Latest news with #WesAnderson
The Hindu
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
‘The Phoenician Scheme' movie review: Wes Anderson on autopilot
Wes Anderson has always made beautiful cinematic snow globes, immune to external messiness. Minutes into his latest (and perhaps most terminally fussy) confection, it's clear this isn't top-shelf Anderson. It might not even be bottom-shelf. It's as if he's shredded his greatest hits and glued them back together with unchecked indulgence. Set in a fictional 1950s Middle Eastern country that resembles a Suez-era Cairo, The Phoenician Scheme follows the billionaire arms dealer and infrastructure savior Anatole 'Zsa-Zsa' Korda (Benicio Del Toro) as he attempts to outmaneuver a death plot, reconcile with the nun-daughter he abandoned in a convent, and bankroll a mega-project across a desert. The plan involves dubious shoeboxes, various foreign dignitaries, and divine intervention. At one point, Bill Murray appears as God. It is not as delightful as it sounds. The Phoenician Scheme (English) Director: Wes Anderson Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, and too many more of the 'Anderson Ensemble' to name Runtime: 105 minutes Storyline: A wealthy businessman appoints his only daughter as sole heir to his estate and embarks on an adventure to secure the future of his empire In theory, this angsty, Tintin-like adventure should be a riotous romp, but in practice, I found myself trapped for nearly two hours inside a ledger with fancy illustrations. There are pages upon pages of immaculately calligraphed industrial espionage and entomological trivia that's all underscored by a steady drip of aesthetic self-congratulation. Anderson's compositions have never been more elaborate, and that in itself is saying something. Each shot is like a diorama designed by an obsessive. We glimpse Renoir paintings, hand-drawn logbooks, fruit-themed grenades — everything, save for any semblance of emotional investment, is in perfect alignment. For all the ornamentation, The Phoenician Scheme is curiously barren. Del Toro's Korda is of mythic contradiction. He's a titan of industry, a crumbling patriarch, a possible murderer, and a man with nine adopted sons housed like rare collectibles in his palazzo. Del Toro plays him laconically, but it's far too taciturn a role to work. Newcomer Mia Threapleton, as Liesl, the nun-daughter dragged back into daddy's dealings, also attempts to inject vinegar into the script's saccharine rhythms, but their emotional arc falls frustratingly flat. The evergreen Michael Cera, however, is the unsurprising balm. As Bjorn, a soft-spoken Norwegian tutor-slash-secretary-slash-American spy-slash-exposition vehicle, Cera offers a twitchy earnestness and an adorable accent that cuts through the stylistic fog. The rest of the cast — Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mathieu Amalric — float in and out of the frames. What was once the charming idea of the 'Anderson Ensemble' has curdled into a parade of cameos, each trotting out banter like it's on a metronome. Pace is not the same as momentum, and quirk is not the same as character. These are truths Anderson seems increasingly unwilling, or unable, to accept. The Phoenician Scheme is not without its moments of wit, for it's hard to imagine any Anderson film entirely bereft of charm. But its pleasures are abstract and academic, the kind that encourages YouTube frame-freezing video essays and production design dissertations more than anything else. There are ghosts of better Anderson films haunting its hallways but none of them fully materialise. At its best, Anderson's cinema has always conjured the eccentricities and nostalgia of childhood recollected in tranquility. But The Phoenician Scheme feels nothing more than a proud auteur rifling through his own legacy in search of novelty. It's a 'monumental' work by Anderson, in the sense that it's a very, very boring edifice of lavish masonry. Its craftsmanship may impress on a second viewing, assuming you survive the first. Myself, I feel very safe. The Phoenician Scheme is currently running in theatres
Mint
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Wes Anderson's ‘The Phoenician Scheme' and Aamir Khan's ‘Sitare Zameen Par' — Hidden money lessons
Both Wes Anderson and Aamir Khan have a fan following that is set in their ways. Fans gave Aamir Khan a label 'Mr. Perfectionist'. Makes you wonder why he is remaking a movie - Woody Harrleson starrer Champions - about basketball, a sport that can be described as 'niche interest' for Indians and about a Chak De like plot but with differently abled young people. The debacle of Lal Singh Chaddha wasn't enough for him? Or do Indian writers not have any original stories? Wes Anderson is known for his films that are 'different'. The Phoenician Scheme is as niche as it gets. Fans will flock to watch a film that has big stars like Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Benedict Cumberbatch, and more… With Benicio Del Toro handing out live grenades to his relatives, fans have a big screen treat in store for them. . Two very different films with totally different plots offer money lessons to the smart investor. Aamir Khan plays an assistant basketball coach with a short fuse and yes, an even shorter temper. His personal failures earn him fines as well as community service (a concept introduced to the judicial system in India only in 2023). He has to coach a team of differently abled people - those who are autistic and afflicted with Down's Syndrome - and win like Kabir Khan a la Chak De, India!. This bunch of rag tag folk with different quirks - one won't bathe because he is afraid of water, but loves animals, another tends to stare at the sky to track flights, and there's one who is scammed by his employer to work at half the pay but longer hours… Every story is meant to touch your heartstrings, but because each comes with a moral science lesson, the film makes you want to upchuck into your popcorn. The film gets 'A' in its report card because the 'Sitare' team wins despite not winning. That lesson is just better than anything else the film tries to 'teach'. This should have been slotted for a Direct to OTT slot, because Woody Harrelson's Champions does the same job much better. If the film teaches us to be more inclusive and that 'our normal is our normal and their normal is their normal', but in front of these differently abled folk, I wish Aamir had at least tried to be genuine rather than put on an act. His whole schtick just feels hollow. But the film teaches us valuable money lessons. Financial stability often requires effort and adaptability. The movie shows that Hargobind, who is on the spectrum, does not trust coaches, and prefers to play alone. The coach has to win his trust, and get him to play in the team. Kudos to the director who manages to convince us that there is joy in playing the game and that winning is not everything. This can be a powerful lesson, reminding viewers that while financial security is important, it shouldn't be the only pursuit. The movie explores themes of overcoming personal struggles and finding redemption, both for Gulshan the grumpy coach and the team members. So take a quick break and call your personal finance manager just to say thank you. After all, your success is because you have a great team working with you. A businessman chooses his successor - his daughter, a young novice who insists she is going to become a nun. He has ten sons as well, who are happiest using a real crossbow aimed at dad. Dad though has survived many assassination attempts across many geographies. His assistants die horribly, and even though he has been shot at and suffered plane crashes, you sit there in the dark grinning. Wes Anderson is obviously going somewhere with these delightful attempted murders. The businessman Anatole 'Zsa Zsa' Korda (played by Benicio Del Toro) is going to divert waters and build a new expansive infrastructure (train, towns et al) across the desert. He has made deals with his family and friends. He needs to renegotiate deals to finish the railroad, which has just fallen short by a few feet. He could put his own money, but this is a Wes Anderson movie, so he embarks on a quest to meet and make new deals with every partner. Feels like a bit of a maths lesson, but who cares when the scheme by this rich man looks so enticing? Zsa Zsa even offers to marry his cousin (Scarlett Johanson!) and plays a game of basketball against Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston… The American government has sent a spy to figure out his business deals and if he's evading taxes. How he manages to survive a fight with his murderous brother (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a fun watch. As an investor though you must realise that investing your money into businesses with family and friends is great until you are faced with the disadvantages. There will always be someone who is dissatisfied with their share of earnings, dividends and what have you to trigger them into finding faults. Zsa Zsa is how we perceive rich oligarchs - travelling in their private jets, dodging taxes because they have different nationalities, men who think nothing of destabilizing governments and exploiting local workers and yes, fathering many children… If you work with someone like Zsa Zsa Korda, or have enough money to plan your own Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia, know the pitfalls of being rich: People will be out to get a slice of your wealth (learn to negotiate!); They will want to kill you (appoint your heirs on time, sign a living will with the help of a lawyer and update your bank KYCs); Have a Plan B in case you don't succeed at creating your Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia (Korda has cooking skills that help him start a restaurant!). And for God's sake, don't evade taxes. Wes Anderson's gallery of scoundrels gets an awesome addition with this beautifully detailed, stylish film. You step out of the theatre with a smile on your face and if you bump into someone who claims 'All Wes Anderson films are the same' you smile wider and reply, 'Help yourself to a grenade'. If only one could persuade Aamir Khan to wipe off that knowing 'I'm so good' smirk and get back to making movies, not moral science lessons. And yes, I also wish more people would watch Wes Anderson who refuses to make 'massy' movies… But will they listen? So I'm off to spend a little more of my hard earned money to watch Dhanush and drink overpriced multiplex coffee. Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer's forum, hosts Mumbai's oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.
The Onion
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Onion
You Sure You're In The Mood For Another Wes Anderson Film With Everything That's Going On?
Hey, guys. It's me, acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson. I just finished my latest movie, The Phoenician Scheme, and it's going to be great. It's got everything—an ensemble cast of A-listers, set designs to die for, and a mid-century setting in exotic locales. But real quick, before I go ahead and release it, I wanted to ask, are you sure you're still in the mood for one of my movies? You know, with everything that's been going on lately? I just thought that maybe I should check in first. Because I would hate to release The Phoenician Scheme, my charming and absurdist black comedy caper, only for everyone to feel too weird to go see it—which, by the way, would totally make sense. I would feel weird if I were you. There's a lot on your plates at the moment. It's okay. You can be honest with me. If Benicio del Toro wearing a fez is too much for you to handle right now, you can tell me. But, I mean, hey, no judgment if you are in the mood to see it. Be my guest! If you're ready to show up to the theater May 30—given the state of the world—and say, 'One for The Phoenician Scheme, please,' all the more power to you. Maybe this 101-minute fanciful romp featuring Michael Cera as a private tutor who speaks in a Norwegian accent is exactly what you're looking for. It won't preserve habeas corpus or the First Amendment or civil rights. But it will make you think, 'Huh, is that an oud I'm hearing in this Kinks cover?' Oof. Things sure are bad. Thank God I moved to Paris 20 years ago! Just as a gut check, how about I list off some of the things you might see in my movie and you tell me if they're dealbreakers? Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston rattling off my signature droll dialogue—enticing or not? What about meticulously framed scenes that blend nostalgia and melancholy with just a dash of whimsy? And do you like the idea of Benedict Cumberbatch as a character with elaborate facial hair named Uncle Nubar? Or is that kind of a red flag? If you aren't really feeling another one of my films, just let me know. All I'm trying to do here is make sure this is what you genuinely want. Don't go just to make me happy. I'd have no problem sitting on the movie for a few years, if that's what you need. Maybe I could release The Phoenician Scheme in 2028, or 2030. But then again, who knows— maybe things will be much, much worse by then. Maybe this is your last chance to see my work before total economic and democratic collapse. Do you think there will be film festivals in the camps? Shoot. Now I wish I'd made a movie about a film festival in the camps. Don't freak out. I'm not saying things will get worse. I'm just saying they could. I'm trying to be empathetic, as an expat. Of course, here in France, there are plenty of problems too. Not sure what they are, though. I get my news from literary magazines. So, I don't know, what do you think? You want it? You want The Phoenician Scheme? Tilda Swinton isn't in this one, if that sways your mind one way or the other. But Jeffrey Wright is back. He wears a sea captain's hat and suspenders. Anyway, I have to go now. I'm riding my bicycle to the bakery. Just let me know by the end of Cannes. Au revoir.
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Aussie couple's viral wedding video shot like Hollywood film
You're supposed to feel like the main character on your wedding day, but one Aussie couple would have felt like A-list movie stars as they watched back precious highlights from the occasion that had been shot in the style of a Hollywood film. But not just any film — a Wes Anderson-inspired short that had aptly captured the filmmaker's unique sense of hilarity, symmetry, and penchant for embracing the ridiculous. Newlyweds Stephanie Nguyen and Jia Truong got hitched in October 2024, and recruited Adelaide wedding photographers and videographers Lifesketch Weddings to capture the affair. Sharing results from the shoot publicly earlier this year, it was the couple's reaction video to seeing the film for the first time that has caught fire online. The short movie has now racked up more than 10 million views on social media. If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. Unlike typical wedding films where joy is the overarching theme, in true Wes Anderson style, this one sought to capture even the most inconsequential moments as the overlay of piano weaved each scene together. Beginning with a close-up of the pair, the camera proceeded to follow a couple of 'extras' — a city-dwelling pigeon, and an Adelaide Metro bus. Focus quickly returned to the newlyweds enjoying a pot of tea while staring down the lens, and continued to shadow the pair's movements around the South Australian city as they shared awkward moments in the company of friends. The film concluded with the couple approaching the camera, and pausing to lick an ice cream cone at what appeared to be their wedding venue. Ms Nguyen told The Advertiser, 'I really like the (Wes Anderson) aesthetic, the style, the colours and the symmetry is just really pleasing'. She said she had come across a similar video shot in Budapest by the team behind Lifesketch Weddings, and as a fan of Wes Anderson herself, felt the idea to re-create it was 'meant to be'. The Adelaide-based operation was founded by married couple Marie and Christopher Pittman, who have won several Australian wedding-related awards in relation to their work. Their website reads, 'Whether you're planning an adventurous elopement, an intimate ceremony with your nearest and dearest, or a ridiculously epic party with your cray cray famiglia and friends, we will bring all the vibes to capture every single moment for you to relive over and over again'. Their latest edgy concept has drawn overwhelming admiration from viewers for its originality and creativity. 'That is the best wedding film I have seen,' one person commented. 'Wes Anderson would hate this so I love it more 🌹,' another added. Wes Anderson is an American filmmaker behind a host of cult movies, including The Grand Budapest Hotel, and new release The Phoenician Scheme. Benicio Del Toro stars as Zsa-Zsa Korda in director Wes Anderson's THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Credit: Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focu / Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focu He is known for the use of confronting camera angles, pastel colours, and largely alternative storytelling techniques. Others fans of the couple's clip felt they had missed an opportunity to take an alternative approach in capturing the special moments from their respective weddings. 'I'm gonna have to marry my husband again now so we can have you as a photographer,' one viewer teased.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Phoenician Scheme is fantasy. It is also a remarkable engagement with the real-life conflict in the Middle East
The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson's makebelieve treatment of the war-ravaged near east, reimagines the region as a sunlit Levantine fantasia of cypress trees, fez hats, camel-riders and kitsch hotels, all photographed with the lustre of an Ottolenghi cookbook. Meanwhile, livestreamed daily to our news feeds, the warlords of the Holy Land exhibit for us an equally spectacular dystopia of cities pummelled into sawdust, of skies scarred with scorching white phosphorus and gun-toting paragliders. How could these images be of the same place? What does it mean that they have been produced at the same time, and that we are consuming them alongside each other? The film is set in the Middle East of a parallel universe. It's 1950, but decolonisation, the Holocaust, the world wars – none appear to have taken place; history has stalled in a kind of perpetual belle époque, leaving only a pastiche of the orient in its imperial heyday, meticulously reconstructed in the film's geography and production design, its storylines and characters. In place of the warring states unleashed by Europe's botched withdrawal from its imperial mandates, the entire Levant forms a single nominally sovereign territory known as Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia, named after the ancient civilisation once inhabiting what would now be Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. Those national demarcations don't exist in the film, as you can see from all the quaintly displayed trademark Wes Anderson cartography, the whole region pristinely undivided – as it was before the first world war. All the ethnic and sectarian squabbles that beleaguer these lands in the real world are magically replaced by a peaceable patchwork of aristocratic families, each with their respective toeholds. Their inflated titles mean nothing, their names allusions to the toothless dynasties once patronised by imperial overlords. The film's King Hussein refers to more than one Hashemite monarch installed by Britain and Prince Farouk to Egypt's last king. The fact that a svelte Riz Ahmed has been cast to play a character, whose real-life inspiration, King Farouk, was a worldwide celebrity infamous for his fatness, tells us everything we need to know about the distorting mirror through which Anderson reflects the history of empire. Above all, the colonial order is represented by the film's devious protagonist Anatole 'Zsa-Zsa' Korda and his visionary scheme to build railways, tunnels, canals and dams across Phoenicia. The significance of infrastructure in colonial mythology cannot be overstated. Anderson says Korda was inspired by his father-in-law, the Lebanese construction magnate Fouad Maalouf, also the film's dedicatee. But Korda is as much an empire-builder in the mould of Cecil Rhodes or Ferdinand de Lesseps. With his African mines and railways, Rhodes brought to heel the better part of a continent. In building the Suez canal, a waterway in the deserted sands between Africa and Asia, De Lesseps performed Moses' miracle in reverse. Such magnificent infrastructure projects, said to be beyond the wit of the native, were the glory of empire and still feature in reappraisals of it ('What about the railways?'). It's in this context that Korda's Phoenician scheme must be understood: a plot to re-engineer the Middle East in his image. This is the east as a career, in Disraeli's famous words. And through such a career, the Palestinian literary critic Edward Said wrote, 'one could remake and restore not only the Orient but also oneself'. That sums up Korda, who is as motivated by megalomania as money. There's always been something grippingly cinematic about that. It was another Korda – the Hungarian Jewish émigré film director Zoltan Korda – who more than anyone demonstrated that, in colonial adventure films that he made with his brother Alexander in the 1930s, relating heroic adventures in a timeless orient under eternal British rule. In naming his hero Korda, Anderson proudly acknowledges his debt to a controversial narrative tradition. In its most pointed contrast with reality, its greatest hallucination about empire, The Phoenician Scheme unfolds in a cosmopolitan world that is, for all its lying and cheating and double-dealing, completely free of racism. Imperial cosmopolitanism is symbolised, of all things, in headwear. The fez is absolutely ubiquitous in the film, as it was among colonial elites, Muslim, Christian and Jewish. (There are photos of Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as a fez-hatted law student in Istanbul.) It fell out of fashion in the postcolonial Middle East, becoming a symbol of colonial nostalgia. Sign up to Film Weekly Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters after newsletter promotion Anderson positively luxuriates in that nostalgia, in the ecumenical fellowship of the fez, worn in the film by Frenchmen, Arabs, Armenians, all happily sharing cocktails. Korda appears to be Armenian (judging by the script on his birth certificate) but in a bizarre twist Korda dons the distinctive white fez and robes of Lebanon's Druze sect, just as pharaonic imagery strangely adorns Phoenician hotels: all part of the pastiche. This is history stylised beyond all proportion. It's meant to evoke the urbane world that existed under imperial rule, before the emergence of violent ethno-nationalism. The state of Israel is absent from the film, but Zionism, interestingly, isn't. One corner of Phoenicia, visited by Korda, has a kibbutz, replete with Hebrew signage, quotations from the Old Testament and the suggestive imagery of 'making the desert bloom', palm trees sprouting from the barren earth. It has its own visionary founder, a rival of Korda's, played by Scarlett Johansson, working the land in khaki shorts, like the pioneer kibbutzniks portrayed in early Zionist posters. Crucially, though, it's labelled a 'private utopian outpost'. Nationalism is such an anathema to the ethos of the film that Zionism is reduced to the personal enterprise of another one of those visionaries making a career in the east. It has no aspirations to statehood. Such nonpolitical strains of Zionism were originally favoured by followers of the movement, including Einstein and Kafka, and one suspects it's the kind most palatable to Anderson. But this sanitised, fantasy vision of Zionism is of a piece with Anderson's fantasy of empire. Historically in both, violence and racism were always simmering. The Phoenician Scheme may at once be Anderson's worst and most profound film, a beautifully textured engagement with the past, and an almost morally repugnant retreat from the present. Its transformation of tragedy into comedy feels perverse. To watch The Phoenician Scheme amid the devastation of Gaza – during which it was also filmed – is to see two images of history, two maps of our time, disorientingly superimposed over each other: the sweet fantasy of a much-promised land, and the bitter, bloody reality of how it's turning out.
