over The Wild Robot, there can be no denying that this is a masterful animated film full of life and love and friendship.

The X-Files S9 E10

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Providence”

This is the second part of the previous episode that focused on the mysterious group who was after Scully’s son, William.

The whole William storyline is the same type of weirdness that the X-Files has done over the years. I am not sure exactly what is accurate and what is just a red herring. It reminds me very much like the mystery behind Mulder’s sister, Samantha. You were never quite sure what was the truth and what was misdirection.

We do learn that Toothpick Man is a super soldier and his inner influence within the FBI makes him the new Cigarette Smoking Man. Again, I think of old CSM every time Toothpick Man shows up.

Agent Doggett is like a cat. He has to be on his sixth or seventh life by now. He just keeps coming back after near death time and again. Monica is by his side, but I still just could not care less about her at all.

Of course, Mulder is much like that too. He was dead, and now he is believed to be not dead. Cult leader Josepho told Scully that he would let her see William again when she confirmed Mulder’s death. He asked for her to bring him the head of Fox Mulder. How’d that turn out for ya, buddy? His threats felt fairly empty, especially after he and all the cult members wound up burned to death by the ship as it took off. William survived though, speaking even more to the destiny of this boy.

The Luckiest Man in America

Posted on by

June 3

I remember watching this as a kid. Press Your Luck was always a fun game show and anyone could do it. However, the world had no idea exactly how truthful that statement was until Michael Larson proved it to the world.

Larson was an unemployed ice cream truck driver who loved Press Your Luck. It started as what appeared to be an insanely lucky streak of avoiding the Whammies, but soon was revealed as something more.

In this biopic of one of the most infamous moments in game show history, The Luckiest Man in America provided us with the story of that day of tapings in 1984 that cemented Michael Larson as a notorious game show contestant who found the key to winning against the “Big Board.”

Larson had memorized the patterns of the board after months of research and he was putting those skills to test on the TV program. As he was winning at a consistent basis, the executives looked to prevent him from destroying their show.

Paul Walter Hauser played Michael Larson, showing surprising depth to the man. The film looked at Larson’s failed marriage and his relationship with his daughter as ways to show his motives for pulling this scam.

Walton Goggins played Peter Tomarkin, the host of the show. David Strathairn played Bill, a TV executive on the game show. Both of these actors were great in support of Hauser.

This is a fascinating true tale that I wonder how much is hyperbole and how much is true. Either way, this was an enjoyable character study of one of the most outrageous moments in Daytime TV history.

3.85 stars

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Posted on by

June 3

There were several animated movies that I missed out on in 2024, so there are several on the list for the June Swoon 4. The first one is the Oscar nominated Netflix film that returned to the stop action animation of the franchise Wallace & Gromit.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl sees the erstwhile inventor Wallace trying to help his trusty dog Gromit with his garden. Going over the top, Wallace created a robot to help… the “smart gnome” or Norbot. Meanwhile, master criminal Feathers McGraw, who had been captured by the police thanks to Wallace & Gromit, plotted a way to take control of the army of Norbots.

I had watched another Wallace & Gromit film (Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and I did not like it much. That was part of the reason that I did not watch this on Netflix last year. However, this was so much better than I expected. It was funny, clever and just a really enjoyable film.

The voice talents of Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel and Reece Shearsmith are on full display in the film.

The animation feels old school. The effort it takes to create a film using the stop action animation is considerable, and this crew does an amazing job with it. It never feels shorted or lacking, and delivers some excellent moments throughout, including a big action chase scene at the end.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl has one of the rarer accomplishments… 100% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I can see why. This was a lot of fun. It did not try to exceed what it does well and it did not overstay its welcome at a slim 79 minutes. This is available on Netflix.

The X-Files S9 E9

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Provenance”

The X-Files was back with the first part of a two-part episode that focused on Scully’s son William and the people trying to kill him.

It also brought back the spaceship from season seven. The ship that was found off the coast of Africa and that had words on it from the Bible, the Koran and other religious text.

The idea of a conspiracy continued with the FBI looking as if they are involved in a cover up, specifically of the spaceship. However, it appeared that they were trying to cover up the possibility that Mulder was dead.

This came from another FBI agent who had infiltrated a UFO cult and he reportedly discovered that Mulder was dead. Of course, I never once believed that. I’m sure I did not believe it back when this originally aired and I, of course, know that was not the case. Mulder’s deaths have been many over the years, and none of them seemed to stick.

Doggett is injured once again, this time hit by a car. He has been hurt more than anyone else in this series in just the short time that he has been on the show.

Monica was her normal, worthless self. I shouldn’t say that. She can take care of that baby. It seems as if the series had her around to be the babysitter.

The next episode is the second part of this story.