Saw this this past weekend. I enjoyed it, but I think Andersons' quirky, deadpan sense of humor doesn't have as high a batting average here as in some of his previous films (or maybe I'm just getting jaded with it). Like Woody Allen, you always know pretty much what to expect from Wes, unlike Orson, whom you never really knew what to expect from.
Like a lot of Anderson's films, it moves so fast and in such an off the wall manner that I found it hard to follow at times. I'm still a bit unsure of exactly what the "Phoenician Scheme" was. Of course, Arkadin was pretty much the same when I first saw it, especially the cameos.
Anyway, here's an interesting exchange I found on Reddit:
A. Wes is lucky he's got a billionaire backing his films
B. That's one of way putting it but he's an auteur director so there's always going to be some group of studio people who support him. Plenty of directors don't have the pressure on them to make super commercial movies and will always have their own corner to dominate.
C. I’m not too familiar with this topic, who is the billionaire backing him?
B. Steven Rales, he's a big fan of Wes Anderson. He founded Indian Paintbrush which has been involved in producing Wes's movies since Darjeeling Limited. He also bought Janus Films and the Criterion Collection last year. Which might explain why the Wes Anderson box set is coming this year.
What a shame Orson didn't have a patron like that.
BTW, in addition to the Wellesian similarities mentioned in Ray's article, Tom Hanks' character is called Leland. According to Wiki, Anderson has said that the main character, Zsa-zsa Korda, is based partly on Hearst.
