[EXPRESSO] The Phoenician Scheme (2025) | Con Nun

I’m a huge fan of Wes Anderson since forever, but i’m starting to understand why one would not like them, aside from his style being overly consistent over time, as he perfected his own aesthetic, style of editing and photography to a tee. To the point that i feel he has gotten too good at it, and now basically sticks to that people expect of him, for better or worse.

Following the retro meta scifi extravaganza of Asteroid City, The Phoenician Scheme, while also set in 1950, is more of a black comedy/crime caper where we follow conman extraordinarie-arms dealer-ubercrook Anatole “Tza Tza” Korda (Benicio Del Toro), surviving yet again another assassination attempt via plane crash, and feeling this time it was a very narrow dodge (to the point he has near death visions), he decides to call his estranged daughter Liesl, a novice nun, and agree to carry on the family business, especially in carrying out the titular scheme, which is a super-risky, very long term and elaborated conjob, which requires getting on board a series of business partners… some of which he tried to swindle before, plus every big business has it in for him since he does his shady schemes and machinations in such a way that just happens to piss off or indirectly negatively impact every big business kahuna representing a nation or coalition.

For my money (as they say in Eagle Country) it’s at least better than Asteroid City, i’d say it’s definitely better than The French Dispatch, which did disappoint me, but if you liked his previous movies, it’s as obvious as correct to say you will enjoy this one too, and viceversa.

Honestly i wish Wes Anderson would do more animated films or try do remakes of Svankmajer films, or something else entirely.

[EXPRESSO] Argylle (2024) | Spy Harder

Matthew Vaughn is back with that is essentially a Kingsman spin-off taking place in that universe/continuity with Argylle, which goes for the straight up spy comedy/parody with a premise that inevitably echoes Romancing The Stone, and by extent 2022’s The Lost City, but about spies.

Elly Conway is a successful writer of a spy series of novels titled Argylle, and while about to finish up the final chapter of her next book, she is approached by a real spy that reveals her books ended up mimicking too closely the machinations of a real life evil shadow mega-organization, forcing her to follow (with kitty in tow) the real life agent Argylle in order to escape the assassins sent after her.

There is more to this, and it’s a nice variation on this formula…. but i can’t deny at times it feels like an outright spoof done by accidents, as the twists keep coming to a degree that it almost feel like an actual joke (but ain’t) and the fun premise is ultimately weighted down by a convuluted plot and an overly long runtime. This really should have been 90 minutes.

It’s a bit too self-satisfied at times, especially in terms of meta jokes that aren’t too original or funny, the execution it’s far from lacking flaws, but i won’t deny the premise does give the formula some energy, the plot gets some needed mileage out of said premise, enought to keep you fairly entertained, with some fun performances, but it does suffer because often it weaponizes genre cliches unironically without actually improving on overdone tropes.

Despite all that, i’d say it’s still a decent time, but i do hope that the planned sequels (if they do come out after this “part 1” bombing so far at the box office) are better.