The Phoenician Scheme, the new film by Wes Anderson

Showing all posts tagged: movies

The Phoenician Scheme, the new film by Wes Anderson

8 April 2025

The Phoenician Scheme, trailer, is the thirteenth feature of American filmmaker Wes Anderson. As ever, you don’t need to see Anderson’s name on the trailer to know this is a Wes Anderson film.

Many of his regular collaborators return, including Willem Dafoe, Scarlett Johansson, Rupert Friend, and of course Bill Murray, in what is billed as an espionage black comedy, and centres on a strained father-daughter relationship.

And the bit you’ve been waiting for… The Phoenician Scheme opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 29 May 2025. This just might necessitate a visit to the cinema that day.

Cinemas are just so twentieth century

3 April 2025

Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, says cinemas are dead. There’s a bold call. Certainly it can be argued there is no need for cinemas any more. No one needs to go to a cinema to see a movie nowadays. They can do that from the comfort of their own home.

Despite the ease and convenience of watching films at home, negating the need for the middle-person that is a movie theatre, I think cinemas will be with us for a while yet. Going to the movies is a social and entertainment experience. A night on the town, sort of thing. Patronage might be down, and we might see some closures, but I doubt cinemas will go away completely.

RELATED CONTENT

film, movies, trends

Would watching films be more fun if smartphones were banned?

10 August 2023

Image courtesy of Startup Stock Photos.

Blockbusters such as Barbie and Oppenheimer have been a windfall for cinemas struggling as a consequence of the Covid lockdowns of recent years, and stories of packed auditoriums are surely good news.

But the news hasn’t been all good. In staying home to watch movies over the last few years, some film-goers appear to have forgotten their cinema etiquette. Reports have emerged of people taking phone calls, scrolling social media, and, incredibly, giving their children phones to amuse themselves should the main feature not be of interest.

Cripes.

While there might be a generation of young film-watchers to whom cinema-going is a new experience, that cannot be the case for their parents. And it seems only a couple of short years of viewing movies from home have been enough to make some forget how to behave at the movies.

Perhaps though, as people begin to come re-accustomed to seeing a film in a communal setting, their conduct will improve. But I wonder. For some time, years prior to the pandemic, I’d been noticing a change in the behaviour of cinema audiences.

While it now seems to be a granted people will glaze at their phones during a film, I would have thought they’d draw the line at taking, or making, calls during the screening. Of course there have always been issues with people arriving late, going in and out of the auditorium repeatedly, along with being baffled by allocated seating.

But talking on the phone during a movie? That’s a whole other level of film-watching misery.

I wonder though, how much of the audience behaviour problems we see today can be attributed to smartphones, and our umbilical-like dependency on them? In the past I’ve been to film preview screenings where we’ve had to leave our phones outside the auditorium, in a secure locker. This to prevent a yet to be released feature being recorded, and leaked.

For sure, it seemed strange to be temporarily separated from our phones, but I wasn’t aware of anyone suffering adversely as a result. These screenings were quite the spectacle though. Everyone, for the most part, sitting still for the duration, focussed only on the film. Of course most of those present were film critics or journalists, at what was effectively a work event.

Still, it’s tempting, if futile, to conject here. Imagine if everyone had to leave their phones at the box office, prior to sitting down to watch a movie. Sure, there’d still be people turning up late, sitting in someone else’s seat, and opening bags of food in the noisiest way possible. But if music festivals can operate phone-free, why can’t cinemas?

For the benefits, and audience comfort, of phone-free movie sessions though, sadly I can’t see any cinema even dreaming of imposing such a demand on customers. After the last few difficult years, movie house owners would be reluctant to do anything that might dissuade patrons.

Over the course of the pandemic, and the lockdowns, I became quite the fan of streaming films at home. Doing so certainly has downsides, such as the waiting time for some titles to become available for streaming, but at least we can engage in all those irritating film-goer behaviours I’ve described, without annoying anyone else.

RELATED CONTENT

film, movies, smartphones, trends

Ridley Scott blames oblong obsession for The Last Duel’s poor showing

26 November 2021

It seems Ridley Scott’s latest feature The Last Duel isn’t doing too well at the box-office, and the celebrated director is pointing the finger of blame at smartphones, and millennials apparent obsession with them:

“I think what it boils down to – what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones,” Scott said. “The millennian, [who] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you told it on the cell phone… This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”

By that rationale though wouldn’t most movies, not just historical dramas, be doing poorly at the box-office?

RELATED CONTENT

film, movies, Ridley Scott

Robert Pattinson steps up as The Batman

18 October 2021

Ok so I’ve been a little sceptical about the upcoming (rebooted?) Batman film, The Batman (trailer), directed by Matt Reeves, and starring Robert Pattinson, as the dark knight. Must there be another Batman film? Isn’t there another story about someone else to tell? But from the teaser snippets I’ve seen so far, Pattinson seems to make for a fine brooding superhero. Zoë Kravitz stars as Catwoman, and Paul Dano as the Riddler. The Batman premieres on 4 March, 2022.

RELATED CONTENT

Matt Reeves, movies, trailer

Trailer for Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World”

15 October 2021

The Worst Person in the World (trailer), the latest work by Norwegian film director Joachim Trier, stars Renate Reinsve as a young woman named Julie who has trouble finding a balance between her love life and professional life. Peter Bradshaw, film writer for The Guardian described Trier’s feature as an instant classic. The Worst Person in the World screens three times as part of the Sydney Film Festival in early November.

The Power of the Dog, by Jane Campion

14 October 2021

The Power of the Dog, the latest film by Sydney based New Zealand director Jane Campion stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank, a rancher living in the American state of Montana in the nineteen-twenties.

When his brother George (Jesse Plemons) marries the widowed Rose (Kirsten Dunst), a furious Phil takes to tormenting Rose, and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Quite abruptly though, he seems to soften his stance, and begins warming to Peter. But is Phil’s change of heart sincere, or does he have an ulterior motive? The Power of the Dog screens at this year’s Sydney Film Festival on Friday, 5 November.

The French Dispatch, by Wes Anderson

13 October 2021

The French Dispatch is the twentieth (or so) film by prolific American filmmaker Wes Anderson, and will be the closing feature of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Set in the offices of a fictional American magazine, in a fictional French town named Ennui-sur-Blasé, the story follows the ins and outs of the paper’s journalistic staff.

Long time Anderson collaborators Owen Wilson and Bill Murray are among the star studded cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Anjelica Huston, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Liev Schreiber, Saoirse Ronan, Jeffrey Wright, and Léa Seydoux. Count me in then for the closing night of the Sydney Film Festival.

Petite Maman, the new feature by Céline Sciamma

12 October 2021

The Sydney Film Festival opens on 3 November 2021, and hopefully heralds a hopefully welcome return to seeing movies at the cinema, after months of COVID enforced lockdowns. To mark this momentous occasion over the next few days, I’ll be posting trailers for some of the films screening at the festival this year.

Petite Maman is the latest feature by French filmmaker Céline Sciamma, director of the exquisitely heartrending Portrait of a Lady on Fire. At first glance Petite Maman appears to be a story about two young girls who become friends, but as we learn one of the girls is the mother of the other, who through some quirk of space-time has moved through time as a child to meet her daughter.

Here Out West, the Sydney Film Festival opening feature

11 October 2021

Here Out West, which screens on the opening night of the Sydney Film Festival, on 3 November 2021, is an anthology film, combining eight stories which merge into one feature. Set over the course of a day, in Blacktown, a suburb in the west of Sydney, the story follows events precipitated by a woman who kidnaps her grandchild from a hospital, and goes on the run. Five directors, Leah Purcell, Fadia Abboud, Lucy Gaffy, Julie Kalceff, and Ana Kokkinos collaborated in the production of this feature.

RELATED CONTENT

movies, Sydney Film Festival, trailer

« older posts