June 20, 2025 • 62 mins
Episode 96 – The Phoenician Scheme (Mindframes Podcast)
Michael Cockerill and Dave Canfield discuss Wes Anderson's latest film, The Phoenician Scheme. The movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Meena Truppleton, and other regulars from Anderson’s filmography.
The story centers around Zaza Corda, a wealthy businessman played by Benicio del Toro, who makes the surprising decision to name his daughter—a nun—as his heir. He simultaneously launches a massive infrastructure project in the fictional country of Phoenicia (or Western Phoenicia), encountering opposition from terrorists, rival tycoons, and even his own brother.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Cockerill (00:16):
Welcome to Mind Frames, our sometimes half-assed but always wholehearted film conversation. ah With you, as always, I'm Michael Cockrell. And joining me, as always, is Dave, what movie are we talking about today?
Dave (00:28):
Dave Canfield.
We are talking about the latest movie from Wes Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Meena Truppleton, and a host of players from the Anderson universe.
Michael Cockerill (00:51):
Yep, Wes Anderson is back with a film about a wealthy businessman Zaza Corda played by Benicio, who designates his daughter a nun as his sole heir while undertaking a grand infrastructure project in a country called Phoenicia, thus the name the Phoenician scheme.
or the kind country's name, something like Western Phoenicia or something. The word Phoenicia is in there. So he has this ambitious plan and he faces opposition from various antagonists, foreign terrorists, rival tycoons, his brother. And they're all trying to get a piece of the pie and sabotage him because he's just kind of been a dick his entire life.
(01:27):
um He has various enemies out to get him and they're all trying to kill him, by the way. And he survives assassination after assassination, plane crash after plane crash. to humorous effect.
the The film is an exploration, or the film as a side quest explores the themes of family, business, and the clash of grand ambitions and ah the simple joys of life, some of which will be we'll be talking about in our spoiler thematic discussion.
(01:58):
Before we get there, there is a lot of technical data we should go over for this film. um Wes Anderson, we all know him. He wrote, produced, and directed this film.
The story was co-written by Roman Coppola. ah Have they worked together before? but Didn't look that up. Sorry. I think so. Are we Wes Anderson fans or or not, Dave?
Dave (02:22):
You know what? It's funny. I was talking with my friend Tim Peoples about this today. And the truth is is, yeah, especially after going back and listing all his movies and looking at them and realizing I've seen all but two and there's only one i really don't like.
there are three that i think are just near masterpieces um and ah almost all of them are just really enjoyable
(02:52):
bits of whimsy uh and and and style and um at their best sometimes they have some real substance so i would say i am
Michael Cockerill (03:03):
oh i'm definitely a wes anderson film they're always very fun they're always ah
i like I like his films, and he definitely has a defined style. No surprise there. Everyone knows that. And I do think he has been drifting ever as the style has become more and more defined over time. He's been drifting into self-parody a little bit, and I don't think he's there yet.
(03:29):
I think The French Dispatch, I think we talked about that a lot when we reviewed that film. That is the closest film to that. To me, the perfect Wes Anderson film is um The Grand Budahest Hotel. if you know i don't know why he just...
when of did did a 360 after that movie and made something like John Wick. I don't know. like I think he perfected his style in that film. And ever since then, with the exception of the stop-motion animations, I think Isle of Dogs come came after that, which is also fantastic. They've all been I think heavily influenced in that direction. um So I do kind of would wish he would do something a little, you know, I love when people subvert their style. I'd like to be surprised, but I do, i do enjoy his films and never miss any of them.
(04:14):
Asteroid city. i thought was pretty, was very good. And it is the only movie I can say for sure that is like kind of captured the essence of the pandemic, which I think is hard to do um in terms of his direction and how he directs his actors.
I'm referring to the monotone and straight delivery to camera. um It works in his movies. And I think especially in movies like Asteroid City, where you know we have a, you know it's like a multi-layered universe.
(04:43):
That is, we're watching a TV show that's about a play or something. There's a couple layers incepted down in there. um yeah Moral of the story is, yeah, anytime Wes Anderson's making a movie, I'm gonna go see it. And it's generally entertaining.
uh let's talk about the cast this time and then go into like technical because there is a little bit more we'd like to get into the technical this time i didn't i i i think i gave you a warning dave because he he got a new cinematographer and there was there was a little bit you know i said i like him i'd like him to go little different off his style and there are some departures from his previous couple of films um and we'll talk about that but let's let's cover the cast first uh You know, ah gosh, that this cast is stacked.
Dave (05:29):
Yeah.
So good.
Michael Cockerill (05:32):
And i think I think possibly to its detriment, I'll be honest, I think a lot of these characters had nothing to do.
Dave (05:32):
so good
Michael Cockerill (05:39):
um I'm sorry, I have to say that like Riz Ahmed, I loved, was in Sound of Metal, my number one movie from a couple of years ago. i love i'm a huge riz ahmed fan and i felt like he had nothing to do he was like in two or three scenes and uh he was just crowded out by all of the other terrific charismatic actors um
Dave (06:01):
Well, he was in in the scenes he was in too. He was in with Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston who are hilarious in their roles.
Michael Cockerill (06:09):
right that's exactly what i mean so yeah we got we've got a stacked cast and everyone wants to be in um Everyone wants to be in a Wes Anderson film because it's probably so fun and so challenging. And, you know, he's a genius, no doubt. But yeah, I do feel like little it's a little crowded field in there. You know, the roster is getting longer and longer.
(06:32):
ah What do you think, Dave? I mean, I know they say funny things, but having funny famous people say funny things, you know.
Dave (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, i mean
Michael Cockerill (06:41):
Like Tom Hanks, his character. i saw no point i i think tom hanks was a little distracting there um
Dave (06:47):
I didn't need a point because I think that that's part of what Wes Anderson does is he just has things in sometimes just because they're whimsical.
I totally see your point. um I enjoyed it too much. I enjoyed Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston too much to want them to disappear. i mean, the other players in this, real quick, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright, um Matthew Amarick, whom i confess I don't know a lot about Benedict Cumberbatch again Bill Murray F. Murray Abraham and those are just the day players those are just the people who came in and did these more or less sort of smaller roles most of them
(07:33):
um The bulk of the movie is Benicio del Toro and then Mia Thruppleton as his daughter, who is also a nun, and Michael Cera, who has a very interesting sort of role that shifts around.
um Career best for Michael Cera. Just really, the more I think about it, the more I think how funny it is. He is very, very, very funny in this film.
(08:01):
And the film uses him. I think Brian Calarico thought this was the best use of director and actor, like, you know, best mesh. was just perfect casting.
um Mia Threppleton is just great. She's got this deadpan sort of approach to being this nun and also sort of hating her father for abandoning them when they were younger.
(08:25):
uh, She's just great. She's just like a kind of a cross between a hard-bitten dame from 1930s, you know, screwball comedy and yet a very serious, almost dour sort of character at the same time.
Benicio Del Toro.
(08:48):
just never really does anything badly. He's you know really well cast here. um This is a really good film for him. Obviously, he's been in traffic.
Guardians of the Galaxy. um think I tried to tell us one that we were doing a little bit of research and it said he was in Pan's Labyrinth. That is not true. He is not in Pan's Labyrinth.
Michael Cockerill (09:11):
Wait, who is not in Pan's Labyrinth?
Dave (09:13):
Benicio Del Toro. um
Michael Cockerill (09:15):
Interesting.
Dave (09:16):
Miller, he is in the usual suspects, obviously he's in the remake of the where the wolfman which wasn't wasn't bad before this last one, which was kind of bad. David Miller, So he's just a great actor and he really settles into this role he's very funny he's got the right amount of menace.
Yeah, I think this is a really well-cast film. It is busy, I think, like Mike says, and probably to the detriment of a more compelling sort of like deep story.
Michael Cockerill (09:50):
Yeah, he didn't direct Pan's Labyrinth either. I bet that's where the confusion came in.
Dave (09:54):
I think that's where that comes from, yeah.
Michael Cockerill (09:54):
Because they have the same last name.
Dave (09:58):
Don't trust AI, folks. It's okay to do a little research, but Wow.
Michael Cockerill (10:01):
Yeah, you shouldn't.
You can probably trust Wikipedia at this point. I don't think this is Michael Cera's career best. um
Dave (10:11):
Oh,
Michael Cockerill (10:12):
and I just can't go there. I'm sorry.
Dave (10:14):
what what is his career best?
Michael Cockerill (10:16):
You know, I actually think... um
I think his career best is that one movie,
The Art of Self-Defense.
Dave (10:28):
Oh, now that's interesting.
Michael Cockerill (10:29):
Have you seen that?
Dave (10:31):
that's nobody That's Jesse. That's Jesse Eisenberg.
Michael Cockerill (10:36):
Sorry, I don't understand. I'm sorry. um
Really? Okay,
Dave (10:42):
Yeah, that's Jesse Eisenberg.
Michael Cockerill (10:45):
hold on a second.
Dave (10:50):
I mean, you've got a lot of great performances to pick from there. He's great in Scott Pilgrim. He's marvelous in Youth and Revolt.
Michael Cockerill (10:58):
jeez here you're right what am i thinking of is there another karate movie with with michael cera
Dave (11:04):
He does karate in Barbie.
Michael Cockerill (11:08):
maybe i was thinking of super bad i don't know does he do karate and super bad he you know barbie is up on the list as well but um you mentioned uh not knowing who uh matthew amelric is uh uh you know he's been he's in the cast he's in every
Dave (11:15):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
Michael Cockerill (11:25):
Wes Anderson movie he plays the French guy in every West Anderson movie I pretty much it was in grandpa Buddha test to hell he was some Butler and I think Serge X the Butler he's probably best known he's also a director by the way but he's probably best known for the diving bell and the butterfly he was the lead in that so that is French movie you know
Dave (11:32):
Was he the kid in Grand Budapest Hotel?
Yes, okay.
Oh, wow.
(11:54):
It's a considerable, a considerable career.
Michael Cockerill (11:57):
he's mainly does french movies but occasionally pops up in wes anderson or another uh american movie he's the french guy in this movie again just like always he's the marseille bob um and uh yeah i can't think of anything else you might know him from
Dave (12:14):
OK.
Michael Cockerill (12:14):
ah diving down the butterfly probably and all of the wes anderson movies he's pretty much been in every everyone hmm
Dave (12:17):
So we see. we saw sort of the same problem with the cast right we so saw sort of same problem with the cat
Michael Cockerill (12:28):
I think we did.
Dave (12:28):
when you know
Michael Cockerill (12:29):
yeah i didn't know you saw that problem.
Dave (12:31):
ah sure i mean i think that
Michael Cockerill (12:32):
Yeah. We got to talk about Mio Thurpleton, though. This is like her screen debut, kind of. She's been in a lot of TV. But um yeah, this is really pretty big breakout role for her.
Dave (12:46):
it's crazy how
Michael Cockerill (12:47):
think she did a great job.
Dave (12:48):
Mark Benthien, SCEC- And she has hold own and so many sequences with so much so much you know heat in the room so many talent. Mark Benthien, SCEC-
Michael Cockerill (12:55):
and there are so many people who could have played this role i think a lot of people could have paid played this role um yet they went with her a person who hasn't been on screen a lot or hasn't been on the big screen a lot um yeah
Dave (13:10):
yeah good choice.
Michael Cockerill (13:13):
i think there's a it was a risk but worth taking all righty so uh we talked about and we didn't even mention bill murray or willem defoe
Dave (13:25):
I know Bill Murray plays God, so, you know.
Michael Cockerill (13:25):
That's how many people are in this.
Yeah. Well, I think one of the technical aspects we wanted to talk about, you know, maybe Wes Anderson listens to us and he's been ah getting feedback from our podcast that, you know, he's a he's doing the he's kind of falling into patterns uh i don't think we're the only people who have been saying that but um definitely so there is a small change dave he this is the first time he's worked with uh runo del bono um so he got a new um cinematographer he you know he's mainly worked with uh yield what's his name uh yeoman uh and
Dave (13:45):
no. no
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (14:08):
it's definitely a Wes Anderson movie, but there are some slight changes, especially in the lighting and the um some things that didn't appear. so So let's talk about that. I thought that was an interesting departure, and i wanted to have a little bit of section where you talked about that.
Dave (14:20):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (14:20):
So, Drunod del Bonel, I think we gotta talk about, well, he's French. He did Amélie, and that is Le Fabule Gesson d'Amy Poulain.
And that movie was, at the time, you know kind of like a wes day anderson parody you know it's it it has a lot of the wes anderson elements um so he's kind of been it's sort someone who's been influenced maybe by wes anderson in theater as wes anderson is uh so it's not surprising that he would partner with this but he's also done some other movies uh not just amidi but i think when you're talking about wes anderson that is the most wes anderson type film he has done ah
(15:03):
Now, Yeoman has been with ah Wes Anderson since I think he did Bottle Rocket, and he's kind of helped define that Wes Anderson look.
What am I talking about? Bright pastel palettes. um
You know,
(15:26):
a a simple flat look. And some of that is still here, um but some of it goes away. And I think one thing I noticed that doesn't appear in this film and, you know, slap me if I'm wrong, something that has really kind of one of the more Wes Anderson-y, Wes Anderson things is like the whip around reaction shot.
Dave (15:42):
Yes.
yes
Michael Cockerill (15:52):
I'm talking like, and it was good in Grand Budapest Hotel when, you know, we're talking and you're one person talks, you get the other reaction and it's usually something funny. um That kind of thing, that quick camera action does not appear here.
Here we have like a much more slower kind of disjointed look. And I won't compare Asteroid City at this point because it's just too different. But the pretty much the bright, flat,
(16:22):
over overall consistent lighting, It's kind of gone. We have more moody and dramatic lighting.
Dave (16:28):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (16:28):
you know We have a lot of use of shadow, which almost is completely absent in the other Wes Anderson's.
Dave (16:28):
that.
Michael Cockerill (16:34):
I think if you had to pick out one big change besides the whip pans, the whip zooms being gone, and please angrily, if there is one in there, angrily send me your letter.
I've only seen it once. But um we've got moody and dramatic um lighting. And I think that's a big change in a very interesting change um so yeah the shadow shadows being present we still do have you know the color scheme and you just break in here anytime you want dave
Dave (16:55):
well on that
well Well, ah the the the main thing the main thing for me about Delbonel is if you look at, say, Amelie, right, which is Jean-Pierre Genot, and, you know, Jean-Pierre Genot is known for making rather dark bits of whimsy.
(17:26):
And Amelie is certainly a whimsical film that also has a little bit of a dark side. You have this person running around manipulating everybody else's life. um And the film questions that to some degree, I think.
um You also have Inside Llewellyn Davis, which is, you couldn't make it more different film than Amelie, than that. um And then Darkest Hour, i think is different from both of those.
(17:54):
And he seems to be bringing... all of those lessons learned into this um and i think to great effect like you said for the change that we need to see in west anderson for him to remain interesting this is a darker grittier west anderson in some ways um you know there's a scene near the beginning of the movie it's a great sequence um where somebody is blown in half on camera
Michael Cockerill (18:18):
Mm-hmm.
Dave (18:27):
And I can't think of a single Wes Anderson movie where you see anything like that. Now it's played for comedic effect, but with all the French influence in this movie, I kind of kept thinking of like Melville and some of those guys who made the, you know, movies about the French resistance and, you know, the darkness of the of of those times.
(18:50):
um And this is a film that deals with death. Death is a big part of this film. David Miller, And think, given all that double now was a great choice. David Miller, about here, even when he's dealing in the brighter palette that that Wes Anderson still brings to the fore.
Michael Cockerill (19:12):
There are a lot. The the color palette is a tight slightly more muted. um that I don't know if that's a double nail thing or if that's a we're in the desert thing um but there's a lot of okra and cyan um yeah and then of course we have almost completely white shots of heaven so we have uh some very interesting stuff going on there i would say yeah you've got just much more theatrical lighting uh and less um flatness in the in the in the lighting in the uh and i think that you can you can see that difference i almost wish we could we could see what he would have done with asteroid city where there's a lot of internal site shots um that would have been very interesting to see but uh yeah i think this is this is uh
Dave (19:51):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (20:01):
i think this is very good you can definitely see it in yeah the uh internal scenes i think you can you'll you'll notice it looks it's tad tad tad different from asteroid city and french dispatch um but still very wes anderson and i think yeah he's he's going in a slightly different direction i appreciate it
Dave (20:19):
well
David Miller, and including with the aspect ratio. David Miller,
Michael Cockerill (20:27):
oh yeah we need that's if yeah we got to talk about that very odd aspect ratio 151 um
Dave (20:37):
Which is what it's narrower than four three but it's taller than a wide screen. David Miller,
Michael Cockerill (20:41):
yes i i don't know what to make of that uh yeah it's almost like they're always in a building because of the aspect ratio
Dave (20:45):
You know you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah And I don't know, you know, the characters are trying to break out as characters do in stories. They're trying to change their lives and or find out where the boundaries are, and sometimes breaking out of boundaries.
um So yeah, an interesting choice.
Michael Cockerill (21:09):
so 19th century let's see 19th century photographs were in like five four so
Dave (21:21):
Okay. And it also
Michael Cockerill (21:23):
there may be attempt to make it kind of look like a newsreel from the 30s or 40s is what I was looking that up for um yes but I think it's kind of to make it feel claustrophobic like you're kind of a little trapped and possibly also to make it look like a newsreel from the uh 40s or 50s or even 30s shot in 35 millimeter celluloid without a doubt I mean uh it's Wes Anderson so yeah you can definitely see that and you can kind of make out the graininess we've had a lot of films you know shot in different camera types we've had some eight millimeter in universal language we've had some 16 millimeter in
Dave (21:49):
and it could also
Yeah, this has been really interesting.
Michael Cockerill (22:02):
yeah people are very experimenting with it it's almost like a backlash against digital getting so easy to use and if we did decide to do um another movie there's a movie coming out in wide release right now coming out tomorrow uh on the 19th of june that was shot with iphones completely as far as i know that's what the people are saying online um and we'll see if people spot that they cheated and used more than iphones uh yeah
Dave (22:09):
you know
Well, one thing about this that I found compelling, um again, to like to relate a story element to some of the techniques that are chosen, is it seems pretty obvious that they are mining the story of um of howard of Howard Hughes.
(22:46):
And he, Alexander Korda is very much in the Hughes vein.
Michael Cockerill (22:46):
Yes.
Dave (22:53):
and
Hughes was a character who was largely known through newsreels by the American public. um And in in that time when people got their information about celebrities that way, um and tabloids and this kind of thing, ah the the the entertainment press, which was sort of burgeoning at the point at that point. So yeah, it's a really interesting thematic choice.
(23:19):
You could almost, almost seen this film shot in black and white, We've never had a black and white Wes Anderson movie, but I do.
Michael Cockerill (23:28):
nor will you ever.
Dave (23:30):
Yeah, I think you have lost something.
Michael Cockerill (23:30):
Dave, if that if if he does a black and white film, it'll be like, I don't know, it'll be like me. ah if day I can't imagine him doing a black and white film.
Half of his style is color.
Dave (23:46):
Yes.
Michael Cockerill (23:46):
So um
Dave (23:46):
And in this film, it's no different.
Michael Cockerill (23:49):
I can see him. I think he's just but done black and white set segments, but never films.
Dave (23:55):
David Gardner, Wess Anderson.
Michael Cockerill (24:08):
All right, let's let's do our reviews and then discuss an interesting thematic element we found in this um film. Dave, why don't you start us off with a spoiler free review?
Dave (24:20):
Spoiler free review is um earlier i listed the Wes Anderson movies that I think are genuine masterpieces. And I said Rushmore, Tenenbaums, and ah ah Fantastic Mr. Potts.
To that list, I neglected very badly to add the Grand Budapest Hotel. um
Michael Cockerill (24:45):
His best film.
Dave (24:45):
those Those are four absolutely impeccable, of bits of American cinema um that deserve to always be watched, always be studied.
um And i would I would call a lot of the the the the other Wes Anderson movies um
(25:10):
like extremely well-made, often very funny and entertaining. um And to me, he's only got one or two clunkers. David was a real pleasure to see him back to form with this movie.
I think this is the best movie he's made since ah the grand Budapest hotel and I say that having not seen asteroid city and I haven't seen Henry sugar but
Michael Cockerill (25:34):
didn't we watch asteroid city today together Dave okay
Dave (25:36):
No, we didn't. I wish we had. um I really want to see it. I just neglected to be able to squeak it in before awards season. um This movie is a remote dropper.
That's what I love about it. This is a movie that if it's going to come on and and or I'm walking by it, I want to stop everything I'm doing and just watch it for the sheer pleasure of watching people having ah really joyful time at their craft and being whimsical and inventive and then surprising to me with a little bit of depth.
(26:17):
I think that that we're gonna talk about some of that coming up here. um But when you can do all those things in a movie, that's going to get you a big thumbs up from me.
I think this is a charming, marvelous, um kind of heartfelt comedy ah and and and definitely deserves your attention.
Michael Cockerill (26:45):
yeah um i i liked it you know i think it is interesting in that it is a slight departure for wes anderson if you don't like wes anderson movies you are not going to like this because many of the aspects such as straight delivery of lines um to camera you know that's in there and if that's a if that's a no for you you're probably not gonna like it but if you like wes anderson ner or or you're open-minded never seen him before i think you should give it a shot and i'm interested to see that wes anderson is ever so slightly dipping his toe into dare i say an edgier type of script
(27:22):
both in terms of the technical delivery. you know we have are new We have a lot more use of shadow, and dare I say I saw a little bit of Kioskero shading and shadow in this film.
Dave (27:35):
wow
Michael Cockerill (27:36):
And but beyond the the technical li literal darkness that is present and shadow and light source visible rather than flat, um we have kind of like a thematic and a plot darkness.
As you said, Dave, you know, one of the early scenes is someone gets blown in half very violently. And I think that's Wes Anderson winking at us and telling us and the script telling us this is going to little bit different where, you know, most of the violence in his previous films not all, but most appears off screen, right?
(28:08):
Or it's people getting punched. um
Dave (28:11):
or it's very theoretically presented and looks kind of a tiny bit cardboard and rush more, for instance, there's a Vietnam War era thing.
Michael Cockerill (28:12):
You don't,
Dave (28:20):
David Myers, And you have people running off stage and getting blown up and you have obviously fake flash bangs and on the on the high school stage set and I think some stage blood that's very obviously stage blood.
Michael Cockerill (28:33):
yeah but we got in here we got plane crashes explosions a guy getting bone in half gunfights terrorists there's still some humor in there and it's not you know ever feels truly threatening but um a little tip toe dip into maybe like an edgier little try out of an edgier thing and maybe we'll get our horror movie you know the ensemble and dave this is my time to talk we don't remember our rule we don't interrupt each other and this part uh
Dave (28:53):
you never know. Oh, sorry.
oh sorry
Michael Cockerill (29:02):
The ensemble performances are fun, maybe a little overloaded, but you know you're right, Dave. seeing ah Seeing Hanks and Cranston and Cumberbatch together, um well, you don't see them together, but seeing Hanks and Cranston together in very humorous scenes, Cumberbatch with a ridiculous beard,
um bill murray is god that's just fun and that's a part of wes anderson so even though it feels a little crowded yeah that's another really compelling aspect of this theme and on top of that maybe it's the icing uh you got a little bit of redemption story in there and uh i think we all need that um yeah so i would say three stars probably and i i think there is a eversight growth all right dave what would you want to say
Dave (29:54):
Oh, no, i just agree with I just agree with everything you're saying. um It's like a pleasure to live in a world where Wes Anderson makes movies.
Michael Cockerill (30:05):
yes it's always a pleasure to to see his films and uh i i don't think he's really made a bad movie um but
Dave (30:16):
And you don't think this was too twee in any way?
Michael Cockerill (30:19):
Boy, we've hit twee. We've hit, what's the other one? Whimsical.
Dave (30:24):
We have, well,
Michael Cockerill (30:24):
if you're If you're at home with your Wes Anderson business bingo card, you you're almost got a bingo.
Dave (30:29):
I am quoted, yes, yes. And I'm quoting a critic.
Michael Cockerill (30:32):
um No, I think this was less twee.
Dave (30:33):
but
Michael Cockerill (30:34):
I think he has heard those twee and whimsical um commentaries. and he's like, I'm going to blow a mofo half half up in my movie. Tweet you this.
But, you know, right? Right?
Dave (30:49):
ah David Kedrickson, think you're right, i said that in direct response to a critic bitching online about how he thought this movie was just another example of less Anderson and he little self absorbed you know self indulgent you know creative stat and I think that's ridiculous.
Michael Cockerill (31:06):
He's, you know, i and he has been heading in that direction of like self-parody.
Dave (31:08):
David Kedrickson,
Michael Cockerill (31:12):
like He's getting, he was on route for self-parody island. I really, I'm sorry, but I think he was.
Dave (31:17):
Sure.
Michael Cockerill (31:18):
And I think he might have like just, I don't know if he's turned the ship around, but he's he's turned it a little bit um by blowing Gaia up and maybe getting some, you know, having lighting coming from a direction other than above.
So, you we've moved it.
Dave (31:30):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (31:31):
so you know we we've ah we've moved we've moved it um and i don't think there was anyone dressed in a bright color here but again that might have just been because of the of the plot i don't know if he's given that up i think he might just be because it's in the middle east in the desert but we'll see we'll see we might get a guy dressed in purple again in our next film uh so yeah i i think it's a three three and a half star film if i had to give a review so we we got a spoiler discussion coming up now and uh we were going to talk about
Dave (32:00):
right.
Michael Cockerill (32:06):
um
How do we want to phrase this? We want to talk about how the one one interesting element element in the Phoenician scheme that we we we noticed was um kind of like legacy and how it treats legacy.
ah it uh you know our character starts out with the idea of a legacy and he ends in a different place of and i think that's growth and interesting and so with i think that's about all we can say about that theme because you know legacy is about how things end so we will just continue this discussion in um our spoiler free section if you haven't seen the movie go see it and join us back
(32:55):
you know, Dave, and in Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton says, what is a legacy? It's planting a tree in a garden you never get to see or something like that.
So what I think it was interesting because at the at the beginning of the film, we have – this guy and he is kind of like a howard hughes type he's an asshole he's known as mr five percent because he rips people off and takes five percent of everything especially countries like entire country's wealth um and at the end of the movie he kind of gives that all up and lives a humble life and i think that's an interesting journey especially since in our real world you know
(33:44):
Rich people are not necessarily doing that. They're going to space and building mega yachts.
Dave (33:50):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (33:52):
And those are just the things we know about. So, um
you know, I do, you know, Dave, I do know some billionaires or people who are probably about to become a billionaire that ah have a bunker full of AK-47s and gold.
Dave (34:13):
Steve, you can get us invited to the party.
Michael Cockerill (34:15):
I don't think we're invited, but I'm not going to say who it is, but um they run a very famous AI company and their name rhymes with Sham Paltman.
Dave (34:17):
yeah
You know, it's funny that you mentioned that about the quote from Hamilton, because in Mission Impossible, they have this mantra that they say to each other, this new Mission Impossible movie of, um for our loved ones and those we'll never meet.
(34:49):
You know, i just like, it's kind of a theme, I think, of like what constitutes success in quote, the mission or in life.
Michael Cockerill (34:50):
yeah
Dave (35:01):
um Yeah, interesting stuff.
Michael Cockerill (35:05):
so yeah the Phoenician scheme is interesting in that you know the traditional narrative of legacy is that greatness is something that is preserved um with your name on it usually but in this film uh the legacy that del Toro's character uh Zaza Corda leaves behind is giving up everything he gives up everything for others and lives in humility um you know uh so i I think that that is very interesting so what do I mean by his legacy just in case we're not clear
(35:42):
through the course of the film, he is trying to build his ultimate scheme, the Phoenician scheme, where he turns this country into like his biggest win ever. And it's kind of falling apart throughout the movie.
And he's growing, and he's hurt, and he's having these premonitions where he goes to heaven. And at the end of the film, for reasons which we're going to discuss, um and which we may not know for sure, he gives up everything so that There are no slaves. and They end the famine.
(36:15):
And, you know, the his wealth, which was going to be built up upon the basically raping and pillaging of the country of Phoenicia, is undone by his own personal loss.
And I think that's a very interesting element. And yeah, i think i think that's interesting.
Dave (36:33):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (36:36):
Let's do it.
Dave (36:37):
Yeah, I mean, this business of him ending up in the restaurant. um One of the things we all think of when we think of Europe is we think of these little cafes and we think of these little romantic holes in the wall and family owned enterprises.
particularly if they're eateries. And to fall back into that as the default redemption for this character, for him to end up running something like that, is just, again, it's that wonderful, charming quality that Wes Anderson brings, you know, and centering his idea of redemption in that.
(37:20):
I think in that humility is really, really neat.
Michael Cockerill (37:25):
we first meet court in the beginning uh he's obsessed with influence we're introduced to him that way uh his numerous children which are just there really i think too he's looking for a genius but they're there for his benefit and he doesn't seem to really be taking care of him we he has many enemies he's been doing arms deals uh and he's been manipulating places for profit he's known as mr five percent yeah and he has um and everything he he, his entire life, as we've seen, he's kind of like this Howard Hughes, as you said, Dave, he's just out to get as much as he can.
(38:00):
um And he wants to start this scheme, the Phoenician scheme. It's very convoluted. I do not do not understand it. It's got several steps, steps that conveniently allow us to meet members of the ensemble class cast in isolation from each other.
yeah that's how you that that Yeah, that's how you get 10 people in a movie, Dave. You're like... 10 we need to meet 10 people number one brian cranston number two tom hanks just cross them off yeah ah look i'm not judging that i didn't think that at all that just occurred to me that that is kind of a convenience of uh you know you make a big list of places you have to go and then there's people from the ensemble cast there uh it it's not quite as cheap as the avengers where they just let's just get rid of half the people
Dave (38:27):
Oh, there needs to be another step.
Yes, be on the lookout at the end of this for our link to our screenwriting class, the Mindframe screenwriting class.
Michael Cockerill (38:56):
i don't know they turned to dust or something you know we got too many people in this movie then we'll bring them back at the end it's not quite that um evident but uh yeah it's it's gonna be it ah totally didn't occur to me during the thing i think it works perfectly um but as corda goes and i really want to get your opinion on this dave he's changing and
Dave (38:57):
Hmm.
ah
Michael Cockerill (39:21):
I don't know why he's changing. Um, I guess the, is it because he meets Bill Murray and Bill Murray is such a nice God, you know, Bill Murray is incredibly nice. If you're meeting him at a wedding, that is true.
If you're bringing him coffee on a set, uh, might be a little different, but, ah yeah, if you meet Bill Murray in heaven or, uh, in uh in ah on ah in a wedding he's incredibly nice is it that he's having these is it because he's bleeding from the head tom hanks says he's changed right tom hanks's character who i do not know his name uh says that he's like not as diabolical or words to that effect as he was um so what do you think is like at some point dave the conception of his legacy his legacy is going to be the scheme in the beginning but by the end his legacy is
Dave (39:50):
Oh, gosh, that's fine. Yeah.
yeah
Michael Cockerill (40:15):
all of the good things that he can do for Phoenicia. Where do you think that was happening?
Dave (40:21):
You know, I think this movie is very smart in that it doesn't say, you know, um here is the pathway, the pathway to redemption.
But it it's it's constantly making suggestions. And it's doing it within the framework of characters who are all flawed, who all have their own, you know, like you said, like Bill Murray can be, you know, one way at one thing and one way or at another.
(40:48):
um So everything that's happening to him is happening in a deeply human context. We meet him when he first ah crashes.
And he talks about sort of being done with this shit. Like, I'm getting too old.
Michael Cockerill (41:04):
But
Dave (41:05):
I'm going to die. Sooner or later, this is going to catch up with me. I'm going to sign everything over so my daughter. And you realize, oh, this is a little bit of manipulation to try to absolve himself of the guilt he feels about how he's treated her and maybe his other children and his wives and other people and the people that he's had murdered.
Michael Cockerill (41:27):
are but
how did you come to that conclusion because he she asks him why and he says i have my reasons and he's like i'm not saying i'm saying i'm not saying my reasons but i i don't know why he chose her you're what gave you the impression that it was because um he felt guilty and he thought she would be a better steward uh did i miss that
Dave (41:41):
Yeah.
Well, I think, i think what I'm suggesting isn't so much like a profound desire to actually change as maybe hints that there there's an awareness.
(42:03):
I haven't lived the greatest life. And, uh, there's some forgiveness I'd like to feel about that or some sense of having done something for someone else other than myself.
Um, And I'm not suggesting that's the only way to look at how he's changed or why he chooses change.
(42:28):
I think it does get more apparent as time goes on that that is the direction that he needs to go in. He begins to realize it needs to be less about me and it needs to be more about the things that really do matter. The fact that this scheme I have is going to create slaves and that it involves ripping people off and constantly lying and cheating my way to get it done. And the means doesn't justify the end.
(43:02):
That you can want something that doesn't mean that it's good for you, you know, that it's ah that it's that it's good for you to do whatever to get it. And um so I think there's this sort of slow move throughout the film, don't you?
Michael Cockerill (43:19):
yes i do think that there are very important moments he he he comes into contact with his daughter who i think she's changed by him and he's changed by her but she's so unwavering in her belief in good and shocked by his behavior that i think that it kind of is a wake-up call to him i don't really understand what scarlett uh johansson's or honorary johansson scarlett johansson's character is uh doing in the film uh but she is kind of like a do-gooder um and she's marrying him for some reason i'm glad she's in the movie but i don't know why she's in the movie but she is another person who is on the journey to like well she's his cousin he's marrying his cousin and nothing wrong with that said everyone in my family um so he's marrying his like second cousin and uh
Dave (43:55):
but
Yeah.
Yes. well
Michael Cockerill (44:14):
i think she's gone a different direction with the family legacy and that's an influence upon him but i do think dave the ultimate uh thing that pushes him over is when he meets his uncle and this is all very intertwined with family right and he meets his uncle who is an animal is described as an animal and he's the most most ruthless
Dave (44:34):
yes
Michael Cockerill (44:44):
vile businessman you can imagine which we find out in after he's redeemed he we find out he's trying to kill him the opposite of of his daughter uh so i think that's the the kicker is that that pushes him over he's like he sees history repeating itself because we know the fathers of the brother the fathers of the uncles the great uncles fought to the death in similar circumstances and i think he wants to break that cycle wants to build a different legacy but you know there are alternate and interpretations maybe he's just bleeding in his brain uh but i do think that it's a slow journey and i think that's really the best part of the script is that um we have a very subtle change in our lead character that is almost imperceptible um but by the end we've got a totally different person um
Dave (45:39):
Yeah, and you can see that, and this is, you know, but all all praise to del Toro, you can really see that behind his eyes. You can see that with a lot of lot of words, you know, that that um it just sort of emanates from him. And um this is, you know, what you said about what you said about Benedict Cumberbatch's role as the uncle in this movie, it's so interesting that they felt the need to have the arch villain because this guy's a real mustache quirler he's not just some just some casual like bit of you know chicanery he's like very menacing in the film more menacing than benicio del toro which isn't easy to do i don't think um and all through the film don't don't you feel like we're getting
Michael Cockerill (46:11):
Mm-hmm.
Dave (46:35):
Like he's the only really arch character to me, except maybe Michael Cera. Del Toro and Brepleton, they are very subtle all the way through.
And yet, like you said, the change is palpable. So what is it that we're supposed to signify change for us? And like you said, it's like,
(47:04):
they're making decisions that affect others. They're not going out and getting a new haircut and changing how they look.
Michael Cockerill (47:10):
Yeah, they're destroying whole countries.
Dave (47:12):
Right.
Michael Cockerill (47:12):
And, you know, we didn't mention ah Richard Ayoade, director and comedian.
Dave (47:18):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (47:18):
who's in this film as a well. And he plays the leader of the terrorists. And when you said he's worse than, it's like, oh, he's worse than the terrorist guy. The terrorist guy isn't even that bad, but love Richard, ah great director, directed submarine.
Dave (47:31):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (47:32):
And also of course, from the IT, from the, from the British show, the IT t crowd. um Yeah. We didn't even mention him. That's how ensemble this cast is.
Dave (47:42):
Oh, What?
Michael Cockerill (47:43):
Anyway, I wanted to get him in this podcast.
Dave (47:43):
are.
Michael Cockerill (47:47):
What was I going to say? And you know what else we didn't mention, Dave?
Dave (47:51):
what
Michael Cockerill (47:52):
We're both kind of riding out the heaven scenes.
Dave (47:55):
we are
Michael Cockerill (47:55):
We mentioned them, but, you know, if if you read this, you would think, you know, he's going to heaven and he's changing. And he's getting judged on trial in heaven by his ex-wives, who he may or may not have killed.
Yeah.
Just like Brad Pitt in.
Dave (48:14):
in Once Upon Time in Hollywood.
Michael Cockerill (48:15):
Yes, exactly. But I think he's a pretty honest I think I think we're pretty honest here about whether he killed them or not. um Yeah, I just think that this this is a fascinating ending, and he almost seems happier at the end, and his daughter seems kind of proud that he's still working, um and he's still kind of successful. and they have like a little At the end, but his legacy is a Phoenicia that is not slave-ridden and famined, and he's
(48:46):
living a quiet late life shaped by humility not by statues and i think that is very very interesting aspect of it um so this invitation to renewal let's but if we're in agreement that that's what we we got here um is the movie saying that this is a worthwhile endeavor to renew ourselves uh give it away give it away now and um You know, make our legacy
(49:19):
not what we leave behind, but what we do for others, maybe. um Like hide yourself and but uplift the world, maybe something like that.
Dave (49:24):
Well, I
well i mean, it's weird. Okay, start with Wes Anderson as a figure, right? You always imagine Wes Anderson probably in a suit, very hipster looking, um but probably a trust fund kid. I don't i don't know what his situation was, but there's you know he seems to dwell in that David Miller, storytelling where often the privilege are are his point of reference for what he wants to say, and so you know do we really want the trust fund could tell talking to us so it getting everything away.
(50:06):
David Miller, At the same time.
there's a lot of light-humoredness and satire of wealth and power. And there's a sense of awareness, I think, in his movies of how we all wish we could stay at the Grand Budapest Hotel, but we can't afford to.
(50:30):
And the truth is, the people that stay there are just like us in many, many ways, and in all of the ways that matter. And here's Korda, And he really is like us, because despite all his wealth, he's come to the end.
He knows the end is coming sooner or later. And that begins to be alive to him. And um there is this idea of, wow, how...
(51:01):
What does me being judged look like? What does evaluating my life look like? And, you know, visits to heaven, I think, are, are whether you take them literally or not, are are very much, are very much ah about that.
Him sort of like realizing, oh, you know, this is what it looks like from the outside. And so it's, yeah, we're being invited into that world that is sort of fun for us.
(51:28):
and that Wes Anderson probably understands a little bit better than most people, because maybe he's been a little bit more part of that world than most people. But at the end of the day, he wants to take us to that cafe.
you know He wants to take us to places where the things that matter, you know the cozy little den in Fantastic Mr. Fox, the ability to grow past our juvenile in Rushmore.
(51:56):
You know, we're all fighting similar battles. We're fighting the human condition in a context of darkness and corruption, but also and in in a context where we can find joy and beauty and redemption.
So ah guess I guess that does that answer your question?
Michael Cockerill (52:17):
Oh man, I don't even remember my commission question was.
Dave (52:18):
No!
Michael Cockerill (52:20):
I was so blown away that you're just totally making assumptions about Wes Anderson's background.
Dave (52:25):
And I could be, I could be.
Michael Cockerill (52:25):
But um I mean, I know you are.
Dave (52:27):
um I know you are, but what am i
Michael Cockerill (52:32):
ah
Dave (52:32):
Why did you grow up with him at the orphanage or what was the deal?
Michael Cockerill (52:33):
Yeah.
Dave (52:35):
I don't know.
Michael Cockerill (52:35):
No, no, no, no. ah i know I know he's from an upper middle class background, but he's not from a stay in a fancy European hotel background.
Dave (52:44):
Right, right.
Michael Cockerill (52:44):
um yeah I mean I know he met Owen Wilson when they're going to like University of Austin together so it's like uh compared to like next week you'll be you know all these nepo babies we talk about and you love this guy's just some Texas guy from Texas but no he's from the middle class it's it's hard to get into film when you're not from the middle class uh in fact it's hard to get into film when you're not a nepo baby but
Dave (52:54):
Interesting.
What will I be saying next week?
Michael Cockerill (53:16):
The farther you go down economic ladder, harder it gets. But he's only like halfway down it. He's not he's not at the top. um Anyway, that's I think it's kind of irrelevant.
Dave (53:25):
And shouldn't have to make apologies for it.
Michael Cockerill (53:28):
What do you say?
Dave (53:29):
He shouldn't have to make apologies for any of that. And I'm not, I didn't mean to suggest that. I'm just like, it is that weird thing sometimes where when you go to the movies, you're in a rarefied place, watching people get to do things that, you know, not a lot of people who want to do them get to do them.
(53:51):
A lot of people would like to make a movie with Bill Murray or, you know, or Scarlett Johansson. ah or whoever. So i'm i'm I'm as much talking about fighting off that cynicism to take seriously what the movie has to say as like wanting any, I don't want anybody to judge Wes Anderson.
Michael Cockerill (54:17):
of course it was written co-written by roman coppola who is the son of francis ford coppola and uh as we know francis ford coppola owns a villa and a uh so he probably spent his summers in his father's villa and winery in italy so that might be a slightly different upbringing than wes anderson but uh yeah he i don't know if i don't think francis for coppola owns a yacht but uh he's very very wealthy was until megapolis
Dave (54:20):
Ha ha ha ha ah
well mansion at a yacht.
I am Elmwood.
I own a mansion at a
(54:45):
yacht.
Michael Cockerill (54:46):
Oh, geez, that's too that's too soon.
Dave (54:48):
Are we gonna, did we do an episode on Megalopolis? We did, didn't we?
Michael Cockerill (54:52):
I think we did, yes.
Dave (54:53):
What were we thinking? i
Michael Cockerill (54:55):
but Dave listen he's telling the rich people to give it away at no point does the movie suggest that you or a or the terrorist should give it away he's saying this guy should give it away and you know some of the we talked about Mega Yachts but there are some rich people who are giving their wealth away Bill Gates comes to mind um and I think
Dave (55:04):
Correct. Correct.
Michael Cockerill (55:19):
We see Zaza at the end washing dishes. And i I don't think that's a metaphor for anything, but let's pretend like it is. Is Zaza washing away the guilt of his lifetime by if if I spend if I build up a fortune being an asshole.
And then at the end of the day, that fortune I dispense doing good deeds, where do i where do you account that person? um
Dave (55:47):
Yeah.
What do you think?
Michael Cockerill (55:50):
I think that's that's, I think, I don't know. I think that's ah that's a question bigger than me, but I don't necessarily think that, you know, there's an interesting scene where his pilot is, Zaza's pilot is angry with him.
And it's because the plane is crashing and he knows that Zaza got him into a dangerous situation. And Zaza says to the, he fires him and ejects him.
(56:20):
So, and I think like Phoenicia is that pilot. um he put him in a horrible state through perhaps lies or misleading him that it was going to be safer than it was.
And he fires him and he treats him horribly, but at the same time he saves his life.
(56:42):
I think, you know, Chris Rock famously said that ah Uncle Sam to black people is like the uncle that paid for your college, but also molested you. And I just don't know where,
those people land that's a joke i'm not putting zaza in that category but i don't know where those people who have done harm but also have done good and maybe even out of the harm they did previously i think that is a fascinating question that's brought up and um
Dave (56:59):
No, I think.
Michael Cockerill (57:13):
I think the way we land with Zaza, Wes Anderson at least, you all come to your own conclusions, but Wes Anderson is being pretty forgiving because it's not just, you know, Zaza's not trying to buy his ticket into heaven.
Zaza truly has changed by the end, I feel at least.
Dave (57:29):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's, you know, there's something, there's something about how, and we deal with this all the time in celebrity culture, right?
Because um somebody says or does something untoward, ah wrong, immoral, gets caught doing X, y or Z.
Michael Cockerill (57:48):
Murder someone.
Dave (57:50):
And then everybody wants a turn at the whip. David Miller, Everybody, you know, feels like I need to put out there my outrage my anger and everything and really it's not even about the person.
David Miller, it's just about this generalized human tendency. to look for excuses to be angry or cruel or out of control um and bitter and to project onto the rest of the world um
(58:29):
frustrations. I think that it there's not a lot that anybody can do for Cordae. If somebody wants to go into his restaurant and say,
you had my father killed, then you know he's not a immune. you know Somebody could track him down and and decide he needs to pay for a past wrong. And that becomes another big question, you know what what what what he chooses to do at that moment.
(59:01):
But part of what he's doing by giving up his money, by giving up his position, is he's putting himself at the disposal of this new life this new these new demands that goodness is going to make on him and it remains to be seen what those demands would be we can imagine all sorts of demands for corda but um i think it's a good place to leave him it's a good place to say
(59:35):
that, as yes, it is hard for a rich man to enter through the kingdom of heaven, as as the scriptures tell us. um It is not impossible.
And we need to believe in that possibility for one another of change, of growth, of redemption. Because we have that group of people in our heads that are just beyond redemption.
(01:00:01):
um Not bad. I think we have a whole country of that right now. have a whole lot of people who are convinced the other is the evil incarnate and can't change. And everybody's guilty of different things.
Granted, I sit on the liberal end of the spectrum and could probably give most people on the right a run for the money on the histories of the Democratic and Republican Party. But at the same time, yeah i don't know that I don't know that, you know, at a certain point, judgment is what you do to yourself.
(01:00:36):
So all this business of Kordas standing before God in heaven, or even being told by his daughter or whatever else, he has to make an internal judgment.
And we see him do that in the film. and that is that ah wonderful in every person
Michael Cockerill (01:00:58):
Yep. If you want to see the Phoenician scheme, it is currently in wide release. Not sure how much longer it will be. So go out and see it. ah We'll skip our movies like this one, Dave, and we'll just say every Wes Anderson movie, right?
Made us think of this movie.
Dave (01:01:12):
yeah absolutely
Michael Cockerill (01:01:15):
Our next episode, we never know what we're going to do. We've got a couple options, but I think it's going to be 28 years later, which is the movie that at least on paper was shot with 20 iPhones that we referenced earlier.
Dave (01:01:22):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (01:01:29):
20 iPhones with $100,000 worth of gear and lenses attached to them. And that's not a joke. There's an actual photo of that and someone added it up. ah Yeah. So yeah, we've seen that film and we'll talk about it. And that definitely we will talk about where the iPhones work and where they don't work.
No, they work more than they do. but's not real Let's not make it um um ah on and ominous.
Dave (01:01:51):
ah
Michael Cockerill (01:01:55):
If you would like to talk or argue with us about anything, you can find us at mindframesfilm.com.
Dave (01:01:55):
Amen, amen, amen.
Michael Cockerill (01:02:01):
We have a contact form. Fill it out. We read every one. Or more direct route, go to facebook.com slash mindframesmovies. We will read those too.
We are a proud member of the Now Playing Network. nowplayingnetwork.net you can find lots of great podcasts on there christmas movies actually um which i just now realized is a reference to love actually like i literally that just clicked in my brains dave that that's what that's a reference to um the directors club of course uh and us in that order
Dave (01:02:29):
Okay.
Michael Cockerill (01:02:39):
no and then two podcasts we've never heard of and then us um
Have you ever watched Flight of the Conchords? and there's like And they're like, we're actually the third most popular band in New Zealand. Yeah. Number two is a cover band of us.
(01:03:03):
Thank you for listening.
Come on, music.
Yeah.
Welcome to Mind Frames, our sometimes half-assed but always wholehearted film conversation. ah With you, as always, I'm Michael Cockrell. And joining me, as always, is Dave, what movie are we talking about today?
Dave (00:28):
Dave Canfield.
We are talking about the latest movie from Wes Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Meena Truppleton, and a host of players from the Anderson universe.
Michael Cockerill (00:51):
Yep, Wes Anderson is back with a film about a wealthy businessman Zaza Corda played by Benicio, who designates his daughter a nun as his sole heir while undertaking a grand infrastructure project in a country called Phoenicia, thus the name the Phoenician scheme.
or the kind country's name, something like Western Phoenicia or something. The word Phoenicia is in there. So he has this ambitious plan and he faces opposition from various antagonists, foreign terrorists, rival tycoons, his brother. And they're all trying to get a piece of the pie and sabotage him because he's just kind of been a dick his entire life.
(01:27):
um He has various enemies out to get him and they're all trying to kill him, by the way. And he survives assassination after assassination, plane crash after plane crash. to humorous effect.
the The film is an exploration, or the film as a side quest explores the themes of family, business, and the clash of grand ambitions and ah the simple joys of life, some of which will be we'll be talking about in our spoiler thematic discussion.
(01:58):
Before we get there, there is a lot of technical data we should go over for this film. um Wes Anderson, we all know him. He wrote, produced, and directed this film.
The story was co-written by Roman Coppola. ah Have they worked together before? but Didn't look that up. Sorry. I think so. Are we Wes Anderson fans or or not, Dave?
Dave (02:22):
You know what? It's funny. I was talking with my friend Tim Peoples about this today. And the truth is is, yeah, especially after going back and listing all his movies and looking at them and realizing I've seen all but two and there's only one i really don't like.
there are three that i think are just near masterpieces um and ah almost all of them are just really enjoyable
(02:52):
bits of whimsy uh and and and style and um at their best sometimes they have some real substance so i would say i am
Michael Cockerill (03:03):
oh i'm definitely a wes anderson film they're always very fun they're always ah
i like I like his films, and he definitely has a defined style. No surprise there. Everyone knows that. And I do think he has been drifting ever as the style has become more and more defined over time. He's been drifting into self-parody a little bit, and I don't think he's there yet.
(03:29):
I think The French Dispatch, I think we talked about that a lot when we reviewed that film. That is the closest film to that. To me, the perfect Wes Anderson film is um The Grand Budahest Hotel. if you know i don't know why he just...
when of did did a 360 after that movie and made something like John Wick. I don't know. like I think he perfected his style in that film. And ever since then, with the exception of the stop-motion animations, I think Isle of Dogs come came after that, which is also fantastic. They've all been I think heavily influenced in that direction. um So I do kind of would wish he would do something a little, you know, I love when people subvert their style. I'd like to be surprised, but I do, i do enjoy his films and never miss any of them.
(04:14):
Asteroid city. i thought was pretty, was very good. And it is the only movie I can say for sure that is like kind of captured the essence of the pandemic, which I think is hard to do um in terms of his direction and how he directs his actors.
I'm referring to the monotone and straight delivery to camera. um It works in his movies. And I think especially in movies like Asteroid City, where you know we have a, you know it's like a multi-layered universe.
(04:43):
That is, we're watching a TV show that's about a play or something. There's a couple layers incepted down in there. um yeah Moral of the story is, yeah, anytime Wes Anderson's making a movie, I'm gonna go see it. And it's generally entertaining.
uh let's talk about the cast this time and then go into like technical because there is a little bit more we'd like to get into the technical this time i didn't i i i think i gave you a warning dave because he he got a new cinematographer and there was there was a little bit you know i said i like him i'd like him to go little different off his style and there are some departures from his previous couple of films um and we'll talk about that but let's let's cover the cast first uh You know, ah gosh, that this cast is stacked.
Dave (05:29):
Yeah.
So good.
Michael Cockerill (05:32):
And i think I think possibly to its detriment, I'll be honest, I think a lot of these characters had nothing to do.
Dave (05:32):
so good
Michael Cockerill (05:39):
um I'm sorry, I have to say that like Riz Ahmed, I loved, was in Sound of Metal, my number one movie from a couple of years ago. i love i'm a huge riz ahmed fan and i felt like he had nothing to do he was like in two or three scenes and uh he was just crowded out by all of the other terrific charismatic actors um
Dave (06:01):
Well, he was in in the scenes he was in too. He was in with Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston who are hilarious in their roles.
Michael Cockerill (06:09):
right that's exactly what i mean so yeah we got we've got a stacked cast and everyone wants to be in um Everyone wants to be in a Wes Anderson film because it's probably so fun and so challenging. And, you know, he's a genius, no doubt. But yeah, I do feel like little it's a little crowded field in there. You know, the roster is getting longer and longer.
(06:32):
ah What do you think, Dave? I mean, I know they say funny things, but having funny famous people say funny things, you know.
Dave (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, i mean
Michael Cockerill (06:41):
Like Tom Hanks, his character. i saw no point i i think tom hanks was a little distracting there um
Dave (06:47):
I didn't need a point because I think that that's part of what Wes Anderson does is he just has things in sometimes just because they're whimsical.
I totally see your point. um I enjoyed it too much. I enjoyed Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston too much to want them to disappear. i mean, the other players in this, real quick, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright, um Matthew Amarick, whom i confess I don't know a lot about Benedict Cumberbatch again Bill Murray F. Murray Abraham and those are just the day players those are just the people who came in and did these more or less sort of smaller roles most of them
(07:33):
um The bulk of the movie is Benicio del Toro and then Mia Thruppleton as his daughter, who is also a nun, and Michael Cera, who has a very interesting sort of role that shifts around.
um Career best for Michael Cera. Just really, the more I think about it, the more I think how funny it is. He is very, very, very funny in this film.
(08:01):
And the film uses him. I think Brian Calarico thought this was the best use of director and actor, like, you know, best mesh. was just perfect casting.
um Mia Threppleton is just great. She's got this deadpan sort of approach to being this nun and also sort of hating her father for abandoning them when they were younger.
(08:25):
uh, She's just great. She's just like a kind of a cross between a hard-bitten dame from 1930s, you know, screwball comedy and yet a very serious, almost dour sort of character at the same time.
Benicio Del Toro.
(08:48):
just never really does anything badly. He's you know really well cast here. um This is a really good film for him. Obviously, he's been in traffic.
Guardians of the Galaxy. um think I tried to tell us one that we were doing a little bit of research and it said he was in Pan's Labyrinth. That is not true. He is not in Pan's Labyrinth.
Michael Cockerill (09:11):
Wait, who is not in Pan's Labyrinth?
Dave (09:13):
Benicio Del Toro. um
Michael Cockerill (09:15):
Interesting.
Dave (09:16):
Miller, he is in the usual suspects, obviously he's in the remake of the where the wolfman which wasn't wasn't bad before this last one, which was kind of bad. David Miller, So he's just a great actor and he really settles into this role he's very funny he's got the right amount of menace.
Yeah, I think this is a really well-cast film. It is busy, I think, like Mike says, and probably to the detriment of a more compelling sort of like deep story.
Michael Cockerill (09:50):
Yeah, he didn't direct Pan's Labyrinth either. I bet that's where the confusion came in.
Dave (09:54):
I think that's where that comes from, yeah.
Michael Cockerill (09:54):
Because they have the same last name.
Dave (09:58):
Don't trust AI, folks. It's okay to do a little research, but Wow.
Michael Cockerill (10:01):
Yeah, you shouldn't.
You can probably trust Wikipedia at this point. I don't think this is Michael Cera's career best. um
Dave (10:11):
Oh,
Michael Cockerill (10:12):
and I just can't go there. I'm sorry.
Dave (10:14):
what what is his career best?
Michael Cockerill (10:16):
You know, I actually think... um
I think his career best is that one movie,
The Art of Self-Defense.
Dave (10:28):
Oh, now that's interesting.
Michael Cockerill (10:29):
Have you seen that?
Dave (10:31):
that's nobody That's Jesse. That's Jesse Eisenberg.
Michael Cockerill (10:36):
Sorry, I don't understand. I'm sorry. um
Really? Okay,
Dave (10:42):
Yeah, that's Jesse Eisenberg.
Michael Cockerill (10:45):
hold on a second.
Dave (10:50):
I mean, you've got a lot of great performances to pick from there. He's great in Scott Pilgrim. He's marvelous in Youth and Revolt.
Michael Cockerill (10:58):
jeez here you're right what am i thinking of is there another karate movie with with michael cera
Dave (11:04):
He does karate in Barbie.
Michael Cockerill (11:08):
maybe i was thinking of super bad i don't know does he do karate and super bad he you know barbie is up on the list as well but um you mentioned uh not knowing who uh matthew amelric is uh uh you know he's been he's in the cast he's in every
Dave (11:15):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
Michael Cockerill (11:25):
Wes Anderson movie he plays the French guy in every West Anderson movie I pretty much it was in grandpa Buddha test to hell he was some Butler and I think Serge X the Butler he's probably best known he's also a director by the way but he's probably best known for the diving bell and the butterfly he was the lead in that so that is French movie you know
Dave (11:32):
Was he the kid in Grand Budapest Hotel?
Yes, okay.
Oh, wow.
(11:54):
It's a considerable, a considerable career.
Michael Cockerill (11:57):
he's mainly does french movies but occasionally pops up in wes anderson or another uh american movie he's the french guy in this movie again just like always he's the marseille bob um and uh yeah i can't think of anything else you might know him from
Dave (12:14):
OK.
Michael Cockerill (12:14):
ah diving down the butterfly probably and all of the wes anderson movies he's pretty much been in every everyone hmm
Dave (12:17):
So we see. we saw sort of the same problem with the cast right we so saw sort of same problem with the cat
Michael Cockerill (12:28):
I think we did.
Dave (12:28):
when you know
Michael Cockerill (12:29):
yeah i didn't know you saw that problem.
Dave (12:31):
ah sure i mean i think that
Michael Cockerill (12:32):
Yeah. We got to talk about Mio Thurpleton, though. This is like her screen debut, kind of. She's been in a lot of TV. But um yeah, this is really pretty big breakout role for her.
Dave (12:46):
it's crazy how
Michael Cockerill (12:47):
think she did a great job.
Dave (12:48):
Mark Benthien, SCEC- And she has hold own and so many sequences with so much so much you know heat in the room so many talent. Mark Benthien, SCEC-
Michael Cockerill (12:55):
and there are so many people who could have played this role i think a lot of people could have paid played this role um yet they went with her a person who hasn't been on screen a lot or hasn't been on the big screen a lot um yeah
Dave (13:10):
yeah good choice.
Michael Cockerill (13:13):
i think there's a it was a risk but worth taking all righty so uh we talked about and we didn't even mention bill murray or willem defoe
Dave (13:25):
I know Bill Murray plays God, so, you know.
Michael Cockerill (13:25):
That's how many people are in this.
Yeah. Well, I think one of the technical aspects we wanted to talk about, you know, maybe Wes Anderson listens to us and he's been ah getting feedback from our podcast that, you know, he's a he's doing the he's kind of falling into patterns uh i don't think we're the only people who have been saying that but um definitely so there is a small change dave he this is the first time he's worked with uh runo del bono um so he got a new um cinematographer he you know he's mainly worked with uh yield what's his name uh yeoman uh and
Dave (13:45):
no. no
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (14:08):
it's definitely a Wes Anderson movie, but there are some slight changes, especially in the lighting and the um some things that didn't appear. so So let's talk about that. I thought that was an interesting departure, and i wanted to have a little bit of section where you talked about that.
Dave (14:20):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (14:20):
So, Drunod del Bonel, I think we gotta talk about, well, he's French. He did Amélie, and that is Le Fabule Gesson d'Amy Poulain.
And that movie was, at the time, you know kind of like a wes day anderson parody you know it's it it has a lot of the wes anderson elements um so he's kind of been it's sort someone who's been influenced maybe by wes anderson in theater as wes anderson is uh so it's not surprising that he would partner with this but he's also done some other movies uh not just amidi but i think when you're talking about wes anderson that is the most wes anderson type film he has done ah
(15:03):
Now, Yeoman has been with ah Wes Anderson since I think he did Bottle Rocket, and he's kind of helped define that Wes Anderson look.
What am I talking about? Bright pastel palettes. um
You know,
(15:26):
a a simple flat look. And some of that is still here, um but some of it goes away. And I think one thing I noticed that doesn't appear in this film and, you know, slap me if I'm wrong, something that has really kind of one of the more Wes Anderson-y, Wes Anderson things is like the whip around reaction shot.
Dave (15:42):
Yes.
yes
Michael Cockerill (15:52):
I'm talking like, and it was good in Grand Budapest Hotel when, you know, we're talking and you're one person talks, you get the other reaction and it's usually something funny. um That kind of thing, that quick camera action does not appear here.
Here we have like a much more slower kind of disjointed look. And I won't compare Asteroid City at this point because it's just too different. But the pretty much the bright, flat,
(16:22):
over overall consistent lighting, It's kind of gone. We have more moody and dramatic lighting.
Dave (16:28):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (16:28):
you know We have a lot of use of shadow, which almost is completely absent in the other Wes Anderson's.
Dave (16:28):
that.
Michael Cockerill (16:34):
I think if you had to pick out one big change besides the whip pans, the whip zooms being gone, and please angrily, if there is one in there, angrily send me your letter.
I've only seen it once. But um we've got moody and dramatic um lighting. And I think that's a big change in a very interesting change um so yeah the shadow shadows being present we still do have you know the color scheme and you just break in here anytime you want dave
Dave (16:55):
well on that
well Well, ah the the the main thing the main thing for me about Delbonel is if you look at, say, Amelie, right, which is Jean-Pierre Genot, and, you know, Jean-Pierre Genot is known for making rather dark bits of whimsy.
(17:26):
And Amelie is certainly a whimsical film that also has a little bit of a dark side. You have this person running around manipulating everybody else's life. um And the film questions that to some degree, I think.
um You also have Inside Llewellyn Davis, which is, you couldn't make it more different film than Amelie, than that. um And then Darkest Hour, i think is different from both of those.
(17:54):
And he seems to be bringing... all of those lessons learned into this um and i think to great effect like you said for the change that we need to see in west anderson for him to remain interesting this is a darker grittier west anderson in some ways um you know there's a scene near the beginning of the movie it's a great sequence um where somebody is blown in half on camera
Michael Cockerill (18:18):
Mm-hmm.
Dave (18:27):
And I can't think of a single Wes Anderson movie where you see anything like that. Now it's played for comedic effect, but with all the French influence in this movie, I kind of kept thinking of like Melville and some of those guys who made the, you know, movies about the French resistance and, you know, the darkness of the of of those times.
(18:50):
um And this is a film that deals with death. Death is a big part of this film. David Miller, And think, given all that double now was a great choice. David Miller, about here, even when he's dealing in the brighter palette that that Wes Anderson still brings to the fore.
Michael Cockerill (19:12):
There are a lot. The the color palette is a tight slightly more muted. um that I don't know if that's a double nail thing or if that's a we're in the desert thing um but there's a lot of okra and cyan um yeah and then of course we have almost completely white shots of heaven so we have uh some very interesting stuff going on there i would say yeah you've got just much more theatrical lighting uh and less um flatness in the in the in the lighting in the uh and i think that you can you can see that difference i almost wish we could we could see what he would have done with asteroid city where there's a lot of internal site shots um that would have been very interesting to see but uh yeah i think this is this is uh
Dave (19:51):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (20:01):
i think this is very good you can definitely see it in yeah the uh internal scenes i think you can you'll you'll notice it looks it's tad tad tad different from asteroid city and french dispatch um but still very wes anderson and i think yeah he's he's going in a slightly different direction i appreciate it
Dave (20:19):
well
David Miller, and including with the aspect ratio. David Miller,
Michael Cockerill (20:27):
oh yeah we need that's if yeah we got to talk about that very odd aspect ratio 151 um
Dave (20:37):
Which is what it's narrower than four three but it's taller than a wide screen. David Miller,
Michael Cockerill (20:41):
yes i i don't know what to make of that uh yeah it's almost like they're always in a building because of the aspect ratio
Dave (20:45):
You know you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah And I don't know, you know, the characters are trying to break out as characters do in stories. They're trying to change their lives and or find out where the boundaries are, and sometimes breaking out of boundaries.
um So yeah, an interesting choice.
Michael Cockerill (21:09):
so 19th century let's see 19th century photographs were in like five four so
Dave (21:21):
Okay. And it also
Michael Cockerill (21:23):
there may be attempt to make it kind of look like a newsreel from the 30s or 40s is what I was looking that up for um yes but I think it's kind of to make it feel claustrophobic like you're kind of a little trapped and possibly also to make it look like a newsreel from the uh 40s or 50s or even 30s shot in 35 millimeter celluloid without a doubt I mean uh it's Wes Anderson so yeah you can definitely see that and you can kind of make out the graininess we've had a lot of films you know shot in different camera types we've had some eight millimeter in universal language we've had some 16 millimeter in
Dave (21:49):
and it could also
Yeah, this has been really interesting.
Michael Cockerill (22:02):
yeah people are very experimenting with it it's almost like a backlash against digital getting so easy to use and if we did decide to do um another movie there's a movie coming out in wide release right now coming out tomorrow uh on the 19th of june that was shot with iphones completely as far as i know that's what the people are saying online um and we'll see if people spot that they cheated and used more than iphones uh yeah
Dave (22:09):
you know
Well, one thing about this that I found compelling, um again, to like to relate a story element to some of the techniques that are chosen, is it seems pretty obvious that they are mining the story of um of howard of Howard Hughes.
(22:46):
And he, Alexander Korda is very much in the Hughes vein.
Michael Cockerill (22:46):
Yes.
Dave (22:53):
and
Hughes was a character who was largely known through newsreels by the American public. um And in in that time when people got their information about celebrities that way, um and tabloids and this kind of thing, ah the the the entertainment press, which was sort of burgeoning at the point at that point. So yeah, it's a really interesting thematic choice.
(23:19):
You could almost, almost seen this film shot in black and white, We've never had a black and white Wes Anderson movie, but I do.
Michael Cockerill (23:28):
nor will you ever.
Dave (23:30):
Yeah, I think you have lost something.
Michael Cockerill (23:30):
Dave, if that if if he does a black and white film, it'll be like, I don't know, it'll be like me. ah if day I can't imagine him doing a black and white film.
Half of his style is color.
Dave (23:46):
Yes.
Michael Cockerill (23:46):
So um
Dave (23:46):
And in this film, it's no different.
Michael Cockerill (23:49):
I can see him. I think he's just but done black and white set segments, but never films.
Dave (23:55):
David Gardner, Wess Anderson.
Michael Cockerill (24:08):
All right, let's let's do our reviews and then discuss an interesting thematic element we found in this um film. Dave, why don't you start us off with a spoiler free review?
Dave (24:20):
Spoiler free review is um earlier i listed the Wes Anderson movies that I think are genuine masterpieces. And I said Rushmore, Tenenbaums, and ah ah Fantastic Mr. Potts.
To that list, I neglected very badly to add the Grand Budapest Hotel. um
Michael Cockerill (24:45):
His best film.
Dave (24:45):
those Those are four absolutely impeccable, of bits of American cinema um that deserve to always be watched, always be studied.
um And i would I would call a lot of the the the the other Wes Anderson movies um
(25:10):
like extremely well-made, often very funny and entertaining. um And to me, he's only got one or two clunkers. David was a real pleasure to see him back to form with this movie.
I think this is the best movie he's made since ah the grand Budapest hotel and I say that having not seen asteroid city and I haven't seen Henry sugar but
Michael Cockerill (25:34):
didn't we watch asteroid city today together Dave okay
Dave (25:36):
No, we didn't. I wish we had. um I really want to see it. I just neglected to be able to squeak it in before awards season. um This movie is a remote dropper.
That's what I love about it. This is a movie that if it's going to come on and and or I'm walking by it, I want to stop everything I'm doing and just watch it for the sheer pleasure of watching people having ah really joyful time at their craft and being whimsical and inventive and then surprising to me with a little bit of depth.
(26:17):
I think that that we're gonna talk about some of that coming up here. um But when you can do all those things in a movie, that's going to get you a big thumbs up from me.
I think this is a charming, marvelous, um kind of heartfelt comedy ah and and and definitely deserves your attention.
Michael Cockerill (26:45):
yeah um i i liked it you know i think it is interesting in that it is a slight departure for wes anderson if you don't like wes anderson movies you are not going to like this because many of the aspects such as straight delivery of lines um to camera you know that's in there and if that's a if that's a no for you you're probably not gonna like it but if you like wes anderson ner or or you're open-minded never seen him before i think you should give it a shot and i'm interested to see that wes anderson is ever so slightly dipping his toe into dare i say an edgier type of script
(27:22):
both in terms of the technical delivery. you know we have are new We have a lot more use of shadow, and dare I say I saw a little bit of Kioskero shading and shadow in this film.
Dave (27:35):
wow
Michael Cockerill (27:36):
And but beyond the the technical li literal darkness that is present and shadow and light source visible rather than flat, um we have kind of like a thematic and a plot darkness.
As you said, Dave, you know, one of the early scenes is someone gets blown in half very violently. And I think that's Wes Anderson winking at us and telling us and the script telling us this is going to little bit different where, you know, most of the violence in his previous films not all, but most appears off screen, right?
(28:08):
Or it's people getting punched. um
Dave (28:11):
or it's very theoretically presented and looks kind of a tiny bit cardboard and rush more, for instance, there's a Vietnam War era thing.
Michael Cockerill (28:12):
You don't,
Dave (28:20):
David Myers, And you have people running off stage and getting blown up and you have obviously fake flash bangs and on the on the high school stage set and I think some stage blood that's very obviously stage blood.
Michael Cockerill (28:33):
yeah but we got in here we got plane crashes explosions a guy getting bone in half gunfights terrorists there's still some humor in there and it's not you know ever feels truly threatening but um a little tip toe dip into maybe like an edgier little try out of an edgier thing and maybe we'll get our horror movie you know the ensemble and dave this is my time to talk we don't remember our rule we don't interrupt each other and this part uh
Dave (28:53):
you never know. Oh, sorry.
oh sorry
Michael Cockerill (29:02):
The ensemble performances are fun, maybe a little overloaded, but you know you're right, Dave. seeing ah Seeing Hanks and Cranston and Cumberbatch together, um well, you don't see them together, but seeing Hanks and Cranston together in very humorous scenes, Cumberbatch with a ridiculous beard,
um bill murray is god that's just fun and that's a part of wes anderson so even though it feels a little crowded yeah that's another really compelling aspect of this theme and on top of that maybe it's the icing uh you got a little bit of redemption story in there and uh i think we all need that um yeah so i would say three stars probably and i i think there is a eversight growth all right dave what would you want to say
Dave (29:54):
Oh, no, i just agree with I just agree with everything you're saying. um It's like a pleasure to live in a world where Wes Anderson makes movies.
Michael Cockerill (30:05):
yes it's always a pleasure to to see his films and uh i i don't think he's really made a bad movie um but
Dave (30:16):
And you don't think this was too twee in any way?
Michael Cockerill (30:19):
Boy, we've hit twee. We've hit, what's the other one? Whimsical.
Dave (30:24):
We have, well,
Michael Cockerill (30:24):
if you're If you're at home with your Wes Anderson business bingo card, you you're almost got a bingo.
Dave (30:29):
I am quoted, yes, yes. And I'm quoting a critic.
Michael Cockerill (30:32):
um No, I think this was less twee.
Dave (30:33):
but
Michael Cockerill (30:34):
I think he has heard those twee and whimsical um commentaries. and he's like, I'm going to blow a mofo half half up in my movie. Tweet you this.
But, you know, right? Right?
Dave (30:49):
ah David Kedrickson, think you're right, i said that in direct response to a critic bitching online about how he thought this movie was just another example of less Anderson and he little self absorbed you know self indulgent you know creative stat and I think that's ridiculous.
Michael Cockerill (31:06):
He's, you know, i and he has been heading in that direction of like self-parody.
Dave (31:08):
David Kedrickson,
Michael Cockerill (31:12):
like He's getting, he was on route for self-parody island. I really, I'm sorry, but I think he was.
Dave (31:17):
Sure.
Michael Cockerill (31:18):
And I think he might have like just, I don't know if he's turned the ship around, but he's he's turned it a little bit um by blowing Gaia up and maybe getting some, you know, having lighting coming from a direction other than above.
So, you we've moved it.
Dave (31:30):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (31:31):
so you know we we've ah we've moved we've moved it um and i don't think there was anyone dressed in a bright color here but again that might have just been because of the of the plot i don't know if he's given that up i think he might just be because it's in the middle east in the desert but we'll see we'll see we might get a guy dressed in purple again in our next film uh so yeah i i think it's a three three and a half star film if i had to give a review so we we got a spoiler discussion coming up now and uh we were going to talk about
Dave (32:00):
right.
Michael Cockerill (32:06):
um
How do we want to phrase this? We want to talk about how the one one interesting element element in the Phoenician scheme that we we we noticed was um kind of like legacy and how it treats legacy.
ah it uh you know our character starts out with the idea of a legacy and he ends in a different place of and i think that's growth and interesting and so with i think that's about all we can say about that theme because you know legacy is about how things end so we will just continue this discussion in um our spoiler free section if you haven't seen the movie go see it and join us back
(32:55):
you know, Dave, and in Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton says, what is a legacy? It's planting a tree in a garden you never get to see or something like that.
So what I think it was interesting because at the at the beginning of the film, we have – this guy and he is kind of like a howard hughes type he's an asshole he's known as mr five percent because he rips people off and takes five percent of everything especially countries like entire country's wealth um and at the end of the movie he kind of gives that all up and lives a humble life and i think that's an interesting journey especially since in our real world you know
(33:44):
Rich people are not necessarily doing that. They're going to space and building mega yachts.
Dave (33:50):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (33:52):
And those are just the things we know about. So, um
you know, I do, you know, Dave, I do know some billionaires or people who are probably about to become a billionaire that ah have a bunker full of AK-47s and gold.
Dave (34:13):
Steve, you can get us invited to the party.
Michael Cockerill (34:15):
I don't think we're invited, but I'm not going to say who it is, but um they run a very famous AI company and their name rhymes with Sham Paltman.
Dave (34:17):
yeah
You know, it's funny that you mentioned that about the quote from Hamilton, because in Mission Impossible, they have this mantra that they say to each other, this new Mission Impossible movie of, um for our loved ones and those we'll never meet.
(34:49):
You know, i just like, it's kind of a theme, I think, of like what constitutes success in quote, the mission or in life.
Michael Cockerill (34:50):
yeah
Dave (35:01):
um Yeah, interesting stuff.
Michael Cockerill (35:05):
so yeah the Phoenician scheme is interesting in that you know the traditional narrative of legacy is that greatness is something that is preserved um with your name on it usually but in this film uh the legacy that del Toro's character uh Zaza Corda leaves behind is giving up everything he gives up everything for others and lives in humility um you know uh so i I think that that is very interesting so what do I mean by his legacy just in case we're not clear
(35:42):
through the course of the film, he is trying to build his ultimate scheme, the Phoenician scheme, where he turns this country into like his biggest win ever. And it's kind of falling apart throughout the movie.
And he's growing, and he's hurt, and he's having these premonitions where he goes to heaven. And at the end of the film, for reasons which we're going to discuss, um and which we may not know for sure, he gives up everything so that There are no slaves. and They end the famine.
(36:15):
And, you know, the his wealth, which was going to be built up upon the basically raping and pillaging of the country of Phoenicia, is undone by his own personal loss.
And I think that's a very interesting element. And yeah, i think i think that's interesting.
Dave (36:33):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (36:36):
Let's do it.
Dave (36:37):
Yeah, I mean, this business of him ending up in the restaurant. um One of the things we all think of when we think of Europe is we think of these little cafes and we think of these little romantic holes in the wall and family owned enterprises.
particularly if they're eateries. And to fall back into that as the default redemption for this character, for him to end up running something like that, is just, again, it's that wonderful, charming quality that Wes Anderson brings, you know, and centering his idea of redemption in that.
(37:20):
I think in that humility is really, really neat.
Michael Cockerill (37:25):
we first meet court in the beginning uh he's obsessed with influence we're introduced to him that way uh his numerous children which are just there really i think too he's looking for a genius but they're there for his benefit and he doesn't seem to really be taking care of him we he has many enemies he's been doing arms deals uh and he's been manipulating places for profit he's known as mr five percent yeah and he has um and everything he he, his entire life, as we've seen, he's kind of like this Howard Hughes, as you said, Dave, he's just out to get as much as he can.
(38:00):
um And he wants to start this scheme, the Phoenician scheme. It's very convoluted. I do not do not understand it. It's got several steps, steps that conveniently allow us to meet members of the ensemble class cast in isolation from each other.
yeah that's how you that that Yeah, that's how you get 10 people in a movie, Dave. You're like... 10 we need to meet 10 people number one brian cranston number two tom hanks just cross them off yeah ah look i'm not judging that i didn't think that at all that just occurred to me that that is kind of a convenience of uh you know you make a big list of places you have to go and then there's people from the ensemble cast there uh it it's not quite as cheap as the avengers where they just let's just get rid of half the people
Dave (38:27):
Oh, there needs to be another step.
Yes, be on the lookout at the end of this for our link to our screenwriting class, the Mindframe screenwriting class.
Michael Cockerill (38:56):
i don't know they turned to dust or something you know we got too many people in this movie then we'll bring them back at the end it's not quite that um evident but uh yeah it's it's gonna be it ah totally didn't occur to me during the thing i think it works perfectly um but as corda goes and i really want to get your opinion on this dave he's changing and
Dave (38:57):
Hmm.
ah
Michael Cockerill (39:21):
I don't know why he's changing. Um, I guess the, is it because he meets Bill Murray and Bill Murray is such a nice God, you know, Bill Murray is incredibly nice. If you're meeting him at a wedding, that is true.
If you're bringing him coffee on a set, uh, might be a little different, but, ah yeah, if you meet Bill Murray in heaven or, uh, in uh in ah on ah in a wedding he's incredibly nice is it that he's having these is it because he's bleeding from the head tom hanks says he's changed right tom hanks's character who i do not know his name uh says that he's like not as diabolical or words to that effect as he was um so what do you think is like at some point dave the conception of his legacy his legacy is going to be the scheme in the beginning but by the end his legacy is
Dave (39:50):
Oh, gosh, that's fine. Yeah.
yeah
Michael Cockerill (40:15):
all of the good things that he can do for Phoenicia. Where do you think that was happening?
Dave (40:21):
You know, I think this movie is very smart in that it doesn't say, you know, um here is the pathway, the pathway to redemption.
But it it's it's constantly making suggestions. And it's doing it within the framework of characters who are all flawed, who all have their own, you know, like you said, like Bill Murray can be, you know, one way at one thing and one way or at another.
(40:48):
um So everything that's happening to him is happening in a deeply human context. We meet him when he first ah crashes.
And he talks about sort of being done with this shit. Like, I'm getting too old.
Michael Cockerill (41:04):
But
Dave (41:05):
I'm going to die. Sooner or later, this is going to catch up with me. I'm going to sign everything over so my daughter. And you realize, oh, this is a little bit of manipulation to try to absolve himself of the guilt he feels about how he's treated her and maybe his other children and his wives and other people and the people that he's had murdered.
Michael Cockerill (41:27):
are but
how did you come to that conclusion because he she asks him why and he says i have my reasons and he's like i'm not saying i'm saying i'm not saying my reasons but i i don't know why he chose her you're what gave you the impression that it was because um he felt guilty and he thought she would be a better steward uh did i miss that
Dave (41:41):
Yeah.
Well, I think, i think what I'm suggesting isn't so much like a profound desire to actually change as maybe hints that there there's an awareness.
(42:03):
I haven't lived the greatest life. And, uh, there's some forgiveness I'd like to feel about that or some sense of having done something for someone else other than myself.
Um, And I'm not suggesting that's the only way to look at how he's changed or why he chooses change.
(42:28):
I think it does get more apparent as time goes on that that is the direction that he needs to go in. He begins to realize it needs to be less about me and it needs to be more about the things that really do matter. The fact that this scheme I have is going to create slaves and that it involves ripping people off and constantly lying and cheating my way to get it done. And the means doesn't justify the end.
(43:02):
That you can want something that doesn't mean that it's good for you, you know, that it's ah that it's that it's good for you to do whatever to get it. And um so I think there's this sort of slow move throughout the film, don't you?
Michael Cockerill (43:19):
yes i do think that there are very important moments he he he comes into contact with his daughter who i think she's changed by him and he's changed by her but she's so unwavering in her belief in good and shocked by his behavior that i think that it kind of is a wake-up call to him i don't really understand what scarlett uh johansson's or honorary johansson scarlett johansson's character is uh doing in the film uh but she is kind of like a do-gooder um and she's marrying him for some reason i'm glad she's in the movie but i don't know why she's in the movie but she is another person who is on the journey to like well she's his cousin he's marrying his cousin and nothing wrong with that said everyone in my family um so he's marrying his like second cousin and uh
Dave (43:55):
but
Yeah.
Yes. well
Michael Cockerill (44:14):
i think she's gone a different direction with the family legacy and that's an influence upon him but i do think dave the ultimate uh thing that pushes him over is when he meets his uncle and this is all very intertwined with family right and he meets his uncle who is an animal is described as an animal and he's the most most ruthless
Dave (44:34):
yes
Michael Cockerill (44:44):
vile businessman you can imagine which we find out in after he's redeemed he we find out he's trying to kill him the opposite of of his daughter uh so i think that's the the kicker is that that pushes him over he's like he sees history repeating itself because we know the fathers of the brother the fathers of the uncles the great uncles fought to the death in similar circumstances and i think he wants to break that cycle wants to build a different legacy but you know there are alternate and interpretations maybe he's just bleeding in his brain uh but i do think that it's a slow journey and i think that's really the best part of the script is that um we have a very subtle change in our lead character that is almost imperceptible um but by the end we've got a totally different person um
Dave (45:39):
Yeah, and you can see that, and this is, you know, but all all praise to del Toro, you can really see that behind his eyes. You can see that with a lot of lot of words, you know, that that um it just sort of emanates from him. And um this is, you know, what you said about what you said about Benedict Cumberbatch's role as the uncle in this movie, it's so interesting that they felt the need to have the arch villain because this guy's a real mustache quirler he's not just some just some casual like bit of you know chicanery he's like very menacing in the film more menacing than benicio del toro which isn't easy to do i don't think um and all through the film don't don't you feel like we're getting
Michael Cockerill (46:11):
Mm-hmm.
Dave (46:35):
Like he's the only really arch character to me, except maybe Michael Cera. Del Toro and Brepleton, they are very subtle all the way through.
And yet, like you said, the change is palpable. So what is it that we're supposed to signify change for us? And like you said, it's like,
(47:04):
they're making decisions that affect others. They're not going out and getting a new haircut and changing how they look.
Michael Cockerill (47:10):
Yeah, they're destroying whole countries.
Dave (47:12):
Right.
Michael Cockerill (47:12):
And, you know, we didn't mention ah Richard Ayoade, director and comedian.
Dave (47:18):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (47:18):
who's in this film as a well. And he plays the leader of the terrorists. And when you said he's worse than, it's like, oh, he's worse than the terrorist guy. The terrorist guy isn't even that bad, but love Richard, ah great director, directed submarine.
Dave (47:31):
yeah
Michael Cockerill (47:32):
And also of course, from the IT, from the, from the British show, the IT t crowd. um Yeah. We didn't even mention him. That's how ensemble this cast is.
Dave (47:42):
Oh, What?
Michael Cockerill (47:43):
Anyway, I wanted to get him in this podcast.
Dave (47:43):
are.
Michael Cockerill (47:47):
What was I going to say? And you know what else we didn't mention, Dave?
Dave (47:51):
what
Michael Cockerill (47:52):
We're both kind of riding out the heaven scenes.
Dave (47:55):
we are
Michael Cockerill (47:55):
We mentioned them, but, you know, if if you read this, you would think, you know, he's going to heaven and he's changing. And he's getting judged on trial in heaven by his ex-wives, who he may or may not have killed.
Yeah.
Just like Brad Pitt in.
Dave (48:14):
in Once Upon Time in Hollywood.
Michael Cockerill (48:15):
Yes, exactly. But I think he's a pretty honest I think I think we're pretty honest here about whether he killed them or not. um Yeah, I just think that this this is a fascinating ending, and he almost seems happier at the end, and his daughter seems kind of proud that he's still working, um and he's still kind of successful. and they have like a little At the end, but his legacy is a Phoenicia that is not slave-ridden and famined, and he's
(48:46):
living a quiet late life shaped by humility not by statues and i think that is very very interesting aspect of it um so this invitation to renewal let's but if we're in agreement that that's what we we got here um is the movie saying that this is a worthwhile endeavor to renew ourselves uh give it away give it away now and um You know, make our legacy
(49:19):
not what we leave behind, but what we do for others, maybe. um Like hide yourself and but uplift the world, maybe something like that.
Dave (49:24):
Well, I
well i mean, it's weird. Okay, start with Wes Anderson as a figure, right? You always imagine Wes Anderson probably in a suit, very hipster looking, um but probably a trust fund kid. I don't i don't know what his situation was, but there's you know he seems to dwell in that David Miller, storytelling where often the privilege are are his point of reference for what he wants to say, and so you know do we really want the trust fund could tell talking to us so it getting everything away.
(50:06):
David Miller, At the same time.
there's a lot of light-humoredness and satire of wealth and power. And there's a sense of awareness, I think, in his movies of how we all wish we could stay at the Grand Budapest Hotel, but we can't afford to.
(50:30):
And the truth is, the people that stay there are just like us in many, many ways, and in all of the ways that matter. And here's Korda, And he really is like us, because despite all his wealth, he's come to the end.
He knows the end is coming sooner or later. And that begins to be alive to him. And um there is this idea of, wow, how...
(51:01):
What does me being judged look like? What does evaluating my life look like? And, you know, visits to heaven, I think, are, are whether you take them literally or not, are are very much, are very much ah about that.
Him sort of like realizing, oh, you know, this is what it looks like from the outside. And so it's, yeah, we're being invited into that world that is sort of fun for us.
(51:28):
and that Wes Anderson probably understands a little bit better than most people, because maybe he's been a little bit more part of that world than most people. But at the end of the day, he wants to take us to that cafe.
you know He wants to take us to places where the things that matter, you know the cozy little den in Fantastic Mr. Fox, the ability to grow past our juvenile in Rushmore.
(51:56):
You know, we're all fighting similar battles. We're fighting the human condition in a context of darkness and corruption, but also and in in a context where we can find joy and beauty and redemption.
So ah guess I guess that does that answer your question?
Michael Cockerill (52:17):
Oh man, I don't even remember my commission question was.
Dave (52:18):
No!
Michael Cockerill (52:20):
I was so blown away that you're just totally making assumptions about Wes Anderson's background.
Dave (52:25):
And I could be, I could be.
Michael Cockerill (52:25):
But um I mean, I know you are.
Dave (52:27):
um I know you are, but what am i
Michael Cockerill (52:32):
ah
Dave (52:32):
Why did you grow up with him at the orphanage or what was the deal?
Michael Cockerill (52:33):
Yeah.
Dave (52:35):
I don't know.
Michael Cockerill (52:35):
No, no, no, no. ah i know I know he's from an upper middle class background, but he's not from a stay in a fancy European hotel background.
Dave (52:44):
Right, right.
Michael Cockerill (52:44):
um yeah I mean I know he met Owen Wilson when they're going to like University of Austin together so it's like uh compared to like next week you'll be you know all these nepo babies we talk about and you love this guy's just some Texas guy from Texas but no he's from the middle class it's it's hard to get into film when you're not from the middle class uh in fact it's hard to get into film when you're not a nepo baby but
Dave (52:54):
Interesting.
What will I be saying next week?
Michael Cockerill (53:16):
The farther you go down economic ladder, harder it gets. But he's only like halfway down it. He's not he's not at the top. um Anyway, that's I think it's kind of irrelevant.
Dave (53:25):
And shouldn't have to make apologies for it.
Michael Cockerill (53:28):
What do you say?
Dave (53:29):
He shouldn't have to make apologies for any of that. And I'm not, I didn't mean to suggest that. I'm just like, it is that weird thing sometimes where when you go to the movies, you're in a rarefied place, watching people get to do things that, you know, not a lot of people who want to do them get to do them.
(53:51):
A lot of people would like to make a movie with Bill Murray or, you know, or Scarlett Johansson. ah or whoever. So i'm i'm I'm as much talking about fighting off that cynicism to take seriously what the movie has to say as like wanting any, I don't want anybody to judge Wes Anderson.
Michael Cockerill (54:17):
of course it was written co-written by roman coppola who is the son of francis ford coppola and uh as we know francis ford coppola owns a villa and a uh so he probably spent his summers in his father's villa and winery in italy so that might be a slightly different upbringing than wes anderson but uh yeah he i don't know if i don't think francis for coppola owns a yacht but uh he's very very wealthy was until megapolis
Dave (54:20):
Ha ha ha ha ah
well mansion at a yacht.
I am Elmwood.
I own a mansion at a
(54:45):
yacht.
Michael Cockerill (54:46):
Oh, geez, that's too that's too soon.
Dave (54:48):
Are we gonna, did we do an episode on Megalopolis? We did, didn't we?
Michael Cockerill (54:52):
I think we did, yes.
Dave (54:53):
What were we thinking? i
Michael Cockerill (54:55):
but Dave listen he's telling the rich people to give it away at no point does the movie suggest that you or a or the terrorist should give it away he's saying this guy should give it away and you know some of the we talked about Mega Yachts but there are some rich people who are giving their wealth away Bill Gates comes to mind um and I think
Dave (55:04):
Correct. Correct.
Michael Cockerill (55:19):
We see Zaza at the end washing dishes. And i I don't think that's a metaphor for anything, but let's pretend like it is. Is Zaza washing away the guilt of his lifetime by if if I spend if I build up a fortune being an asshole.
And then at the end of the day, that fortune I dispense doing good deeds, where do i where do you account that person? um
Dave (55:47):
Yeah.
What do you think?
Michael Cockerill (55:50):
I think that's that's, I think, I don't know. I think that's ah that's a question bigger than me, but I don't necessarily think that, you know, there's an interesting scene where his pilot is, Zaza's pilot is angry with him.
And it's because the plane is crashing and he knows that Zaza got him into a dangerous situation. And Zaza says to the, he fires him and ejects him.
(56:20):
So, and I think like Phoenicia is that pilot. um he put him in a horrible state through perhaps lies or misleading him that it was going to be safer than it was.
And he fires him and he treats him horribly, but at the same time he saves his life.
(56:42):
I think, you know, Chris Rock famously said that ah Uncle Sam to black people is like the uncle that paid for your college, but also molested you. And I just don't know where,
those people land that's a joke i'm not putting zaza in that category but i don't know where those people who have done harm but also have done good and maybe even out of the harm they did previously i think that is a fascinating question that's brought up and um
Dave (56:59):
No, I think.
Michael Cockerill (57:13):
I think the way we land with Zaza, Wes Anderson at least, you all come to your own conclusions, but Wes Anderson is being pretty forgiving because it's not just, you know, Zaza's not trying to buy his ticket into heaven.
Zaza truly has changed by the end, I feel at least.
Dave (57:29):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's, you know, there's something, there's something about how, and we deal with this all the time in celebrity culture, right?
Because um somebody says or does something untoward, ah wrong, immoral, gets caught doing X, y or Z.
Michael Cockerill (57:48):
Murder someone.
Dave (57:50):
And then everybody wants a turn at the whip. David Miller, Everybody, you know, feels like I need to put out there my outrage my anger and everything and really it's not even about the person.
David Miller, it's just about this generalized human tendency. to look for excuses to be angry or cruel or out of control um and bitter and to project onto the rest of the world um
(58:29):
frustrations. I think that it there's not a lot that anybody can do for Cordae. If somebody wants to go into his restaurant and say,
you had my father killed, then you know he's not a immune. you know Somebody could track him down and and decide he needs to pay for a past wrong. And that becomes another big question, you know what what what what he chooses to do at that moment.
(59:01):
But part of what he's doing by giving up his money, by giving up his position, is he's putting himself at the disposal of this new life this new these new demands that goodness is going to make on him and it remains to be seen what those demands would be we can imagine all sorts of demands for corda but um i think it's a good place to leave him it's a good place to say
(59:35):
that, as yes, it is hard for a rich man to enter through the kingdom of heaven, as as the scriptures tell us. um It is not impossible.
And we need to believe in that possibility for one another of change, of growth, of redemption. Because we have that group of people in our heads that are just beyond redemption.
(01:00:01):
um Not bad. I think we have a whole country of that right now. have a whole lot of people who are convinced the other is the evil incarnate and can't change. And everybody's guilty of different things.
Granted, I sit on the liberal end of the spectrum and could probably give most people on the right a run for the money on the histories of the Democratic and Republican Party. But at the same time, yeah i don't know that I don't know that, you know, at a certain point, judgment is what you do to yourself.
(01:00:36):
So all this business of Kordas standing before God in heaven, or even being told by his daughter or whatever else, he has to make an internal judgment.
And we see him do that in the film. and that is that ah wonderful in every person
Michael Cockerill (01:00:58):
Yep. If you want to see the Phoenician scheme, it is currently in wide release. Not sure how much longer it will be. So go out and see it. ah We'll skip our movies like this one, Dave, and we'll just say every Wes Anderson movie, right?
Made us think of this movie.
Dave (01:01:12):
yeah absolutely
Michael Cockerill (01:01:15):
Our next episode, we never know what we're going to do. We've got a couple options, but I think it's going to be 28 years later, which is the movie that at least on paper was shot with 20 iPhones that we referenced earlier.
Dave (01:01:22):
Yeah.
Michael Cockerill (01:01:29):
20 iPhones with $100,000 worth of gear and lenses attached to them. And that's not a joke. There's an actual photo of that and someone added it up. ah Yeah. So yeah, we've seen that film and we'll talk about it. And that definitely we will talk about where the iPhones work and where they don't work.
No, they work more than they do. but's not real Let's not make it um um ah on and ominous.
Dave (01:01:51):
ah
Michael Cockerill (01:01:55):
If you would like to talk or argue with us about anything, you can find us at mindframesfilm.com.
Dave (01:01:55):
Amen, amen, amen.
Michael Cockerill (01:02:01):
We have a contact form. Fill it out. We read every one. Or more direct route, go to facebook.com slash mindframesmovies. We will read those too.
We are a proud member of the Now Playing Network. nowplayingnetwork.net you can find lots of great podcasts on there christmas movies actually um which i just now realized is a reference to love actually like i literally that just clicked in my brains dave that that's what that's a reference to um the directors club of course uh and us in that order
Dave (01:02:29):
Okay.
Michael Cockerill (01:02:39):
no and then two podcasts we've never heard of and then us um
Have you ever watched Flight of the Conchords? and there's like And they're like, we're actually the third most popular band in New Zealand. Yeah. Number two is a cover band of us.
(01:03:03):
Thank you for listening.
Come on, music.
Yeah.
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