Movie review by Greg Carlson

When I first heard the premise for “Oh, Hi!” – which has been described as a “romantic comedy,” if you imagine a twisted sense of the term – visions of two Stephen King novels popped into my head. In “Misery,” a writer is held captive by an obsessed fan. And in “Gerald’s Game,” a woman must figure out how to survive after finding herself handcuffed to a bed. King’s two stories exist principally in the space of the psychological thriller (with scary elements incorporated) while “Oh, Hi!” hopes for some laughter along with its rueful recognition of failed intimate partnerships. Director Sophie Brooks, who wrote the screenplay from a story she created with star Molly Gordon, understands the border that separates the most ridiculous expression of bad ideas from the pathos that accompanies rejection.

Gordon plays Iris, a young woman inclined to hide her tightly-wound neuroticism behind a veil of affability and enthusiasm. Iris has been seeing Isaac (Logan Lerman) long enough for the couple to plan a road trip getaway, but not long enough, we discover, for an exclusive commitment. The opening sections of the movie are the strongest, as we enjoy figuring out the contours and dynamics of this pairing. Some brief flashbacks will also fill in a few blanks. Brooks stages a clever scene on the way to the farmhouse rental in which Iris and Isaac stop to buy strawberries from a local whose flirtatious comments to Isaac bug Iris. Along with a hilarious slapstick button that wraps up the exchange and might be a sign of things to come, we note just enough of the insecurity that will shortly roar like a lion.

Settling in, Iris discovers that a bedroom closet contains handcuffs, costumes, and other erotic bondage paraphernalia. One thing leads to another, and Isaac ends up locked to the bedframe without access to a key. Iris makes the unwise decision to keep him restrained, eventually involving friends Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Kenny (John Reynolds), who add more fuel to the chaotic and illegal conundrum. Brooks and Gordon don’t fully sustain the electricity of the first-half set-up once Max and Kenny enter the story, in large part due to the way in which the broken-logic shenanigans resemble so many tropes routinely deployed in TV sitcoms. That said, Viswanathan swipes a few scenes, including one in which she casts an absurd black magic incantation.

Brooks and Gordon began discussing what would become “Oh, Hi!” during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, operating with the idea that limited locations and a small number of actors could be the route to getting something made. In a reflection published in “Variety” ahead of the movie’s Sundance premiere, Brooks summarized the desired tone: “Molly and I dreamed up a story about a woman desperately seeking love as a way to process our own fears and poke fun at them, in the hopes that people would watch it and laugh and cringe and feel seen and entertained.” Fair enough.

“Oh, Hi!” never tells the viewer exactly how to feel about either Isaac or Iris, a move that works in the film’s favor. Brooks comfortably toys with expectations and stereotypes that we all ingest on a daily basis, carefully pulling back when we start to think that Iris looks “crazy” or desperate. The same courtesy is extended to Lerman’s Isaac, who never crosses over into full-blown user/asshole territory (some critics have wrongly dismissed the quality of his performance). By withholding moral judgement of her characters, Brooks largely gets to have her cake and eat it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Cinephiles and fans of classic midcentury Hollywood biography will find much to appreciate in Mariska Hargitay’s insightful documentary “My Mom Jayne.” As protagonist Olivia Benson on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Hargitay holds the record for playing the longest-running primetime character on network television. Many also know her as the daughter of iconic sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. Hargitay’s feature directorial debut transcends the typical movie star portrait by re-imagining the frequently mistaken public image of Mansfield and her tragically short time in the spotlight. The first-time filmmaker’s decades of experience in the industry contribute to the ease and confidence with which she pulls together a compelling story both intimately personal and openly public.

Hargitay was only three years old in the summer of 1967 when Mansfield was killed along with boyfriend Sam Brody and driver Ronnie Harrison in a car wreck. The toddler and her brothers Miklos and Zoltan were in the back seat and survived the crash. Hargitay describes having virtually no recollection of her famous mom, conceding that her strongest memory might be more imagined than concrete. She goes on to explain that her own perceptions of her mother’s popular image led her to keep any feelings about their relationship at a distance for many years. As the story unfolds, Hargitay turns to her siblings, collecting their own stories on the way to piecing together a puzzle that will culminate with a series of shocking revelations.

After Mansfield and Mariska, the most important figure in the documentary is Mansfield’s second husband Mickey Hargitay, who served as the filmmaker’s greatest supporter and champion while she was growing up. He is depicted as the one romantic partner in Mansfield’s life that would not be characterized as a bad choice. Hargitay raises many tantalizing questions throughout the film, leaving many deliberately unanswered. Why was such a smart person so unlucky in love?

The previously buried knowledge arrives in the late sections of the film and will surprise all but the most intense followers of Mansfield. Jayne’s longtime publicist and press secretary, who was more than 100 years old at the time Hargitay interviewed him for her film, wrote a bombshell tell-all in 1974 titled “The Tragic Secret Life of Jayne Mansfield” that disclosed the truth. But Hargitay’s on-camera conversations with Raymond “Rusty” Strait confront secrets and lies with a level of calm restraint rarely seen in a space that celebrates conflict and accusation, especially in the tabloid sphere. The impressive result of their meeting opens a path for Hargitay to exorcise some ghosts that have been equally shared by herself and her mother.

Hargitay uses some choice television appearance clips to dispel perceptions that Mansfield was merely a “dumb blonde” cloned in the image of Marilyn Monroe. Mansfield spoke multiple languages fluently and loved playing the piano and the violin. We come to understand the extent to which the ambitious star used her sex symbol popularity as a means to an end. I love the interview she does with Groucho Marx, who appeared in the movie version of Mansfield’s highlight “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” in a cameo role. On a 1962 episode of “Tell It to Groucho,” Mansfield responds to Groucho’s observation that the crafted fantasy image was indeed an act/facade, saying, “I think that it’s like this: the public pays money at the box office to see me in a certain way.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Ari Aster’s political satire “Eddington” premiered in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May, where Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident” received the prize. A frequently laborious mash-up of genres including flashes of the filmmaker’s horror comfort zone (“Hereditary” and “Midsommar” remain the best films he has made) and slow-burn American Western/noir touches that aspire to the blending of violence and comedy that the Coens perfected, “Eddington” sees Aster taking some narrative risks, even if not every choice pays off. The nearly two-and-a-half hour length, exacerbated by somnolent pacing until at least the first shocking turning point, works against Aster by sorely testing the patience of even the most curious viewers.

Joaquin Phoenix, who led Aster’s previous feature “Beau Is Afraid,” plays the sheriff of the title New Mexico township. Pedro Pascal portrays the mayor. The rivals form two sides of a scalene triangle with Emma Stone, in which Phoenix’s Joe > Pascal’s Ted > Stone’s Louise, at least in terms of significant screen time. The diminished presence of Stone is just one of the movie’s disappointments. Her character, lost in the fog of the world during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, is married to Joe but was previously involved with Ted. Aster clearly enjoys manipulating the chess pieces of his sprawling ensemble cast, which also includes Austin Butler in a glorified cameo as a strange cult leader, Deirdre O’Connell as Louise’s mother, Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward as law enforcement officers working under Joe, and William Belleau as an Indigenous policeman with jurisdiction in the adjacent tribal lands.

Aster also introduces a group of young Black Lives Matter and social justice protesters, linking the historical events that occurred in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to the fictional catastrophes unfolding in Eddington. The filmmaker’s ambitious recipe, which addresses not only BLM, but Antifa, mask mandates, anti-vax conspiracies, corruption and racism and brutality in policing, the environmental impact of data farms, white privilege, and the avalanche of disinformation made worse by the pastime of doom-scrolling, cooks up into a stew that can be difficult to swallow. Even as Aster boldly introduces all manner of Trump-era malaise, “Eddington” is deliberately opaque.

In her thoughtful and incisive NPR review for “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” Aisha Harris puts her finger on one of Aster’s shortcomings: “Eddington” reduces its Black and Indigenous characters to symbols, doubling-down on what Harris identifies as the movie’s status as a “cynical simulacrum.” And while it is certainly fair to argue that “Eddington” is not a character-driven story, Aster’s lack of investment in his array of inhabitants spills over into something like contempt. And it doesn’t matter whether a figure is identified with the right or the left, everyone just bumbles and stumbles along making awful decisions.

Perhaps the most American thing about the particular kind of America depicted in “Eddington” is the feverish commitment to gun violence (and violence in general). Even the trailer revels in the sights and sounds of Joe unloading a high-capacity magazine when all hell breaks loose on the streets of his otherwise sleepy town. We understand that Aster intends a kind of absurdist and comical mockery of our worst impulses as a society,  but the “both sides are equally bad” insinuation that progressives and fascists all deserve to be ridiculed – and lumped in together – is a massive false equivalency.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

With “Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,” director Jackie Jesko takes on the legacy and legend of the late journalist extraordinaire. One of the year’s many solid, feature-length biographical documentaries, Jesko’s movie premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June before making its way to Hulu. The director highlights career accomplishments and off-camera alliances, avoiding total hagiography by looking at a handful of the transactional relationships that Walters maintained as a power player in the monied circles of NYC’s elite. Jesko also recognizes the enormous influence of Walters on subsequent generations of women (and men) in journalism, laying out her subject’s formidable ability to shatter one glass ceiling after another.

In several significant ways, the rise of Walters as covered by Jesko in the first half of the documentary invites viewers to take a rooting interest in the indomitable newshound. Initially assigned to “women’s stories” at NBC’s “The Today Show” when gender boundaries were ruthlessly defined and fiercely defended by the white men in front of and behind the cameras, Walters (who died in 2022 at the age of 93) narrates key milestones culled from archival material. It will come as little surprise that a number of potent male anchors and co-workers bullied and/or dismissed Walters, seriously underestimating the resolve, grit, and rhinoceros-thick skin required in a workplace rampant with misogyny.

Walters spent more than a decade at “Today” before something akin to fate intervened; host Frank McGee (one of many men who treated Walters with contempt) died of cancer. As a result – thanks to language in her contract – Walters became the first woman to co-host the show. Jesko draws clear lines from one big achievement to the next, even if the feature-length format requires skipping past lots of details. Once Walters was hired with a record-breaking contract to co-headline the “ABC Evening News” with Harry Reasoner, Jesko closes in on the juiciest and most satisfying stretch of her subject’s professional life: the transformative influence of the frequent exclusives Walters landed with show business celebrities and world leaders.

And not just run-of-the-mill interviews, either. Walters fine-tuned the hardball like a major league flamethrower, dazzling fans with an ability to earn trust and still cause jaws to drop with the audacity of some questions (Jesko opens the movie with a fantastic montage of Walters zingers). For decades, we ate it up and asked for more. But whether we realized it or not, Walters was contributing to, if not shaping, the fame-obsessed culture that would undergo another technological (r)evolution when the internet arrived. As a biography attempting to cover a big life, it is probably too much to ask Jesko to carve out enough time for a deep dive on the extent to which Walters weakened her industry by blurring and mixing entertainment and news.

Behind the scenes, Walters would struggle to sustain a healthy relationship with her daughter Jacqueline, although the movie delivers the memoir’s happy ending. Additionally, more than one voice in the documentary alludes to a wobbly moral compass that saw Walters in allyship with unsavory types like Roy Cohn (who assisted her father Lou Walters, a colorful figure in his own right). Jesko touches on many romances, but comes to the common conclusion: making television was the true love of Barbara Walters’ life. Anyone with even a mild interest in the glory years of the networks should make an appointment with this story.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Matt Wolf, whose lovely “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” suggests he would be the perfect director to construct the definitive biographical account of the wholly original Paul Reubens, mostly makes good on that promise with the two-part “Pee-wee as Himself.” The story, now on HBO following a Sundance world premiere, has been identified somewhat disappointingly as a kind of “coming out” revelation, even though many fans and followers of Reubens assumed his queerness for a long, long time before it was confirmed. With a total duration of about three hours and twenty minutes, Wolf enjoys a generous enough canvas to examine Reubens in considerable detail. The chronological structure, however, builds toward the inevitable gut-punches of the dual scandals that so unfairly derailed and deflated a singular career.

Reubens, who sat in front of Wolf’s camera for some 40 hours, is every bit as clever and subversive as his (still) more famous alter-ego. The performer, who died of cancer in 2023 at the age of 70, kept his health status secret from all but a tiny circle. Wolf did not know Reubens was sick and never completed what was to be their final on-camera interview. In his “New Yorker” commentary on the film published this May, Michael Schulman provides some crucial context for how this turn of events led Wolf to a new edit of the project. Schulman notes that following the death of his subject, the filmmaker “included more fourth-wall-breaking moments, realizing that his own tug-of-war with Reubens was key to understanding the performer’s bifurcated existence.”

As suggested by Schulman’s quotation and the title, the central thesis sees both Reubens and Wolf contemplating the former’s decision to, in essence, operate only as his creation. Reubens speaks at length about treating Pee-wee Herman, the chaotic, off-axis oddity whose blend of childlike exuberance and grown-up cunning appealed to rebels and nerds of all ages, as a real person. For example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame star heralds Pee-wee and not Reubens. The toll taken by the decision to hide behind Herman plays out as a major motif in the documentary, from the actor’s early romantic relationship with sensitive painter Guy Brown, who would inspire several “Pee-wee-isms,” to the catastrophic fallout from the 1991 Florida arrest.

Part of me wishes the order of the episodes would have been flipped, since the pain of both the indecent exposure charge and the even more frustrating results of the 2002 search warrant that police obtained to go fishing for illegal images have a tendency to overshadow the massive creative achievements that beguile both die-hard superfans and Pee-wee newcomers. Thankfully, Wolf and Reubens unpack the most significant milestones in the Pee-wee Herman journey, from the origin of the character while Reubens collaborated with Phil Hartman as members of the Groundlings to the miracle of feature film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” which remains my own favorite and most revisited piece of Pee-wee media.

It is hard to argue, however, with the impact of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” the cult Saturday morning children’s television series that aired on CBS from 1986 to 1990 for a total of 45 episodes and a beloved Christmas special. Wolf and Reubens recognize “Playhouse” as the fulfillment of Pee-wee’s promise and treat it with the respect it deserves. Many writers have attempted to account for the hidden-in-plain-sight suggestiveness, innuendo, and adult humor – qualities that, while toned down from the stage show, were never fully scrubbed. Like the Reubens/Herman duality, the successful mashup of outré performance art with the formula of midcentury television aimed at kids is rare indeed. The secret word is genius.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As we continue to deal with the ongoing horrorshow of racism, misogyny and transphobia embraced by the current administration, films like “Sally” can serve as an important reminder that love triumphs over hate time and again. News broke just this month that the Pentagon had officially renamed the John Lewis-class oiler USNS Harvey Milk for World War II officer Oscar V. Peterson. National Public Radio reported that “Under [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s guidance, the Navy is reviewing the names of several other ships named after women, Black and Hispanic people.” Should these attacks on equity, diversity and inclusion – all historically valuable attributes that define America and the American dream – continue, it is not hard to imagine future efforts to strip the name of Sally Ride from the elementary schools, sections of highway, and spacecraft described in her honor.

Physicist and astronaut Ride, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61, is best remembered as the first American woman to travel to space. Her personal and professional journey is the subject of Cristina Costantini’s feature documentary “Sally,” which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is now available on Hulu and Disney+. Costantini draws from a rich vein of NASA archival footage (a reliable filmmaking choice for decades of visual storytelling) as well as new interviews with Ride’s colleagues, friends, and family members. The person who figures most prominently is Tam O’Shaughnessy, the love of Ride’s life and her partner of more than a quarter of a century. O’Shaughnessy directly addresses the challenges faced by queer people during an era of suffocating pressure and prejudice.

Along with many typical and traditional markers of the biographical portrait, Costantini inserts re-enactments imagining the ongoing development of the romantic relationship between Ride and O’Shaughnessy from the forging of their early friendship to the end of Ride’s life. None of these scenes add anywhere near as much value as the abundant footage of Ride’s thoroughly photographed tenure at NASA, but they are subtle enough to avoid being a total distraction. More illuminating are Ride’s reactions to members of the press when she is peppered with sexist questions and embarrassing assumptions. Costantini builds an intriguing argument that Ride’s calculated refusal to seek the spotlight worked in her favor, when she was selected over fellow NASA Group 8 member and robotic arm operator Judy Resnik to fly on the seventh Space Shuttle mission and become the first American woman in space.

Resnik would lose her life in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January of 1986, a grim chapter in our national history placed in new context by Costantini as she briefly examines Ride’s role in hearings conducted during the aftermath of the tragedy. “Sally” is filled with just enough detail on the inner workings of NASA politics to satisfy aeronautics aficionados. And when untangling some of the personal reasons that went into Ride’s long silence, Costantini points to examples like Billie Jean King, who speaks on camera in the film about the cost of public scrutiny during an era in which disclosure could negatively alter or even end careers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The June 9 death of musician Sylvester Stewart, known much better by stage name Sly Stone, saw an outpouring of tributes, memorials, and appreciations from some who knew him personally and many who never made his acquaintance. The groundbreaking visionary and multi-instrumentalist launched hit after hit into the cosmos, defining and redefining genre boundaries with a core group of players that included Black and white, male and female years before Prince would replicate the technique. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who won an Oscar for debut documentary feature “Summer of Soul,” a brilliant reconstruction/excavation of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that featured Sly and the Family Stone, proves to be the ideal filmmaker to honor Sly Stone’s legacy.

The stylized onscreen title of Thompson’s film is “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius),” and in context the strikethrough speaks volumes as the director interviews artists who talk about Stone and the unique pressures and unrealistic expectations faced by Black creators in a racist America. That burden is addressed as part of the movie’s contemplation of Stone’s well-documented descent into addiction and his disappearance from both the public eye and (temporarily) cultural relevance. It’s a terrific artistic choice to reframe the Icarus-like fall of Stone outside the lurid tabloid headlines that preyed on Stone’s reclusiveness and eccentricity and made him the butt of wrongheaded jokes for far too long.

Thompson integrates a mix of archival and new talking head interviews with members of the Family Stone, including Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, Larry Graham, and Greg Errico. Their firsthand accounts and recollections of working with Sly speak to the good, the bad, and the ugly in the eye of the hurricane. But it is the presence of Sly admirers and scholars like Vernon Reid, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Andre 3000, Q-Tip, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, and Mark Anthony Neal that shifts the movie into the kind of high gear that Thompson does best, setting up the ideal circumstances for next-level deconstructions and breakdowns of Sly’s gifts in terms that can be understood by the layperson.

You will marvel, for example, at Jam’s dissection of “Stand!” and Reid’s superb analysis of “Everyday People.” The side-by-side arrangement of Prince’s “1999” and Sly’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” highlighting the rotating vocals used to perfection in each song, is another exhilarating example of Thompson’s prowess as a master DJ (I will patiently wait on any kind of Prince documentary Questlove wants to make). The anecdote about the way that “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” – heard at the right moment in the right restaurant – almost instantaneously birthed Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” quickens the pulse. Another segment lays out the influence of Sly on hip-hop, checking samples by the Jungle Brothers, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J.

“Sly Lives!” is a marvel of organization, drawing from dazzling archival footage of Sly and the Family Stone at work and play. Sly himself appears in both performance film clips and formal television interviews and talk show guest spots. Thompson uses discretion in the selection of these moments, since some caught our hero when he was as “high as a Georgia pine.” But even under the influence, Sly knew how to avoid being made to look foolish by the likes of Mike Douglas or Dick Cavett. Hopefully, “Sly Lives!” will introduce a new generation of listeners to one of the most vital discographies in American popular music. But Thompson would probably be the first to tell us that will happen no matter what.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Celine Song’s thrilling debut “Past Lives” was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscars. It was one of the most memorable and rewarding films of 2023. The writer-director’s sophomore effort “Materialists” is another triangle-based romance. “Materialists” centers on a successful NYC matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson. Johnson’s Lucy Mason, whose occupation requires a curious blend of deception and candor, finesses her desperate and lovelorn clients into eventual partnerships that sometimes end in marriage. Her front-row view of dating pitfalls and perils informs her own circumspection, putting her in a tricky spot between wealthy “unicorn” Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal) and ex-boyfriend/struggling actor John Pitts (Chris Evans).

Song’s deconstruction of an entire genre is deceptively simple; how many movies have relied on two suitors representing the poles of economic success? But the filmmaker is a sharp scripter of dialogue and a skillful crafter of how the pauses between words can open up an equally rich visual vocabulary. Lucy meets Harry at the wedding of a couple she brought together. Harry is the brother of the groom. John is serving as a waiter at the same event. Song, whose own experiences working once upon a time as a matchmaker, knows enough about this world to give Lucy the bona fides necessary for viewers to believe. In real life, most of us mortals won’t ever face the exquisite torture of a choice between two people as beautiful as Pascal and Evans.

Johnson has for some time been a much better performer than critics would have you believe. Lucy is one of her juiciest roles yet. Together, Song and Johnson must convince us that Lucy, as a former actor, balances on the tightrope between charming, persuasive selling and whether she buys into these fantasies being peddled to others. “Materialists” works its most magical spells in the space where we can see Lucy struggling with the complexities of relationship-building as it rests on a spectrum that runs from stupid, crazy attraction to the more sober calculations of business partnerships and sound investments. Song’s excellent expressions on these matters routinely delight by undercutting obvious choices.

It is a bit disappointing, then, to unpack some of the less successful plotting that revolves around an assault perpetrated by a prospective date against a client played by Zoë Winters. While the grim and previously invisible realities of the job come roaring at Lucy hard enough to make her seriously question the ethics of her vocation, the resolution of this storyline strains the credulity previously established by Song. The heaviness, in my opinion, disqualifies “Materialists” as a potential romantic comedy. There is some warmth and some humor, but no evidence of the effortless type of Lubitsch Touch as presented in masterworks like “Trouble in Paradise” and “Design for Living.”

I was frustrated that Song did not include clearer character development for John and especially Harry. It makes some kind of sense that Lucy keeps her own cards close to the vest, since her deep knowledge of the dating pool necessitates exercising a lot of caution and because the filmmaker wants to maintain some level of “who will she choose?” tension. But there is no reason we couldn’t get a stronger sense of Harry. There is one scene of vulnerability in which the audience is allowed a glimpse of Harry’s own insecurities, and Pascal is especially great, but it is not quite enough.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Wes Anderson’s twelfth full-length feature, “The Phoenician Scheme,” sees the idiosyncratic auteur pull back from the elaborate storytelling scaffolding and structures of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Asteroid City,” movies that dazzled viewers with metanarrative gymnastics nesting stories inside stories. Even so, “The Phoenician Scheme” bears enough of the familiar stylistic rigor identified with Anderson to be instantly recognizable. Fans and followers will be watching closely to see how Anderson’s first live-action movie without regular DP Robert Yeoman will compare to the eye of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. In front of the camera, ensemble newcomers Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera fit right in with the Anderson regulars who show up time after time.

Benicio del Toro leads the sprawling cast as unscrupulous business titan and war profiteer Zsa-zsa Korda. Frequently targeted for sabotage and assassination by his many enemies, Korda plans to put together the financing for a massive infrastructure project in the imaginary nation of Phoenicia with the help of his young adult daughter Liesl (Threapleton), who has taken vows to become a nun. Along with newly acquired administrative assistant Bjørn (Cera), Zsa-zsa and Liesl meet with a lineup of eccentric potential co-investors to cover the budgetary shortfall Korda refers to as “the Gap.” In keeping with his affinity for onscreen text, charts, maps, headings, and diagrams, Anderson dutifully apprises the audience of the ever-changing share percentages pledged by Korda’s associates.

Set in 1950, the tale of adventure, espionage, price-fixing and revolution develops themes of redemption, forgiveness, and spirituality as another of Anderson’s “bad dads” comes to a better understanding of himself through a complex parental relationship. At the risk of identifying the less fanciful and more emotionally-grounded contents of the movie within the parameters of an autobiographical reading, Anderson dedicates the movie to his late father-in-law, Fouad Mikhael Maalouf, whose initially intimidating demeanor inspired elements of Korda. In press interviews, Anderson has also mentioned his relationship to his own mom and dad. And of course, the director has been a father since 2016.

Certainly, the homage paid by Anderson to Ernst Lubitsch at least as early as “The Grand Budapest Hotel” ignites the harder-than-it-looks blend of screwball comedy, romanticism, and moments of shining emotional transcendence that fuel “The Phoenician Scheme.” The similarities extend to the central triangles composed of the former movie’s Gustave/Zero/Agatha and the latter’s Zsa-zsa/Liesl/Bjørn. Devoted Anderson disciples will have a ball debating their favorite laugh-out-loud moments, which run the gamut from outrageous slapstick pratfalls and hand-to-hand combat to ridiculous and sublime dialogue. While subject to change with multiple viewings, my current favorite is Bjørn’s awkward declaration to Liesl onboard yet another ill-fated Air Korda plane.

Anderson’s films are a repository of his passions for fine art, music, and cinephilia. “The Phoenician Scheme” makes inspiring use of Stravinsky and Mussorgsky alongside Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa. A monochromatic series of holy dreams/visions conjures up Luis Buñuel. And in another stroke of Andersonian ambition, several original paintings – not reproductions – bring their aura to the screen in cameo appearances, including a Renoir once owned by Greta Garbo. The masterworks are even given dedicated credits. All of these meticulous details contribute to a whole experience that beautifully concludes with a powerful epiphany: Korda’s real Phoenician Scheme is not a failure at all.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The writing/directing partnership of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck has to be one of the most curious cases of crazy connect-the-dots career moves in recent cinema. From short documentaries and safe-sex content for the Centers for Disease Control to television work, Boden and Fleck broke through in 2006 with the fantastic feature “Half Nelson,” adapted from their own Sundance prize-winner “Gowanus, Brooklyn.” “Half Nelson,” a captivating portrait of a troubled middle school teacher, snagged an Oscar nomination for actor Ryan Gosling. Underrated follow-up “Sugar” didn’t catch fire. But a couple movies later, Boden and Fleck took the helm of the MCU’s “Captain Marvel, “ which would gross more than a billion dollars.

A love letter to the Bay Area set during the second Reagan administration, “Freaky Tales” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival before landing a wider release this April. Telling four separate stories that all intertwine and overlap, the new movie owes both structural and stylistic debts to Quentin Tarantino. “Freaky Tales” doesn’t manage to achieve the remarkable sense of tone that defines QT’s genre-hugging fireballs, but the raucous and giddy historical revisionism that fueled major plot points in “Inglourious Basterds” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” turns up in a wild reimagining of the night of the fourth game of the NBA’s 1987 Western Conference Semifinals between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers.

In a huge swing for the fences, the filmmakers turn real-life Warriors guard Eric “Sleepy” Floyd (Jay Ellis) into a mystical swordsman prepared to avenge a horrific wrong committed against his family by Nazi biker gang thugs aligned with a corrupt and racist police officer known as “the Guy” (Ben Mendelsohn). Over-the-top mayhem echoes the Bride’s singlehanded battle versus the Crazy 88 in “Kill Bill: Vol. 1,” with the added bonus of a rooting interest against the kind of intolerant xenophobes who seem to be affiliated these days with a particular slogan stitched on their red baseball caps. While this final segment is the movie’s clear showstopper, the preceding storylines make up a trio of tantalizing glimpses highlighting Oakland’s colorful character.

Superstar Pedro Pascal will attract the most attention as underworld enforcer Clint, toplining third story “Born to Mack,” a classic “one last job” tale. Unless you have instincts and skills on par with Wes Anderson, it’s surely a risk to cast a big name in a small(er) role, but anthology-style moviemaking’s all-for-one spirit brings together A-listers and lesser-known performers. Bay Area kid and Skyline High graduate Tom Hanks, for example, pops up as a grouchy video store proprietor. Additional bona fides come courtesy of Too Short, whose narration guides viewers from story to story. He also portrays Mendelsohn’s work partner and in turn is played as his younger self by DeMario “Symba” Driver in “Don’t Fight the Feeling.”

That second story depicts elements of Too Short’s breakthrough hit, the epic track for which the movie is titled. Its over-the-top braggadocio lays out a pimping parody that was embraced by listeners entertained perhaps a bit too easily by the sexually explicit misogyny, and Boden and Fleck manage to rewire some of the boys club dominance with characters Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne), who can go toe to toe with the fellas. My own favorite tale, however, is the inaugural account of punks versus skinheads at the Berkeley venue popularly known as the Gilman. Smoothly mixing the political and the personal, the directors build enough interest around the adventures of Ji-young Yoo’s Tina to keep viewers hooked.