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THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME MOVIE REVIEW
The thing about Wes Anderson films is, you’re either here for all of them, no matter what, or maybe just a few (probably early ones). His 2025 entry, The Phoenician Scheme, features (as usual) a metric ton of actors, many of them legendary. But the story tightly focuses on only a few. Everything revolves around Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) an industrialist, arms dealer, and a bad guy in every sense you’d associate with being an ultra-rich business man. However, not only does he have financial problems, due to a secret business group that has united to fix prices and damage his wealth, but also someone keeps trying to assassinate him and they are getting very close. He decides to bring his oldest child and only daughter, Liesel (Mia Threapleton), back into his life to make her his sole heir and teach her about the grand and dangerous business plan he is putting together. However, she wants nothing to do with this situation, and believes that he had her mother killed. Also, she’s about to take her vows as a nun. But it’s next to impossible to say no to Korda and he takes her with him, along with Bjørn (Michael Cera) a Norwegian bug enthusiast and tutor for Korda’s many children and eventually his administrative assistant. They go to visit his major business partners/enemies/rivals around the world to try to get them to swallow part of the cost of his giant deal he wants to put together. While all this sounds a bit dry, it’s filled with the expected amount of symmetrical, dead-pan, Anderson oddness that fans will almost certainly eat-up. Chris, Wright, Beau, and Ben comment on his latest and compare it to the rest of his output and we try to keep Beau from dying.
DIRECTED BY: Wes Anderson
STARRING: Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Stephen Park, Alex Jennings, Jason Watkins, Donald Sumpter, Scott Shepherd, Karl Markovics, Tonio Arango, Stéphane Bak, Aysha Joy Samuel, Mohamed Chahrour, Imke Büchel, Anna Bardorf, Imad Mardnli, Jaime Ferkic, Beatrice Campbell
YOUR REVIEWERS
Christopher Lawrence Cox (Founder, Da Boss, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Deliberations of Doom)
Born in the wilds of northern Virginia, Chris managed to put all of his survival skills to use and barely escaped with his life to Austin Texas in 1992 where ever since he’s dabbled in everything from plumber’s assistant to sandwich maker, from band to bar and theater management. An opportunity to see theatrical release films for free by becoming a critic on a local public access show called “The Reel Deal” turned into a full-time job when Chris and his friends decided to take it to the internet. They built the site Spill.com, adding multiple podcasts and animated features, to no small amount of success. During this time, a fortuitous friendship sprung up between Chris and young Brian Salisbury, who was also a local film critic, and they merged their forces of will, and their laundry list of ideas for shows, to eventually build this community of critics. While Brian eventually followed his heart to a new family, Chris continues on with a cast of colorful folks from all over the country (and a few others).
Wright Sulek (The Other Boss, Trash in the Can, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad)
Wright hails from the northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas. His passion for filmmaking brought him to Austin to study and make movies. Since then he’s had his hand in acting, writing, and directing his own short films with numerous like-minded film geeks he’s met along his journey. His newest interest has brought him into the podcasting world. He co-hosted a few different movie related podcasts such as ‘And Now This’ and ‘The Match Cut’. He currently co-hosts with longtime friend, Eric Samaniego, where they talk shop about the grimiest, trashiest, lost gems of movies on their show, ‘Trash in the Can’. Wright also guests and hosts reviews on Screener Squad and Highly Suspect Reviews as well as co-hosts Digital Noise with Chris Cox. As of 2024, Wright has now been inducted into the Austin Film Critics Association as well as co-owns the One of Us network with Chris Cox.
Ben Glasthal (Highly Suspect Review, Screener Squad, Breakfast Pub, Unstabletop Gamers, Video and Audio Editor)
Born in Boston, then ending up in Dallas, Texas in the early 2000s, Ben has always had a passion for film. He started in film school not long after where he launched MovieReelizations.com where he still writes reviews to this day. He’s since moved to Austin where he has been also hopping on podcasts and both editing and shooting videos for One of Us. A fan of films from almost all genres, and many that predate him more than makes sense, he is anything if not eclectic in what he’s watching at any point. For the rest of his free time, he can be found biking, drinking craft beer, being an amateur photographer, and playing video games by himself or on Twitch. He’s best found on Instagram or Twitter as @MovieReelBen.
Beau Paul (Highly Suspect Reviews, The Original Gentlemen, Screener Squad)
Beau Paul is an Austin native, an actor, and a writer. Sometimes all at once! Previously he has attempted to be an internet entertainer (the funny ha-ha kind, not the naked moneymaking kind) at Spill.com, and now here on OneOfUs.net. You can read his pithy witticisms and the retweeted material of funnier, cleverer people on Twitter or Facebook, and can buy him stuff on Amazon.
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