The Phoenician Scheme

Posted on June 6, 2025 by Doc

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

Dream Scenario

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Doc

We got a new Nic Cage movie released this weekend focusing on celebrity and the potential toxicity that comes along with that. It was called Dream Scenario.

Nic Cage played a college professor named Paul Matthews, a hapless man who is just going through an unremarkable life. Then, one day, he discovered that people were all dreaming about him, people that he did not know. Paul would just walk through the dream like an observer, doing nothing to help the person. It got to the point where real life Paul was feeling guilt over not helping despite the fact that he had zero control over it.

As this phenomenon went viral, Paul started to become well known and in demand. This is, until the dreams he was appearing in began to turn dark and nightmarish. The people who were fascinated by Paul before turned on him quickly, forcing Paul into trying to get through his life.

Nicolas Cage was sensational as Paul, playing completely against his typical character. Paul was frumpy and depressed, unable to understand why things were happening and why people were turning on him considering he had done nothing wrong. You can’t help be feel sorry for Paul considering things were happening that were totally out of his own control.

I really enjoyed this film, but I will say that the ending did not strike as well as I would have liked it. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that without diving into spoilers. Suffice it to say that I did not love the way the film concluded.

There were some funny scenes of the film, which is listed by A24 as a comedy/horror film. I’m not sure that is an accurate classification, but there are several funny moments. Nicolas Cage does great job bringing this schulb to life, and seeing what happens to him is a warning about the fickleness of pop culture as well as a commentary on cancel culture.

3.8 stars