Movie Review: The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Wes Anderson  

Starring: Benicio Del Torro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch 

Running Time: 101 minutes  

Synopsis: In the Balkan region of the 1950s, wealthy arms dealer and industrialist Anatole "Zsa-Zsa" Korda (Benicio Del Torro) hatches a scheme to profit from a grand infrastructure project in Phoenicia, all while dodging a series of assassination attempts. He initiates a rapprochement with his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a nun, to help him complete the project, but Korda's enemies manipulate the stock market, leaving him short of funds. To close the gap, Korda, Liesl and Norwegian tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera) travel to meet with investors, hoping to dupe them into increasing their funding.

What Works Well: Wes Anderson's tableau artistry is on full view, in service of a ruthless but charismatic tycoon on a journey to rescue the deal of his life. The vivid colours, geometric scene structures, and deadpan performances create a mid-century vibe of wealth, power, negotiations, and manipulation, all infused with a less-than-serious undertone. The more thoughtful moments allow Korda and Liesl to poke at their past, his record as a father, her devotion to religion, and the headaches of reconciling nefarious capitalism with divine teachings. Benicio del Toro holds the centre as a parade of stars animate secondary roles.

What Does Not Work As Well: After a strong start, the narrative quickly loses steam and dissolves into aimless repetition. The meetings with investors are obsessed with muddled minutiae for its own sake, sacrificing the big picture for trinkets and gimmicks. Black and white flashforwards to Korda's date with destiny add little of value, while conversely the complex history between Korda, Liesl, and her mother is chewed over but never shown. The apparently key character of Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives too late to counterbalance Korda's dominance.

Key Quote:

Korda: Myself, I feel very safe.

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Movie Review: Superbad (2007)

Genre: Raunchy High School Comedy  

Director: Greg Mottola  

Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Seth Rogen, Emma Stone, Bill Hader  

Running Time: 113 minutes  

Synopsis: The excitable Seth (Jonah Hill) and the more circumspect Evan (Michael Cera) are best friends approaching high school graduation. Seth is obsessed with the idea of having sex, and thrilled when hot classmate Jules (Emma Stone) invites him to her house party believing he can use the fake ID of dorky unwanted friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to bring alcohol. With Evan also sensing an opportunity to get intimate with classmate Becca (Martha MacIsaac), an evening of hunting for booze on the way to the party disintegrates into chaos.

What Works Well: Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg based on their high school experiences (with the two lead characters named after them), this is an unapologetically raunchy and often hilarious high school misadventure. With all events taking place on one day followed by a wild night, the  personalities of Seth and Evan are quickly established, and the script proceeds to capture a hormone-defined period in life when libidos, alcohol, the imperative to be popular, and end-of-high school disorientation collide. Hitherto unquestioned friendship codes are tested by diverging priorities, surprising behaviours emerge, and no matter how the night ends, not much will be the same afterwards. Christopher Mintz-Plasse achieves legendary status in adopting the fake ID "McLovin" (no first name) persona, while Seth Rogen and Bill Hader as less-than-upstanding cops add zesty sauce to the carnage.  

What Does Not Work As Well: With the profanity dial set on high throughout, this is very much a male-focused representation of teenaged awkwardness. Despite good work by Emma Stone and Martha MacIsaac, the girls are sketch representations.

Key Quote:

Evan: Stay calm, okay? Let's not lose our heads. It's... it's a fine ID; it'll... it's gonna work. It's passable, okay? This isn't terrible. I mean, it's up to you, Fogell. This guy is either gonna think 'Here's another kid with a fake ID' or 'Here's McLovin, a 25 year-old Hawaiian organ donor'. Okay? So what's it gonna be?

Fogell: I am McLovin!

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Movie Review: Barbie (2023)

Genre: Satirical Comedy Musical

Director: Greta Gerwig

Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Will Ferrell

Running Time: 114 minutes

Synopsis: Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland, an idyllic matriarchy where the resident Barbies believe they have solved all of women's problems. Ken (Ryan Gosling) and the other men play subsidiary roles, mostly as beach decoration. When Barbie suddenly starts thinking about death and her feet turn flat, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) advises a trip to the real world to find her troubled owner. Barbie and Ken are shocked to discover that Los Angeles is a patriarchy, and Ken uses his awakening to transform Barbieland. Meanwhile Barbie learns about real women from the mother-daughter pair of Gloria (America Ferrera) and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt).

What Works Well: For a movie about an iconic doll coveted by pre-teens, the script (by director Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach) is ambitious: snide comments about feminism, the male-female power imbalance (in all directions), ditzyness, faux intellectualism, and performative enlightenment pepper Barbie's adventure. The humour is steady and harmless, while the production design animates a doll's vivid world with imaginative plastic. Extra points for an opening inspired by a classic, and Helen Mirren's narration. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The none-too-serious throw-everything-at-the-wall attitude is suitable for child attention spans, but in the search for humanity behind symbolism, not much sticks beyond the obvious lecturing about impossible expectations placed on women. Most of the musical interludes smack of padding, as does the would-be intervention of Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO and his doofus band of men-in-suits. 

Conclusion: As an industrial-scaled marketing machine, nobody is putting Barbie back in a box.



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Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

A comic book adaptation, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World goes for video game style and gets stuck in mind numbing repetitive hell.

In Toronto, slacker Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22 year old bassist in a local rock band. Still not over being dumped a year ago by burgeoning rock star Envy Adams (Brie Larson), Scott receives a lot of ribbing from his friends including band drummer Kim (Alison Pill) and his sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick) for starting a relationship with 17 year old high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).

But he is soon infatuated by American Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and for a while  neglects to tell Knives that he is no longer interested in her. As his relationship with Ramona gets serious, Scott learns that he will have to engage in combat with all seven of her exes.

An adaptation of the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley directed by Edgar Wright, Scott Pilgrim starts out brightly enough. The first 20 minutes introduce Scott and his small but quirky ecosystem, and it's a funny look at the world of slacker twentysomethings too cool to notice their accelerating sideways drift. The dialogue is sharp, the editing crisp, and the film pops with energy as Wright throws bucketfuls of comic book style onto the screen.

Then Scott meets Ramona's first ex-boyfriend, and the film disintegrates in a hurry. Suddenly Scott Pilgrim defaults to a Mortal Kombat-type video game with cartoon levels of excessive violence, except that there is no game, just a repetition of the same CGI-enhanced visuals and inane taunting dialogue between combatants, about seven times over. Once is fun but silly, twice is a revelation of intellectual bankruptcy, and by the time the seventh round of ludicrous combat splatters across the screen, Scott Pilgrim is racing breathlessly towards oblivion.

An excavation of the film's rubble would find basic metaphors about fighting through the ghosts of relationships past and confronting thyself to find true happiness. The messaging is delivered in the same gharrish colours as the film's visuals, and even then Scott's journey of atonement reaches a dubious conclusion.

The performances are adequately laid back, Michael Cera playing his usual self but in desperate need of a haircut. He is upstaged by a group of promising actresses perfecting various stages of millennial angst. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Alison Pill, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Ellen Wong and Aubrey Plaza do their best but fail to jolt the movie away from its worst infantile masculine tendencies.

The less said about Scott's male combat opponents, the better, other than Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman show up and contribute to the ineptitude.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World tries to riff on nostalgic themes, but the dreaded Game Over message appears all too soon.

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Movie Review: Molly's Game (2017)

A biography set in the glitzy world of private high stakes poker games, Molly's Game is a remarkable story of a woman navigating her way through money-drenched terrain where celebrities and less savory characters intermingle.

Two years after hosting her last poker game and soon after publishing a book about her unlikely experiences, Molly Brown (Jessica Chastain) is arrested by the FBI for operating illegal gambling tables. She seeks the services of lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), and as she tangles with the legal system her story unfolds in flashback. Born in Colorado and driven hard by her psychologist father Larry (Kevin Costner), Molly was striving for the US Olympic skiing team when a severe crash ended her hopes.

She moved to Los Angeles and through her new employer Dean (Jeremy Strong), a real estate developer, she gets involved in hosting poker games for Hollywood's elites, including a famous actor referred to only as Player X (Michael Cera). Molly learns all she can and gradually establishes a name for herself, keeping the games clean and legal. Eventually she breaks away from Dean and creates her own brand. But a squabble with Player X ends badly, forcing Molly to relocate to New York and start over, this time with higher stakes both at the table and in her private life.

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Molly's Game is a fast-paced trip fuelled on ambition. The film is immersed in the decadent and ultimately barely consequential milieu of wealthy people trading fortunes at the poker table. But Sorkin latches onto the theme of a desire to achieve ignited by broken dreams, and weaves an intriguing narrative around a woman carving her place in a secretive male-dominated world.

Despite the preponderance of players, lawyers, agents and mobsters, Molly Bloom is the one well-rounded character worth caring about in the film. Sorkin draws out plenty of background from her childhood, particularly a difficult relationship with her father who is also a coach, booster and expert on mind games. And within her family Molly struggled to meet expectations, developing a sense of bratty insecurity among high achieving siblings. Molly's accident on the ski hill frames the film, and becomes the catalyst for a woman determined to climb to the top step of whatever podium is available.

At 140 minutes, the film is a good 30 minutes longer than it needed to be for a relatively small story. In his big screen directorial debut Sorkin allows plenty of flab to creep in. Scenes routinely go on longer than they need to, some details about individual poker hands intrude on the narrative, and the editing is lazy. But the dialogue is often crisp, and Molly finds a worthwhile sparring partner in lawyer Charlie Jaffey. His role grows as the film progresses, the lawyer finally figuring out what makes his client tick and placing it into context.

Jessica Chastain dominates the film and brings Molly to life with plenty of energy and occasional hints of vulnerability and loneliness. Idris Elba and Kevin Costner provide steady support. The men around the table, including Player X (allegedly modeled on Tobey Maguire) remain relatively featureless examples of card players succumbing to base masculine competitive instincts and wasting away money, talent, time or all three.

And where men with too much money and power are addicted to foolish pursuits, a smart woman can find her place to shine.

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Movie Review: Juno (2007)

A teenage pregnancy comedy-drama, Juno is bright, breezy and refreshingly honest. Understated directing by Jason Reitman, a radiant Ellen Page performance and a witty script by Diablo Cody elevate the film to classic status.

In suburban Minnesota, 16 year old high school student Juno MacGuff (Page) finds herself pregnant after having sex once with her best friend and classmate Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Juno considers having an abortion but cannot go though with it, and with the help of best girlfriend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), she reveals her condition to her father Mac (J.K. Simmons) and stepmother Bren (Allison Janney).

Juno connects with childless yuppie couple Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), and arranges for a private adoption. Vanessa is desperate to be a mom, but Juno senses that Mark, a former rock musician now reduced to composing television commercial jingles, is not nearly as enthusiastic. As the pregnancy progresses Juno has to face scorn at her school, and her friendship with Bleeker is strained to the breaking point. She finds herself spending more time with Mark, and starts to question what it takes for two people to stick together and raise a family.

Juno is a small, lighthearted film that treats its subject matter with refreshing candor. The characters and events come across as simply real, free of theatrics, and a plain yet wacky matter-of-factness permeates through the economical 96 minutes of running time. This is a film about teenage pregnancy that contains no lectures, recriminations, episodes of tears or adult/child shouting matches. Instead, Juno is filled with the soul of grounded individuals carrying on and dealing with the stresses and issues at hand as best as they know how, and climbing the hill of the next challenge along the way.

There are moments of tension, with Juno and stepmom Bren having a hot/cold relationship and the realities of the pregnancy proving too difficult for Juno and Bleeker to deal with as a couple. But the film never descends into banal territory, and instead always latches on to the fundamental humanness of the characters, where humour, some cynicism and plenty of emotional survival instincts reside.

Diablo Cody wrote the original script with plenty of inspiration from her real life. She captures high school teen talk at its most fluent, Juno and Leah adept at rattling off the euphemisms reflective of their time, all conveyed with the attitude of 16 year olds caught somewhere between fierce individuality and the typical need to find acceptance. Juno has moments of childlike brattiness mixed in with lucid realizations of what the challenges of the adult world are all about, and the film shines in portraying a girl literally evolving into a woman, physically and emotionally.

Jason Reitman directs with a tactful yet distinctive touch, allowing the story and his main character to dominate, while adding nimble stylistic touches. Filmed in and around Vancouver and perfectly capturing middle class suburbia, the changing seasons represent the three trimester of Juno's pregnancy, the high school varsity runners pant year round as everything else changes, and the adults carry as much baggage as the high schoolers do, only it's less visible but much heavier. Meanwhile the distinctive music of singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson provides a backdrop of laid back lo-fi puzzlement, reflective of the typically warped high school ecosystem thrown further askew by Juno's pregnancy.

Ellen Page lights up the screen as Juno. The Canadian actress was 20 at the time of filming and convincingly plays at 16, bringing to the role edginess, humour and the over-excited self-confidence of a teenager. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman are delicious as the couple who seem to have it all, but with a palpable current of tension running from their tight smiles and into every room of their too-perfect home.

Juno is the perfect little film, a jewel of self-aware quirkiness.

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Movie Review: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a teen romantic comedy that has a lot going for it, including two appealing leads in Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, and a vibe that welcomes moments of awkwardness and avoids over-saturation with fake irony.

New Jersey senior high school student Nick (Michael Cera) has long since been dumped by his cheating self-absorbed girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dzeina), but he is far from over her. He phones her and records long-winded messages that she automatically deletes, and he gifts her CD mixes of his favourite music, which she promptly tosses in the garbage. Down-to-earth classmate Norah (Kat Dennings) shares Nick's music taste and retrieves and enjoys his CDs once Tris discards them.

Nick plays bass in his otherwise all-gay band. Over one long and frantic night in New York that starts with a concert by Nick's band and ends early the next morning with a concert by the hip but elusive band Where's Fluffy, a romance finally ignites between Nick and Norah, as he finally gets over Tris and she fends off a creepy "friend with benefits".

Complementing Cera and Dennings, the third star of the movie is New York City at night. Director Peter Sollett avoids most cinematic cliches and captures a city that never sleeps in all its quirkiness, focusing on tiny corner restaurants, ethnic groceries, grimy bus depots, and clubs half-full of people not sure why they are there.

The movie does not fully avoid all the genre's cliches, and after a most tender off-camera orgasm is enjoyed by Norah, there is an unnecessary confrontation between Nick, Norah and their exes as the film appears to muddle the sequence of its concluding scenes to contrive some needless conflict.

But in general, the movie hits most of the right notes, and there is enough going on around the blossoming romance to add welcome texture to the film. Norah's friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) is drunk about 15 minutes into the movie, and spends her night staggering through New York creating her own natural disaster, including some terrific moments involving her chewing gum and a toilet seat. The search for the mysterious Where's Fluffy is a useful plot device to emphasize the focus on music and keep everyone racing around New York. And Nick's yellow Yugo, mistaken for a taxi to great effect, is an extra character in the film, as is the lumbering van used by Nick's band.

In a genre too often beset by yawning predictability, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist offers some refreshingly original tunes.

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