Showing posts with label Jeffrey Wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeffrey Wright. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (2025)

 


Written & Directed By: Wes Anderson

Story By: Wes Anderson And Roman Coopola 

Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel

Editor: Barney Pilling 


Cast: Benecio Del Toro, Mia Therapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johanson, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Bill Murray


Wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda appoints his only daughter, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins.

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It’s getting harder and harder to review Wes Anderson films as it feels like with each film he gets more and more Lost or not even Lost just sticks to his style


There is nothing wrong with that even though it might annoy Some audiences. who want

him more to evolve, just asked from his early films, which had certain sensibilities, but weren’t quite as artistic, as his films are now and at least felt a little more free, whereas his films now, which is a style feel a little more closed off


It feels like more he’s making the film for himself than necessarily an audience. Now he does achieve what most filmmakers seek. He creates his own world and settles into his own absurdist fashion comedies with a tight, bright aesthetic, and all seem to be homage to something or someone.


Is films aren’t necessarily bad it’s just a style you have to get used to it either. You love it or you hate it. You Can enjoy them because they are visual story books pretty much while one can’t say they loved each and every one  of his films but one will say there’s at least something interesting about each film and they’re all pretty to look at.


This film one can believe allows younTo get into a bit more than his last film ASTEROID CITY, maybe because it wasn’t such a big cast and while it’s kind of a spy/espionage tale, that seems to go global near Sumner. This one is more enjoyable personally because he tries to be deep at times, but it more focused on the actual story plot and moving forward, even though there are plenty of character moment.


whereas ASTEROID CITY, each was just the size of the cast was so grand, but it did have more dramatic moments and showcasing of actors but that also seem to be a little bit more devoted to a little sci-fi, but definitely to theater whereas this film still has that kind of deadpan humor. It does have an emotional center that is an obvious, but it does come about this also feels more like a common. 


That with this room, Benicio Del Toro gets the rare leading man role, where he gets to be comedic and suave and commanding even though he’s surrounded by an ensemble, who more seem to play caricatures or pretty much their wardrobe, pretty much defines their character it’s still managed to take you on a journey maybe not as emotional this one is a bit more detached, playing more into it setting in Europe 


The film does offer Michael Cera, a more noteworthy rolled and he has had in sometime. No as an ensemble whenever the big names in the Castillo show up, it’s still does feel like they’re more guest starring. It’s a little jarring and takes you out a little reminding you that it’s a production but then again, that is how most of Anderson’s films tend to feel as over the years they feel like they’ve gotten more and more away from any kind of reality or truth, at least in any kind of world that we might now but makes sense and can be emotional and their own kind of worlds.


This places perfectly into his wheelhouse, but it seems to lack the flare that his films usually have


One will say that Wes Anderson films are starting to feel like not only their own world, but kind of going into a museum where the designs and patterns are so well. So that they always seem hip and watchable.



Grade: B 

Saturday, February 17, 2024

AMERICAN FICTION (2023)

 



Written & Directed By: Cord Jefferson 

Based on The Novel “ERASURE” By: Percival Everett 

Cinematography: Cristina Dunlap 

Editor: Hilda Rasula


Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis-Ross, Issa Rae, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Keith David, Miriam Shor, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Michael Cyril Creighton, Patrick Fischler

A novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

Saturday, September 10, 2022

CRIME & PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA (2000)

 


Directed By: Rob Schmidt 

Written By: Larry Gross

Cinematography: Bobby Bukowski 

Editor: Gabriel Wyre 


Cast: Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, James DeBello, Jeffrey Wright, Ellen Barkin, Michael Ironside, Conchata Ferrell, Lucinda Jenney, Marshall Teague, Nicki Aycox, Bonnie Somerville 

This is a contemporary fable loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment". Roseanne is outwardly a perfect and popular teen. However, her image is hiding the abuse at her stepfather's hands, and she decides to take revenge. The events that follow are a mix of dark humor and an exploration of modern morality as Roseanne faces not only a fellow suburbanite who knows, but her own conscience as well.

Friday, May 15, 2020

HOLD THE DARK (2018)


Directed By: Jeremy Saulnier 
Written By: Macon Blair 
Based On The Book By: William Giraldi 
Cinematography: Magnus Nordenhof Jonck 
Editor: Julia Bloch 


Cast: Jeffrey Wright, James Badge Dale, Alexander Skarsgard, Riley Keough, Beckham crawford, Anabel Kutay, Julian Black Antelope 


Retired naturalist and wolf expert Russell Core journeys to the edge of civilization in northern Alaska at the pleading of Medora Slone, a young mother whose son was killed by a pack of wolves. As Core attempts to help Medora track down the wolves who took her son, a strange and dangerous relationship develops between the two lonely souls. But when Medora's husband Vernon returns home from the Iraq War, the news of his child's death ignites a violent chain of events. As local cop Donald Marium races to stop Vernon's vengeful rampage, Core is forced on a perilous odyssey into the heart of darkness.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

THE LAUNDROMAT (2019)



Directed By: Steven Soderbergh 
Written By: Scott Z. Burns 
Based on the Book “Secrecy World: Inside The Panama Papers Investigation Of Illicit Money Networks and The Global Elite” By: Jake Bernstein 
Cinematography: Peter Andrews 
Editor: Mary Ann Bernard 


Cast: Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Gary Oldman, Jeffrey Wright, David Schwimmer, James Cromwell, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Larry Wilmore, Rosalind Chao, Matthias Schoenaerts, Nonso Anozie, Miracle Washington, Jessica Allain, Jay Paulson, Melissa Rauch, Will Forte, Chris Parnell 


A widow investigates an insurance fraud, chasing leads to a pair of Panama City law partners exploiting the world's financial system. It feels like this films almost a lesson with dramatization added. Based on the Panama papers. It seems like Meryl Streep is the audience surrogate in a buerocratic international video game. Where through her experience we learn all about this situation really about fraud and international banking.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

CRIME + PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA (2000)



Directed By: Rob Schmidt 
Written By: Larry Gross 
Cinematography By: Bobby Bukowski 
Editor: Gabriel Wyre 


Cast: Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, James DeBello, Ellen Barkin, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Ironside, Conchata Ferrell, Nicki Aycox, Lucinda Jenney, Bonnie Somerville, Marshall R. Teague 


Saturday, February 14, 2015

THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE (2013)



Directed By: George Tillman Jr. 
Written By: Michael Starrbury 
Cinematography By: Reed Morano 
Editor: Jamie Kirkpatrick 

Cast: Skylan Brooks, Ethan Dizon, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks, Anthony Mackie, Jeffrey Wright, Julito McCullum

Monday, June 9, 2014

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (2014)



Written & Directed By: Jim Jarmusch 
Cinematography By: Yorick Le Saux 
Editor: Affonso Goncalves 

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Jeffrey Wright, Anton Yelchin, John Hurt

Saturday, April 9, 2011

SOURCE CODE (2011)


Directed By: Duncan Jones
Written By: Ben Ripley
Cinematography By: Don Burgess
Editor: Paul Hirsch

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farminga, Jeffrey Wright, Russell Peters