Michael Cera

The Phoenician Scheme

by
Zsa-Zsa Korda in the bath

Symmetrics. Opulence. Screwball comedy pacing. Whimsy. Deadpan. A nostalgic evocation of old Hollywood. The Phoenician Scheme must be a Wes Anderson movie and if nothing else it finally does with Bill Murray what should have been done long ago. It casts him as God. Wes Anderson. By now about 50 per cent of his potential audience have had enough of the tableaux vivants and the mid-century-modern sets and candy colours, the endless digressing, and films that seem longer than they actually are (The French Dispatch and Asteroid City were both only about 1 hour 45 minutes, but felt longer). But fear not, The Phoenician Scheme has pace, it has jokes and it has … Read more

Dream Scenario

by
Nicolas Cage as Paul

Dream Scenario is one of six movie acting credits listed for Nicolas Cage in 2023. Discounting his blur-on as Superman in The Flash, five bona-fide movie appearances in one year is quite a thing, and he is the star of three of them (this, The Retirement Plan and Sympathy for the Devil), co-star in Renfield and had a significant role in The Old Way. But we all know Cage’s tendency to turn up in any old rubbish, especially when a marriage has gone south, or property investments have turned to water. Rest assured, Dream Scenario isn’t the sort of Cage movie where he ships in, gesticulates wildly and ships out again. Nor is … Read more

The Adults

by
Eric, Maggie and Rachel

The Adults will resonate with anyone who’s ever left home – to go to college, take a job, whatever – flown the parental nest, and then started returning periodically on visits that are more duty than pleasure. Eric, played by Michael Cera at a level of diffidence that’s very Michael Cera, is the guy back in town and trying to duck obligations to old friends and family by playing one off against the other. He’d love to come and see the new baby of one set of friends but he’s seeing his sisters that night. To the sisters he hands out the same bullshit excuse but flipped – he’s seeing the baby so … Read more

Barbie

by
Barbie and Ken in her car

And so Barbie is born, as a live-action presence, I mean. She’s been in utero one way or another for nearly 40 years, going all the way back to the 1980s and the Cannon Group’s plans to put her on the big screen (shudder). Between there and here there have been many possible outcomes – a possible Amy Schumer Barbie, a possible screenplay by Diablo Cody, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins in charge. All of them sound interesting, but in the event it turns out to be Margot Robbie as Barbie and Greta Gerwig directing, with Noah Baumbach in the backroom as co-writer with Gerwig. The stories about a movie’s gestation are often ones … Read more