Wes Anderson Ranked: Part One - Travelogues

by Cláudio Alves

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME starts streaming on Peacock next Friday, July 25.

Have you seen The Phoenician Scheme already? Wes Anderson's 12th feature film went straight from its Cannes Competition premiere to a worldwide theatrical release, before making its way to digital. The film arrives ready to delight those who've kept faithful to the director's vision and enrage the many who already loathe his style. It's the kind of project that's unlikely to change anyone's mind about the auteur, perpetuating the same strategies he's been developing from the very start. But it's also the sort of thing that inspires a retrospective look at the Texan's filmography, tracing how one goes from Bottle Rocket to these latter confections. There's nobody like him working today. Not on such a scale, at least. Not in Hollywood, where such formalism is a common sacrificial lamb at the altar of conventional appeal.

But, because we love list-making at The Film Experience, this retrospective shall take the form of a personal ranking, divided into three parts (similar to the Hayao Miyazaki one, though less extensive). Hopefully, you'll be on board as I try to explain what each of these pictures means to me and how I've come to fall in love with the cinema of Wes Anderson…

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A Soderbergh Double Feature: "Black Bag" and "Presence"

by Cláudio Alves

One third of the year over, and already Steven Soderbergh reveals himself to be one of 2025's most exciting filmmakers. In this short span of time, the Oscar-winner has released two new features, starting with the bold POV ghost story of Presence. He followed that up with an old-school spy thriller about sexy liars and the stylish world of deceit they inhabit, Black Bag. As theatrical windows continue to shorten, both pictures are already available for at-home viewing, allowing audiences worldwide to consider Soderbergh's genre experiments up close and personal. 

Indeed, shall we do just that? First up, the high-class shenanigans of Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender against the world…

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A Quick Word on AppleTV's "Disclaimer"

by Eric Blume

We at The Film Experience couldn't let an opportunity go by to post about the new AppleTV series Disclaimer since it stars two-time Oscar winner Cate Blachett, Oscar winner Kevin Kline, and Oscar nominees Lesley Manville, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.  Plus, it's written and dirtected by mutli-Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón (who's won Oscars for Directing, Editing, and Cinemtography).

That's a highly-pedigreed project, and this group of artists have created a probing, sometimes bizarre, curious, and difficult piece of television.  There is no way to have any deep discussion about this project until you've seen it all the way through.  So I won't divulge the turns and ambitions of Disclaimer too much, but if you haven't seen it at all, stop reading now...even a cursory dive into the show requires a few reveals...

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Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2013

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano

Deception, isolation, and desperation are just some of the common threads that connect the characters of this year's Best Actress nominees and the narratives in which they are situated. The curious element of the lineup is that, aside from one (Gravity), all of the nominees are featured in films from the comedic genre, whether it be a crime comedy (American Hustle), a cynically humorous character study (Blue Jasmine), a heartwarming dramedy (Philomena), or an acerbic, tragicomic family portrait (August: Osage County). That must be a rarity in any acting category, right?

Are you ready? The year is 2013...

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NYFF '24: "Rumours" serves political satire à la Maddin

by Cláudio Alves

Rumours is probably Guy Maddin's most accessible film, flirting with the mainstream in ways most of his work never did. That's relative, however, and one shouldn't presume the Winnipeg-based auteur has defanged himself in some desperate attempt to score the public's approval. This G7 pitch-black comedy is still weirder than your favorite Hollywood directors' wildest swing, keeping true to Maddin's cinema of transgression. It involves, among other things, bog body zombies that jack off until they explode, a giant brain with a horny aura, the pedophile-tracker-like ChatGPT taking over the world, and Cate Blanchett playing the Hetalia version of Germany by way of a SNL Angela Merkel…

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