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Exterior a moderately obscure European airstrip day. The camera dollies passed, a series of neatly arranged suitcases, a broken harmonium, and a pigeon holding a classified microfilm in its beak. We hear the narrator. The film board gathers. This week a gang of thugs don their finest pastels to unravel the Phoenician scheme.
Back this moment, rescue workers are laboring to recover and identify the remains of Jaja Korda, international businessman maverick in the fields of armaments and aviation, among the richest men in Europe. This was Corda's sixth recorded airplane crash. He is survived by ten children, boys, one nun, his daughter Lisa.
I've appointed you sole heir to my estate, which you may come into sooner rather than later.
Why it's been six years since our last meeting.
I have my reasons, which are what my reasons I'm not saying I'm saying.
I'm not saying, Quarter our land and sea, Phoenician infrastructure scheme, my most important project of my lifetime. Our objective disrupting, obstructing, impeding, crippling quarters enterprise in any manner possible.
Get the hand grenades.
Today, tonight, and tomorrow.
We're rendezvous with every titan and pretend we agree what we already agreed, but in fact we don't.
We can call it heads heads is it supposed to be here? Who was under the lunch? Oh dear, we'll shut you terros from out of town. Help yourself to a heliday.
You're very kind. Could you imagine falling in love with a manliney by the ray? Not pathetically?
You're drunk on three beers. Why are you shooting my silly? This is a robbery on behalf of I understand that I'm asking about my sily.
You idiots are destroying a magnificent lightclock in the spring of a year that could be nineteen sixty three or twenty twenty five, depending on one's taste. In Lapel with a man named Anatole Korda call him Jaja, boarded a luxury aircraft bound for divine reconciliation. The plane crashed, his soul did not. What followed was a spiritual espionage caper involving one nun, one bug collector, something like twelve failed assassins,
and possibly God himself. Brian Doyle, Murray's father's son. Tonight on the film board, we unpacked the Phoenicia Scheme, the latest addition to the Wes Anderson Cinematic diorama. We'll ask is this a caper, a confession, or an elaborately constructed dream about guilt and redemption? And how many Pastel duffelbags does one arms dealer really need? Sitting patiently against an undecorated pink wall, waiting patiently for whatever comes next. I
welcome Tommy Mets the third Tonight. He's here to help us decode the emotional frequencies of Michael Sarah's accent and determine whether Benicio del Toro can in fact act with just his nostrils. Welcome Tommy, it.
Is an absolute pleasure to be here.
And Steve Sarmento, equal parts philosopher and puzzlebox technician. Steve Sarmento spends his spare time diagramming narrative symmetry with a fountain pen. He's here to explain why the Phoenician scheme is actually a morality play disguised as an Air France safety video.
Welcome Steve, good evening, help yourself to a hand grenade.
You can't do You can't do that long like that whole bit, you can't. It turns out human beings have more emotion than I think Wes Anderson can do an attack. Hi, what a what a fun opportunity. We have to talk about our first, our first Wes Anderson film on the show. Why have we never done Wes Anderson?
Yeah? Why is that?
It's JJ's fault? And JJ was supposed to be here to interest help us resolve this conundrum, but got sick, and so it is us carrying the torch of Wes Anderson. Can we start with a little table setting? Where do we stand on the films of Wes Anderson? Steve there.
I think the best comparison I can make is to like a very light and sweet dessert. It's something that you enjoy while you have it. In ten minutes you've forgotten. Remember it was good, but it's gone and there's nothing enough to stay with you and you will go back for more, but still be just as unsatisfied. Shortly thereafter, Ouch, I think, ouch, but maybe I didn't feel the sting Tom.
I have not seen a lot of them. I saw a bottle rocket, I saw Rushmore, I saw the Royal Tenenbaums, and then at some point I just sort of stopped going and they kept coming, and the cast got bigger and the colors got brighter. But I just didn't and I don't know why. I saw an Asteroid City Asteroid City last year, two years ago, whenever it was I
really enjoyed that, and much like this movie. Yes, I agree with Steve that it is a beautiful situation, and I love seeing it in the theater, and by the time I'm in my car, I'm starting to forget large parts of it. That being said, having really enjoyed the experience.
That may make it difficult to talk critically about the film that we just saw, don't you think a little bit, because I'm in that same space. I walked out of the theater, and I know I didn't go to sleep during the movie, but I felt like I had just
awoken from a dream. Like the whole thing feels so much like a dreamscape, and it's that sort of ephemeral too, right, It's like the images are there and then they're not, because I might have dreamed something very much like this, Like when I dream, it's very much top down camera over a bathroom, and that I find comforting to the point that I'm I'm lulled to a sense of calm and comfort and that the memories don't stick. So it's
interesting to talk about. I think I'm probably on the maybe, just judging by how you talk about it, I'm on the deeper end of Wes Anderson. I'm a big Wes Anderson fan. I loved Bottle Rocket and Rushmore and ten and Bounds. I hated for some reason, Steve's Easy The Life Aquatic. I hated it. I don't know why, and it's it's so irrational that I feel like I need to watch it again because I really struggled with it. But Darjeeling Limited, I didn't care for Fantastic Mister Fox either.
Apparently that should be growing on me. I need to watch that again the rest of them. With the I have not seen The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar on Netflix, but the rest of them I've seen and deeply appreciate, and I love the experience of watching them because the level of precision in the art and craft of this filmmaker is extraordinary. It is extraordinary. So I feel like, whatever we think of the film, man, is there a lot to appreciate about this guy and the attentiveness he
puts to his film. So all of that said, why the Phoenician scheme? What did you? How did the movie? Let's do our opening thoughts, initial thoughts on the film?
How?
I mean, however much you remember? What did you think?
There was more to this one for me to hold on to than Asteroid City, which I did not enjoy that much. One of my favorites of his is Dargene Limited. I think there's a lot for me the grasp ound of this one and this one I felt like there was a through line that I could hold on to that there hasn't been in some of the previous ones. And maybe it's that that mid century, you know, titans
of industry versus the government type of thing. I got the sense of the self made man that's that's out there to accomplish something and now faces a bit of a crisis. Moment with you know, the assassinations and his bringing his daughter into the fold, trying to build the relationship with her, And I thought, okay, I it's not that I can relate to this guy, but I get a sense of what he's trying to accomplish. There's still a lot of, you know, things that I can't explain
what the gap is. I don't know what the whole scheme is. I know there's there's something. There's the trans monument or the trans Mountain or the trans Oceanic. There's all kinds of things coming together as part of his big plan. Don't ask me to explain it. I don't think I can. I don't think it matters. There's a lot of talk about things that I don't think. There are a lot of mcguffins all over the place to just keep things moving. But I'm not bored by it.
I went along with the ride. I had fun. There's there's quirky characters, but there's a consistency to them, and it was enjoyable. And I thought it was we have a character that could carry the story well in this one.
And I think that's the thing that was the strength for me, is that I've got a character that I'm interested in, so that when we get to the final confrontation at the end, there was there was something to you know, things came together, it came to a head meaningfully and reasonably that I thought, ah, okay, it wasn't just story story story, and then it ends there was there was something that happened that was significant.
Yeah, no, I agree with all of that. I think the engine that keeps this moving and that makes it work is the trio, especially the nun and the father, but then with Michael Sarah in there also with who's a character that actually has a twist at one point, which is fun. If they weren't compelling, then the whole movie would fall apart. Because the movie's pretty episodic. It's kind of he came up with a reason to or away or a device in order to just have a
bunch of character sketches. Like we go to a place and we have this little character sketch and everyone kind of talks like but a little bit different, just different enough to be interesting, and so he just sort of has a bunch of sketches. The beating heart through it with them does make it work, and I really again I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny at times. The fact that there is no emotion, that
no one really has any emotion to it. You can't hide the jokes that don't work, you can't hide the bits that don't work. There's nowhere else to look. He's so controlled that it either works or doesn't. And there is one sequence in the movie that I thought was a disaster. We can get to that later, and it almost like took down the movie a half star for me, because it was the film came alive in order to
fall over its own feet, in my personal opinion. But until then, I mean, that's the reason why it's so ephemeral, I think, is that no one's really allowed to have emotion. That's why we've been saying things like admire like I admire the film, I enjoyed the film, versus like this is a film that will stick with me. I also agree with Steve. At some point I realized, I bet all of this incredibly important fast talk is not as important.
It's important to the style and not the story because I didn't understand some of the story either, other than we're just going to meet all these people and at the end, they'll tell me if it worked or not. The end. That's it. That's kind of what happened.
Yeah, yeah, well it's interesting. I want to I want to take a sidebar a little bit on Wes Anderson's directorial style, because I mean, you mentioned the sort of
lack of emotion, this sort of deadpan direction. What does that do for you when you watch one of these movies, because it it feels to me whenever I sit down and watch one of these movies, I'm watching like through glass, like they're like there, it's going on in a cage in a zoo, the Wes Anderson Zoo and their entire films happening at scale behind this terrarium, and I that emotional terrarium is distancing. And yet here I am going
to all the movies and watching them. I wonder how you sort of what's your mental model for approaching character stakes when the characters don't demonstrate any particular emotional stakes.
I didn't feel any character stakes, and yet I still enjoyed it. That's why it didn't stay with me. I was never worried about anyone. I was never concerned about what happened. I mean, they win and they lose. He loses spoiler alert, he loses his entire fortune. They're back to that same room with the dripping ceiling that we saw teased from the beginning. But at what cost. But you know what the good cost is he gets his daughter back. He sort of gets his motivation in life back.
But I didn't care. I was just happy to be there. I was happy to be there, like sort of strolling through an art gallery. Whenever the camera would move, it's always on a dolly. There's a couple whippans, usually just left and right, and I'm like, oh, I'm excited to see what the next composition will be. And it's never surprising,
but it's always pretty. Because he likes everything. He's like one of the only directors that puts people right in the middle of the frame, right, which is something that they tell art you know, film students don't ever do. It's in the thirds. Putting someone in the middle of the frame is like what we used to do when the train would come at the camera. But instead he just loves symmetry and he loves all of those things. So to be able to enjoy that amount of control
and confidence is really winning. But not staying it's just not that deep and so there weren't really character character stakes for me, and I didn't really realize that until you ask the question. So I appreciate it.
Yeah, I think that's this was one and I haven't watched you know, many of them recently, so I don't know how much blood or death there is and a
lot of them. But it did really shock me early on the first plane crash where his assistant is, you know that there's an explosion of the plane and the assistant is, you know, his top half is gone and there's a blood smear all along the wall, and I thought that is not typical of a Wes Anderson filmed And I thought, okay, But coming back to the emotional stakes, it's it's played very cartoony. It is it's an event that happens. It's sudden and drastic, and there is not
really an extreme emotional response to that. And I think that's that's really the stakes is. It's it's it is one step removed. It's a very hyper real world. It reminds me of if you've ever you know, when you go to a theme park, the newer rides, where as you go through the line, you're sort of slowly entrying the world, and it has to get you in the atmosphere and can convey all this information about the world
to you very efficiently and very quickly. So like the Indiana Jones, right, you're gonna go through, you're gonna see these things that all these things that are set up that are supposed to be real, but they're beyond the reel because they've got And that's what this entire movie feels like, is all these documents, all these things are there to create this sense, but they're all they're all props,
they're all fake. There's there's no substance to them, there's no meaning behind besides creating the sense of the world that you are going to be sitting in for the next hour and forty minutes. And so there's no emotion to it because it is really just taking you on a ride that you exit at the end.
It's a really good point about all of the props and stuff. One of my biggest feelings about the movie is I would like to walk around all the sets and open like as if it was an immersive haunted house or something, and open up all the drawers because everything would be real and beautiful and fun and like old time all those books that he's d Yes, I would love that maybe more than like sometimes you can
just yeah, like the fact that they're painting. It's just like set up the shot and get rid of those pesky actors, Like.
I want a Wes Anderson wolf right, yes, yes, and it does you bring up the books like I can't wait to see this on streaming because I want to pause it and write down every title of every book because some of them are hysterically funny and and I didn't catch them all. It's interesting to think about these characters because I sometimes think they're all I mean, every character in I can't think of a character in a Wes Anderson movie that isn't an emotionally stunted person trying
to learn to feel again. Does that make any sense? I kind of feel that way here. Look, she's trying to feel her way out of religion and doesn't even know it until she is Her commitment is her sacred commitment is annulled. He is trying to feel his way into fatherhood again and figure out what that looks like free from the you know, the trappings of arms dealing.
There is a lot of that. And when you go back through the other you know, some of the other in the catalog of Wes Anderson films, they have all of this same style. It's like it's it's emotionless, but mostly because every character has turned is turned inside out, like they're all, you know, I'm I'm so sad without crying because inside they're crying I love you without like
it's they're like saying, it's also cold outside, right. And And I think that is an interesting thing about Wes Anderson movies that makes that makes them appeal to me because they allow me to sort of be the emotional litmus test of a scene. That allows me to participate in an interesting way because I can put myself in there. It's like generic beans. I get to put the flavor in. That's a weird I don't know why I brought up beans. Let's talk just really quickly about violence, because you brought
it up. I think this might be Wes Anderson I probably arguably Wes Anderson's most violent film. There were some things in if did you guys say you've seen Budapest Hotel? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, So there was like a throat slitting and some fingers cut off, and there's a prison shive, but they're so absurd that there were probably more absurd than any of the violence that was here. Isle of Dogs, of course had some really brutal dog fights, but they're animated, right,
so that was different. Everything else is just really I think, really emotional, like like emotional violence, right. Everybody else is just really not very nice to each other. And if it's violent, I guess French Dispatch had its share of deaths, so I think this one was the most bold. And I'm wondering how that impacted your viewing of it, Like not what you expected. Did it add something to the story watching this guy get beaten up as he did
and other people around him get beaten up? Did it work?
You've already said, But the opening shock meeting and the opening probably bought me, probably bought him a lot of time. Interesting just sort of like shook me awake from this isn't exactly what you're thinking about it going to be a Wes Anderson movie, as the rest of the movie was absolutely exactly what I was thinking it was going
to be as a west As movie. But it was always like, well, just you wait, maybe something else and it never does, and not in a complaining way, but it just never reaches that kind of surprise again on purpose. It doesn't want to.
I think the most graphic for me was, you know, when he gets shot and it's just you know, pluck the bullet out, and it's he's sitting there with this wound, just bleeding out, and I'm looking at that thinking, this is unlike other things that are very you know, flat or caricature or whatever, this is a very realistic, you know, looking wound with blood, you know, slowly trickling out of it. And I thought, I don't I don't know what to
make of this in this film. But when you have a character that is there are multiple assassination attempts on him, something has to happen. But I thought, okay, how straight how serious were you playing this? And then it gets the pluck it out and it's just the fingers digging there a second pop it out because his all his documents had sort of slowed the bullet, so that sort of took it back to the typical Okay, no emotional stakes to this. It's well and it's in there, just
take it out and I'm fine. But throughout the film, his arms in the sling all that, so he's injured. So it was something that did stand out to me, And I guess it fits in when you have a character where the world is trying to destroy him, but then all the other attempts are so you know, oh that assassin, I think he worked for me before, you know. And even the confrontation at the end with his with his brother, I think, you know, Bennett Cumberbatch, it's so
much acting with his eyes and eyebrows. It was like a German expressionist film of just you know. That's that's where the evil was. There was no true menace in it. Everything is cartoonish. Even his threat is not so I I yeah, that's why those two sort of moments at the beginning and the Bulow wants stand out because they are so distinctly different from the other assassination attempts, you know, throughout the film.
And yet still even in all those assassination assassination attempts, it is that deadpan, emotionless experience. He feels no pain. I couldn't help but that. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm very interested in the Jack Quaid movie. Novacane Novacate. I kept thinking of that, like this, what if Wes Anderson directed Novacane? I think we might get this.
Yes, because he himself feels very safe.
Yes, yeah, all right, the that's a great line too. I actually think that's probably the mic drop line that I will internalize and use in my life the most. From this. Myself feel I myself feel very safe, and I will not. It'll a year, maybe two, I'll forget that it's from this movie, and in ten years I'll watch the movie again and I'll be so surprised that
I've been cribbing from it for a decade. That's how it works usually, I myself feel very safe, all right, the story, So I feel like it should be we should make this like a game to try to piece together what the hell happened in this movie and why it exists.
He was too powerful and had too much money in his fingers in too many pots, and so the government works to do something to his something in order to put him at risk of something. And so he has to go around to all five different business partners, including his strange brother, in order to get something from them that was a percentage. And it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, but it kind of works. The end. Is that pretty good? That was in the middle he has
assassinated a bunch and seemingly going through some sort of judgment. Ye, periodic judgment in heaven.
Yes, yes, okay, I'm so glad you did it the way you did because what you did was a plot summary mad lib. And now it's up to Steve to figure out the words that fill something.
Yep.
And honestly, Steve, like truly, I'm really interested in your perspective on the judgment, the divine reconciliation. Yeah, this thing, because I have a feeling that that gave you something to think about.
It did, because the first time that happened, that was the other thing that I do not work. It seemed very uncharacteristic of a Wes Anderson film because it's this there's this bold edit and the images in a black and white negative, and then it flips back and now it's black and white and we're in a very again like mid early twentieth century depiction of some type of heavenly round with just cotton fluff around and people sitting
on benches and all that. And I wasn't sure what to make of it learns to his is it his mother or his grandmother that is there? And you know she's like grandmother and she's like, I don't know you. And I thought, oh, okay, this is this is interesting because it's playing around with this. Does is this a rejection?
You know what?
What is this back and forth? And as we keep coming back, it's it's giving him some information. It's somehow enlightening him as to something, because it seems like he takes something from each vision or out of you know, near death experience. There's something that he gets from that. I don't know that it's clear. I didn't. I couldn't make a clear connection of like, oh he got this nugget, he's going to use that to leverage or it's going to help him develop his relationship with his daughter. So
I couldn't track those points. I don't know that I'm supposed to other than there's an assassination attempt. He has a near death experience. Weird things happen, and he take he's taking some knowledge from that, because I could not parse out what was going on other than we get to Bill Murray is God allegedly, I guess. So I mean there as with everything else very interesting looking, lots of talk with not a lot of substance. I can peg anything to. But again, I don't know that it's
for us as the audience. It's the meaning for the character, for him to take something from here.
We have ostensibly a Cain and Able story where we have the marked man, right, we have this guy who's metaphorically guilty of spilling blood. That's Zaza. He's an arms dealer, right, He's he's struggling under the weight of past choices. And we have his brother, whose moral stance seems to be the most righteous of them. And because it's Wes Anderson, at the end, it's inverted and instead of Cain slaying Able, he's trying to make amends. Is there any room?
I don't know.
I watched the Vanity Fair interview le Wes Anderson explained his films. Oh I watch that, and it's but he gets a little bit into a story. And because I wonder about how tightly structured things are, because I think visually things are very tightly choreographed, where you know, things have to enter frames at certain times and all that. But the since I got from that interview that story he's he's got the story. There's clearly some improvising that
goes on. Even says, you know, the art of writing itself is improvisation. You're you're starting from nothing so great, something you have to improvise, you have to make it up. And he talks a little bit about the sort of the process is the movie revealing itself. So it's not that he's got a specific finished product. I think he's willing to say, oh, well, this seems to be working. Well, okay,
let's that. Let's go towards that. So I think that maybe some of these things we try to pin something specifically on might just be a well, it seemed to fit the story well and it resonated at some level. We'll go with that, not that there was any intentional I'm doing this. You know, he's going to see the three former wives there and that's going to represent this
or that. I think it's a oh, it seems to feel right for this guy to go through these things to sort of how I'm now taking that information of It's like the exact opposite of a David Fincher of like, you know, this movie is built to every second in my head and I'm going to do that, and he's sort of like, well, we'll discover it a bit as we go through.
That's a good point. And I wonder you said he doesn't truck an allegory. I think this is these are very allegorical, yeah, scenarios, And I think that the idea that his own family does not recognize him, that he sacrifices something in the forest and opens it up and it's just filled with money. That it looks like in the beginning, the very first one, someone is opening the book of his life in order like a Saint Peter,
in order to be judgment. But then instead of opening a book, opens a casket where maybe him is as a child.
As a child.
Yeah, yeah, so I'm interested in that kind of stuff. It is a little alarming to try to use. I desperately need it to be allegorical, because this film doesn't. I don't feel this film allows any kind of like David Lynch dream logic, because everything is so tightly wound that's almost like it just makes me think it's like pretentious or out of ideas or something, you know what I mean, Just like it makes me angry if it doesn't mean something, because everything in this movie is so.
Well taught out. Yeah, yeah, well that's what's so interesting about it. For me, It's like this whole movie is walking that tightrope between this one character's exploration of like the vengeance thread in the Old Testament while also trying to navigate toward the grace thread of the New Testament, right, And it's like, it's like I find that fascinating because I don't expect it from Wes Anderson movies. And and it just felt like it was screaming, Tom, you've now
dropped the hint twice. We have to talk about your least favorite sequence.
The fight. The fight at the end between him and what's his name, what's his name? Cumber Man. It didn't make sense stylistically, it didn't match anything. I thought it was ugly. I thought it was weird. I thought it was hard to decipher. It was weird. The one time when his camera dared to be hand held and dared to be not nailed down to a rail, I thought it was terrible. I hated it, and it deflated so
much of the movie, all of this control. It could have been cool to have this crazy, but it's like he didn't know how to do it. I don't know, like he's just not trained that way. I know this is the first movie that he hasn't used his longtime cinematographer in a long time. I don't know, but I mean it looked until that sequence, it looked exactly like everything else. But I thought it was so weird and I don't mean to use this word, but like cringey.
Like I just thought the fight was so everything's leading up to that, and it was such a disappointment, and it really like put through the movie down a peg for me hugely. Obviously I am alone on that.
No, I mean, it reminded me of things from like I think of it, like the Marx Brothers, where it's just like somebody's running around and they're hiding behind things, they're popping out in different places, and it's exaggerated actions and it's sort of you know, I guess Screwball's any of things, and what's doing in this movie is throwing the little vial right at him. All of that it felt felt like that. So I was along for the ride. It didn't feel like such a jarring shift for me.
So it didn't bother me as much because this is every other attempt to kill him has been you know, this assassin where now he's he's dealing with a face to face his enemy on this. So I just took that as okay, now sort of the charade is gone, We're going to deal with this directly. Does that justify that? I don't know that necessarily would say that, But I just took that as okay, We're entering a different phase
of the story here now. So because everything else, the other thing was all the design and everything was very Middle Eastern, that whole Phoenician thing, everything, Once we get that, we're in a completely different place than we have been for you know, the entire movie, so the book was different. So for me, I just accepted that.
I guess I think I accepted it too. I think you actually might be on an island all out. And there were a couple of things. First of all, I was I really enjoyed I might be an island. I enjoyed the the actual diorama of all of the lands having come together, with the waterfall and the trails going back and forth. That was really fun. And so the satisfying umber Batch Godzilla moment where he climbs up to
and then the grenade. He explodes with the grenade. I was really satisfied by the way his arc came to an end and how everything like the tower falls, and that was I guess maybe I've just stuck so deeply into the biblical arc. But the other piece is, you know, our cinematographer Bruno Doubleell done a lot of Tim Burton done, some Cohen's done, Joe Wright, Alexander Sukarov, David Yeates did The Half Blood Prince. So I feel like this had like this was his first Wes Anderson film, but it
wasn't really his first Wes Anderson film. Like he's done. He's done incredibly opinionated visualists before, and so I give him. I give him some credit there this And in fact he did and his Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Tim Burton adaptation of the book, and I think you could see a lot of parallels between the lensing of that movie and this one, which is strange to say because it's so unique and iconic in its own way, but especially that final sequence was interesting to me.
So I've said, and I like the Godzilla Part two and I love the model thing. It was just that fight scene, It's like they it felt like if it wasn't this director and it wasn't this movie, I would go to see this movie and be like, oh, they really ran out of time. Interesting, like they ran out of time to film that sequence, or they just they burned so much time on all of these excruciatingly controlled things.
Then it was time for the fight. They were just like, all right, just chased me around with the camera and well, if we get in trouble, will Benny Hillett speed it up slightly, go broad, give the people what they want. And it's like there's an one I want it at all.
Yeah, Yeah, that's really interesting. I totally get it. Especially went like I was from the moment like the opening credits sequence. I you know, I was just like I had chills because I was so fascinated with the layered outlines around each letter in the typography as it appeared, and the way the color mimicked the outlines in the tile floor, and I felt like I was playing Where's Waldo with words like when's the next word? Show? Yes? That was like the helpers are moving in slow motion
a little bit. I thought that was so great And if you you're going to spend the time to make that. Then yeah, I think you're right. Then let's not Benny Hill the final sequence. Right, Yeah, I get it.
I get it.
But again, so much of this stuff I feel like it it just demands a second viewing just to see it again. Okay, do we have any sort of thematic issues? You know, we've talked a little bit about the biblical stuff about transactional relationships versus transcendence and finding the end. The gift of hand grenades, I think is an interesting one to keep coming back to. I don't know why that was a thing. I obviously it's rooted in his arms dealership. Is there something else to it that I missed.
Other than early on? He says it's what they're cheaper than bullets or something like that. It costs them less than actual bullets. But they're in a little like fruit crate, you know, something that's been repurposed. But yeah, no, I was wondering about that because when we get to you know, his brother, he's like, oh, would you like a hand grena He's like, oh, got my own. It's like okay,
so there's something. But again, I don't know that you can abscribe, meaning to it other than it was consistent throughout it and it was of a piece of itself and it just fit that that world. I mean, it's
it's as I said, it's that hyper real world. The other thing I think of is the quicksand we're in the air where quicksand is a thing that is, you know, a danger just and it's like hand greanades, you know, that's that those are the things that are out there because they're this sort of existential threat that's funny, Whereas a bullet is something that's very real and I think very relatable to today versus no one's throwing around thankfully,
no one's throwing around hand grenades. So it is is something that that's the only sense I could could make out of that is it represents something without having a real strong emotional resonance or connection to anybody in the audience that might feel that, you know, bullets or guns made you know, trigger some things.
Although the end.
Right, speaking sort of symbolically, the hand grenade is a representation of, you know, we are the architects of our own destruction. Yes, I think is an interesting thing, especially because the whole thing's anchored in him as an arms Dealer. Yeah. I thought it was nice, especially like that they were painted so beautiful. Yes, so Wes Anderson hadads are the best. Shall we talk through our favorite performances? Oh? Benicio captivating? Oh he always yeah, Yeah.
He can do. He's one of those actors that can just do very little and it's just always interesting to watch one.
He's such an interesting performer that he can go back and forth between things like this and Marvel and twenty one Grams and Big Top Pee wee and be just absolutely captivating as a performer. Yeah. I think I think it was. I think the movie set us up with him, you know, after the crash when he gets up and we have that extreme close up on his face. I thought, this is gonna be a move. I'm gonna have to close my eyes through a lot because that, I oh, was horrific.
Yeah, and we get several of those throughout the film. It something else I don't recall in prior films. I know, we're always centered in straight on but this was full just face filling the entirety of the frame. And that's not something I recall seeing done often or as frequently. Because I want to say it's probably occurs like three or four times, but it's his story to tell, and I think I think the performance works. I think he
really keyed into who this guy was. You know, the bit about he doesn't have a passport because he doesn't need human rights, you know, associated anyone country tells you that he's a unique person, and I think that, yeah, he's it's somebody that I don't know that I would ever want to meet or know someone like him. But the performance, I think he found the right person for this this character.
And that I the close up of that horrific guy, I think does help you side with him because if someone always feels safe and believes they're safe and never has any emotion for something, then there's no one to back but the fact that you've seen him hurt and when he hilariously shows up during the news interview, how would you like to, Oh, there, he is slightly off. That was really awesome. Yeah, that's fine. It makes you It makes him a little bit devilish, but also vulnerable.
I know I said there was no real stakes to feel, but at least you know that he's not invulnerable, because then you're at risk of just walking watching like a Forrest Gump. Or a mister Magoo just sort of travel through life and just accidentally stand on the crane at the very last second instead of falling to his doom. Right right.
I think he was the perfect face to lead this thing. Really really liked him. Then we have to turn our attention to Mia Freepleton.
She was great.
Had you seen her in anything else before?
Have I a good question?
That is a good question. She hasn't been too much. She was on television. She did six episodes of Dangerous Liaisons. She was in I Am and the Buccaneers. She was in the main cast of the Buccaneers. She was in a couple of shorts Scoop in twenty twenty four Firebrand, she was Joan of arc I think in Firebrand, Shadows and a Little Chaos. Going back to twenty fourteen, she is the daughter of Kate Winslet. Oh can you see it now?
Yes?
I can't see it?
Yes, Okay, yeah, there it is. Yeah.
I was kind of wondering what else I'd seen her in because she looked familiar. The answer is no, I haven't, but that's why.
Okay, yeah, yeah, she hasn't been in much. I imagine she'll be in plenty more. I thought she was quite good.
I thought she was great. And that's a rough role because she's not allowed to be as expressive facial wise as Benicio del Toro, and yet she has to have the same deadpan kind of arc and I thought she was arch kind of attitude. And I thought she was really extremely watchable. Their relationship was one of my favorite threads, and it's probably what the movie really is about, yes, but I liked you could see it step by step and especially by the end, sitting back and watching them
go through things. Wes Anderson was really good about doling out little connection, little things, Oh you armed yourself, good for you, Like little moments of them slowly, slowly coming together of two people that can't actually talk to each other. I thought that was really satisfying. I like that.
I did too. I think the moment, there's that little moment besides them at the end serving food together and playing cards at the very end, which I thought was just the icing on the cake for their emotional art. Starting from the table where he's giving over airship to her. My favorite moment was when she had pulled out her knife, which was absurd, and he traded her.
With the new knife.
I thought that was such a weirdly loving moment and a real mark in the fact that he'd made a turn on their relationship.
And tellingly he offered it to her. He didn't she took it, yeah, from this, so he offered it on her level. She made the decision that's them communicator, Yeah.
Which is neat really really special kind of relationship. So I think she was I think she was great. She was a great nun. I like the arc of her sort of trying to feel her space in the Wes Anderson world and helping him her father, find find grace, right, find a relationship that he can count on, which wasn't much before. Okay, Michael Sarah Beren, where do we stand on Michael sarah our loyalty, loyalty and a bug boy energy.
When you cast Michael Sarah, I never know what I'm gonna want to expect or what I'm going to get out of him. So I mean it's interesting because the I thought, Okay, he's playing this character, but then when we get the twists in the reveal and he's like, oh, this is who I really am. I just thought that transformation, you know, the tie comes undone and everything, and I thought,
and we get another character out of Michael Sarah. I just love that so much about it, about how he was used in this movie, all of that sort of the you know, the unknown mole at the beginning of the movie, to becoming you know again part of the team, really be getting accepted in as part of that team.
It's sort of like the the misfits that sort of are able to and I guess he has that with Lisel as well, of like these moments of like transparency with each other whereas everything is so as Tommy said, behind the Glass, they have these human moments with each other to the extent possible in a Wes Anderson movie. I mean, you don't get them, you know, the emotional residence to it, but the characters have those moments where received, oh,
there's connections going on here. And I thought that was handled really well and it made sense and it worked well with him in that role.
Has Michael Sarah ever been in a Wes Anderson MOVI before?
Not?
Because if not, he is he has made for it that he is. Wes Anderson is going to adopt him like he adopts actors. Michael Sarah's going to be in every single Wes Anderson movie from now. Uh. He's perfect for it. And I really like Michael and Michael Sarah. Even when he's not doing a lot. I also think he's very interesting. I loved the turn of the trick of the You know that he is playing a different person. The only thing that brought it a little bit not as fun for me, as I've seen him do that
trick before. Did you guys see the movie Youth and Revolt. Oh no, he plays his own alter ego like his It's like a super cool spitting on the floor smoking guy when the normal hymn is that. It's almost these kind of reverse So I've seen him do that before, so it didn't strike me too crazy. But I thought it was really fun. I like him a lot.
I did. I did think it was fun, and I did think at the beginning, when we first meet him, I thought, I wonder how long I'm going to be able to put up with this accent. I hope this isn't Jit. And so the turn was really nice, and and finally seeing him settle into the head of the class role at the little coda at the end with the bug on his hand, I was like, this is that they played this perfectly. They played it absolutely perfectly, and it makes the early Sarah that much funnier. I
think it was. It was really really well earned. From there, we have a coterie of extra little performances, I think the big ones that stand out. I think the pairing of Brian Cranston and Tom Hanks was of particular delight. Did you take them on two on two first to five?
The most American?
I think that Cranston's calling the shots, calling his shots in particular, maybe the most, but both of them. I think that sequence was written so well. It was so funny that that there happened. Their meeting happened sort of illicitly at the place where the two train tracks don't meet, like by fifty feet. I thought that was really really perfectly architected, and it was really fun to see them. Thoughts on them or any of your other favorite stunt casting bits.
I was really pleased by how they didn't overlap too much that I talked about before the episodic struck that were and I mean Wes Anderson. You can think that he writes the same characters over and over again, but that's wrong. They are weirdly distinctive. And it's not just their weird hats that they wear or weird choices of like eyeglasses, like they're just they're all deadpan and weird. But I don't know, there's just something really interesting about
all of them. And he picked the right people. And Rais Ahmed was really fun and I would think that maybe he would be an interesting maybe wouldn't fit that world as much. Maybe I haven't seen enough of him, or maybe I'm mixing up up with Robbie Malleck. That's very possible. Either way, he he formed into that world perfectly like everyone. Yeah, I believed everyone in the world, which is always invited.
Yeah, what's funny about those guys? So Rezamed and Matthew Almarek and Jeffrey Wright let's see I.
Think jeff run.
Yeah, so fun and they were really those guys were allowed to emote in the ways that the other characters were not, Like of all the emotion that interesting that is missing from everyone else. We got some real spasmodic experiences of emotion from those guys as they were dealing with trauma. Matthew al Marek when pulling the bullet out right he was he was downright anxious, which is saying a lot for a Wes Anderson movie.
Well, I think it's the fact that we only get them for those just few minutes. But they are not forget you know. They do. They do stand out, but not in a way that's like, I don't want to say it, like they're flat, one dimensional. I get a sense of like, oh, I could see them again in another film, because there is there is something to them.
There is a history. There's something hinted at with each of them, whether it's you know, the brothers, or we've got the nightclub that the ceiling is getting shot up and it's like, oh, what is this nightclub place? And what is going on in this country? We've got the rebels coming in. I thought, okay, there's there's something interesting and intriguing that a good writer can get across, versus like, oh, this is just a generic type X character that is this,
Oh he's a business man, he's the nightclub guy. I've seen a thousand of these before, but these are all unique and they get that and quickly efficiently. And yeah, the emotion piece is coming back to the whole the whole scheme is he's you know, he's backed out of the deal, he's changed the terms on them, and so it's like these are guys that have money. So it's like we get to see because again, our main character
is just very emotionless. It's like, this is business, this is my plan, this is how I'm going to.
Go through things.
Well, yeah, when you when you screw over the partner in your plan, they're going to have a reaction to that. And so it is interesting to see how they each sort of handle the betrayal that he's trying to downplay, you know, like oh, no, no no, we'll just we'll take that back, right, Like no, no, no, no, no, you don't you don't just get to take that back and all is good and done.
There are consequences, Yes, there are consequences, and they're laid out so plainly. It just maybe because it's a Wes Anderson movie. It feels like I think, you know, Clippy pops up and says, would you like me to outline consequences? Yes, it's very very clear. I would love to see a movie where Tom Hanks and Brian Cranston get shared top billing, and I don't know, it's got to be like a bosom buddies kind of a thing, an odd couple. I don't care what it is. I want those two guys,
those two faces on screen together. They deserve each other. That was one of my favorite sequences. Okay, I can't I can't believe it, but I think we're I think we're reaching the end of our time together here in the Phoenician scheme. And yeah, I know, and that means.
Been very pleasant. And I will not remember a moment, not a minute of it.
I've already forgotten anything before the last ten minutes. So let us transition if we can to letterboxed, letterbox dot com, slash the next world. That's where you can find our h Q page. And now we have to apportion our hearts and our stars. As you know, the rules that are never obeyed. There is a fixed number of stars in the world, and if you place stars here, you have to take them from something else. No one ever pays attention to this rule. It is key to the
entire system. I feel like the damn's gonna break. That's the rule. Go ahead, break it, Tom, What do you think never understand?
I've taken so many hearts away from the finest hours. I don't know. It is in a hole. It is in a hole, just like she did. When the movie ended, it was a strong four. By the time I got to my car, three point seventy five and now three point five.
Unfortunately, sure we talked about it, it got worse.
Well, just because you guys brought up sequences that I forgot. I forgot about him getting a shot. There's just not enough sticky. So I love the experience. I will see his next movie, and I'm really glad that this exists. I am. It is so ephemeral. It's a great word for it. I mean, I can't. I'm going to give it a heart, absolutely, and if I see it again, I better it'll go back up to four. And then I'll see and I'll see what it is three days later because I just cannot remember. I'm going to give
it a three point five. I can't give it a four because that's what I gave and sinners. I still think about sequences from every day since I've seen it. What sequences am I remembering from this movie? Well, I can remember my favorite part. You to my actual favorite part.
It was in the closing credits. This is the how do you know that you're seeing a Wes Anderson movie because there was a P knuckle consultant that was an actual credit towards the end of the thing's P knuckle consultant that was like Wes Anderson.
Like, if you just told me that, I'd be like Western, Yeah.
Of course, yeah knuckle three point five, huge heart, And it will always as soon as I see the movie again, it will go back up.
I like that, Tom. Your rationale for rating applying stars needs like a five year moving average. You think that's funny. It's like a stock pick.
Yes, things are looking up. I would just yeah, I would. I would put a price checker on my track.
It is tricky to rate these these movies because, yeah, you asked me, like, as I'm walking out of the theater, like, what did you think of the movie, it's like fresh, it's right there, and then over time like, oh yeah,
things fad. But then again we have this conversation and I knew this was one that I had, I had really enjoyed because there was something more to it, and so I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with four stars because I think it is above some of the others and Tommy, I hear you about comparing, but it's like I'm looking at in terms of the scale of Wes Anderson movies, not comparing it to like a movie like Sinners, which was an amazing film. So I never
could put four star films against each other. I could say, let me within the world of Wes Anderson, where it does this fall four stars in a big old bleeding heart.
Yes, I love it.
I think I'm glad you brought up Sinners. I just watched that again today. Wow, it's very timely is it streaming?
It is? Well.
I knew when I saw that I was going to want to own it, and so I put in the pre order for the top outwit. But I do sometimes when I think of movies like these, I go back to Ebert right, like, you have to judge the movie against what it's against, what it's trying to do, how well does it do what it's trying to do, Because there is no comparison for me between Sinners in this movie and in terms of Wes Anderson movies, in terms of the esthetic that he's going for. This is very
near the top. I frankly, one of the great things that this movie inspired me to do is to start going back through other favorite Wes Anderson movies because I really love the aesthetic. And if that's one thing that comes out of this experience right now, is that I'm going to dive into to Wes Anderson a little bit harder. That's great. So I land on a four star with this one, and a great big heart as well. That averages out to a three point eight. It'll be a
four on our letterbox channel. This was a really fun movie. I'm so glad we did it. I'm so sorry JJ was not able to make it since it was his pick, And man, don't you agree it was better than Why two K? I don't know about that.
What a horrible legacy.
Okay, but in two years, which film will you be able to summarize and recall better?
Y two K?
Or Phoenician scheme?
Absolutely hy two K? And the emotional weight that Tom carries forever because of it. Look, that allows us to put to transition to what our coming attractions? What are we going to do next month? Tom? Will you do the honors?
Absolutely? We're going to see a movie. And I got two words for y'all, maybe tries there atoms? We are getting the Dino getting back together. We are going to see Jurassic Park Dominion. Why says the world, We don't know, because we love these movies and we have been burned and burned and burned, and we're going back for more. Gareth Edwards is helming this one. Hopefully Scar Joe's in it. We're going back to back Scar and hopefully this one will dig out the dino hole that we have been
in for a while. I am for all things dinosaur. I'm very excited.
I'm excited because I hope there's a dinosaur garage again. Remember one of these movies, the dinosaur uh Modetizer elevator.
There was the Dinosaur Model Walk You remember that? Y?
Yeah? Yes, yeah, we have a lot to look forward to, is what I'm saying. So, yes, that's coming up for our July pick uh. Go see this movie because it's a movie that probably needs more theatrical attention. Spend some bucks, go see it.
I don't think it's it's worth it to see it. Not always do you need to go to movies just because they're big and loud and scary. I don't know, like dark Dominions. But instead, this movie is a visual feast, and so it's so much fun.
To watch for sure, worth it in the theater. Don't bother d Box though, it's just dollying back and forth across the theater so much Dolly track. Do you agree like I wish I could have invested de.
Box would be funny if you tried to look at like one half of the frame and it would slide, so you've had to look at the middle of the frame all the time. Sorry.
Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Whether you agreed, disagree, or just came here to shout at your phones, we appreciate you. Whatever you do. Now, watch more movies, don't let them get you angry, and remember just because it has just because it has a post credit scene doesn't mean it's not wearing pinstripes and wide lapels. Meeting adjourned