Wes Anderson's Asteroid City (2023)

Cinematic Tableaux To Make Life Worthwhile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye-K5uveOHA

This looks good and might even be great but posting just to say that it is really amazing how he moves steadily deeper and deeper into his thing with each movie. Don't think he's ever even attempted to pivot from the stereotype of a Wes Anderson movie, just embraces it progressively more wholeheartedly. you go, auteur

If they don't make this a double bill with Oppenheimer someone dropped the ball.

xp Yes. Wouldn't have it any other way.

looks good, seems like it's in the mode of the ones i like most

OMG that looks so amazing

Was surprised this was coming so soon after the last one, but then I remembered The French Dispatch sat for awhile due to the pandemic.

This looks good!

looks good, Anderson has to be one of the only people that could find new angles for teal and orange these days.

Curiously, this is his first without Murray since Rushmore and he also still has his Henry Sugar movie for Netflix scheduled for later this year, too.

Public explanation for Murray's absence was catching COVID after he had been cast.

Ah OK. My literal first thought was "No Bill Murray, no credibility."

I like the Wes Anderson cinematic universe, I'm aware of the haters and I think they have valid objections but ... it's still a deeply appealing thing to me personally.

Anderson captures something specific about the Gen X experience of growing up in the '70s/'80s surrounded by cultural/pop cultural detritus of the Boomer generation. I read my dad's Spin & Marty comics, listened to his '50s/'60s rock and pop albums, spent hours reading a circa 1960 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. Anderson's reference points hit home for me, because I think that for him as well as me they are received pieces of a past era or eras. He's not evoking the eras themselves, he's evoking the idea and sense memory of those eras as processed through physical artifacts and the nostalgia of our parents. Or something like that. I feel where he's coming from, I guess.

i watched Royal Tenenbaums and it's pretty striking how he used to make movies about people not these midcentury dollhouses

You act like this is a bad thing!

Sorry, j/k, I feel somewhat similar, although tipsy’s argument hits home.

yeah I mean I appreciate his set design and the aesthetics, it's all very impressive (tipsy excellent post you really get at what's cool about it) but they all leave me cold in a way

his last couple left me cold in that way but everything up thru moonrise kingdom hits

to me the Wes Anderson appeal is sadboi feelings crossed with high adventure settings. royal tennenbaums fails to deliver on the second so my least fave Anderson.

Ah OK. My literal first thought was "No Bill Murray, no credibility."

Think you're probably gonna have to get used to no Bill Murray in the future, from what I've been hearing.

due to health or bad behavior?

his last couple left me cold in that way but everything up thru moonrise kingdom hits

Recently re-watched Grand Budapest and it held up, one of my favorites

The latter:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/11/bill-murray-settlement-inappropriate-behavior-being-mortal

And on an Aziz Ansari set, jeez

This one looks good. Anderson’s style has evolved in an interesting way at least for me, just because it’s so much his own and so starkly different from what anyone else is doing. If anyone else tried to copy him it would be a total disaster. I’ve got total respect for his thing, just bc he’s clearly not aiming for awards despite being a “prestige” filmmaker, he’s just telling the odd and sometimes complicated stories he wants to tell. The mix of deadpan humor and slapstick and well earned pathos/tragedy works well for me, and despite the films seeming artificial I find them a lot more moving than most of the flicks out there that really strive for something more realistic.

The dollhouse approach produced The Grand Budapest Hotel, his best live action film since Tenenbaums.

it's fun to see actors from outside his world come in and see how they fit or not...like Bruce Willis being my favorite thing in Moonrise

I likewise thought Ralph Fiennes too brittle for Andersonland.

I liked (Charged)GBH the best out of the current era. French Dispatch was dogshit.

spent hours reading a circa 1960 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia

This was me ages 8-12 (80-84 or so), exact year as well (I remember it said JFK had just been elected).

Ha, funnily enough I recently ordered a two-volume set of World Book Encyclopedias specifically about the British Isles, originally published in 1968; my folks had it when I was young and I remember poring over it quite a bit in the late 70s/early 80s. Oddly enough, they don't remember owning it at all, and it does indeed provide a very specific 'this is how I learned' vibe for me, though it's just an artifact now in many ways.

Skipped The French Dispatch, so enough time has elapsed that I'm looking forward to a return to Wesland.

tipsy's observations are 100% OTM. I guess the contemporary equivalent would be teens listening to their parents' CD copies of Rumours?

I agree with ums - Anderson always had tendencies, but his characters stopped being even remotely lived and became wholly something out of the imagination of a precocious 12 yo.

curious that WA's output has ramped along with progress in AI

Ten iconic directors shoot the World Cup. More experiments with Midjourney & AI.

1. Wes Anderson pic.twitter.com/sxGSaVi63I

— Mason London (@masonlondon) March 27, 2023

lol at the Michael Bay one

Wes always seems to be finding the new Michael Cera

think my problem now is that UK adverts have adopted his aesthetic so heavily that I'm unable to enjoy his work for what it is

I liked (Charged)GBH the best out of the current era. French Dispatch was dogshit.

UK adverts have adopted his aesthetic

Boots ads are pastel now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iHT_pxHtHY

no need for AI to see Wes Anderson fitba coverage

I like his trailers better than his movies, honestly 3 minutes of this guy is really all I need

I liked (Charged)GBH the best out of the current era. French Dispatch was dogshit.

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, March 29, 2023 12:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

french dispatch would be a good name for a street punk band

I like his trailers better than his movies, honestly 3 minutes of this guy is really all I need

Btw this is not a unique observation, but watching the recent Fire of Love documentary (about two quirky French volcanologists, narrated by Miranda July) was extremely Anderson-esque. Down to the red hats. He had to have seen some of that footage, right?

yeah the red hats got me thinking the same thing

the hats are a Jacques Cousteau thing, as in TLAWSZ

Hope Davis is everywhere nowadays

I have a friend who leads a marine biology group on St. Martin and they very consciously copy the whole Life Aquatic look and vibe (obviously originally from Cousteau, but I'm positive they were inspired by the Anderson film)

This looks good and might even be great but posting just to say that it is really amazing how he moves steadily deeper and deeper into his thing with each movie. Don't think he's ever even attempted to pivot from the stereotype of a Wes Anderson movie, just embraces it progressively more wholeheartedly. you go, auteur

I generally agree with this but I can think of one big exception: at one point a stereotypical Wes Anderson movie would have had wall-to-wall needle drops of 60s/70s pop songs. He really tapered that off starting with Darjeeling. (Could be related to the fact that that was his last human-populated movie ostensibly set in the present day?) I'm sure a lot of people think of this as a positive step in his progression, but man, I'd like to see him go back to that well at least a little more often. He's never topped the "A Quick One" sequence in Rushmore as far as I'm concerned.

first impression from Belgian newspaper's reviewer at Cannes: "a collection of great looking tableaux, but doesn't grab you"

I loved this meticulous exercise in Wes Anderson-ness. Half expected him to appear on screen after the credits, Lars Von Trier in Riget/The Kingdom style, to impart some mysterious info that would require a rewatch/rethink.

Here is where I admit that when Bottle Rocket came out my friend told me I had to see it because the Owen Wilson character reminded him of me.

Went to see this today, generally enjoyed it but wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The distancing devices - I don't know, I generally feel like his diorama style serves as enough of a reminder of the artificiality of what he's doing, and here it kind of felt like "hey, just in case you were getting too invested in the emotional stakes..." I did really like the scene that was cut for time, which seemed to add to the movie, open more doors, in a way that set it apart from a lot of the rest of the framing. Completely missed Jarvis Cocker until the credits, kind of delighted by it just because I happen to have been listening to Pulp more in the last week than I have in years.

I wonder how a Wes Anderson movie with Nicolas Cage would be, not in a "lol so crazy" way, just to have an actor who might push against Anderson's style and find his own way of moving through the film.

Good question, since Cage typically operates in the manic extremes, either nuts or hangdog sedate, the latter of which would suit Wes.

i really loved this, framing device worked for me in all the ways the really similar one in french dispatch didn’t (i like theater made by and starring weirdo auteurs and hate the new yorker i guess)

I am not sure that I understood everything in the film. But I reflect now that the whole concept of "we missed a scene from the story because the actor had walked off the set and was on a balcony" is quite aesthetically daring. The fact that we miss this material may be one reason that the central story is unsatisfying.

It's slightly comparable to that rare category of songs that fade out while new lyrics are still going.

i really really loved this … but i think i need to see it at least two more times to explain why lol

I haven't seen this yet but want to and wonder if Anderson set this in the SW as opposed to CA to connect it to 4H and a broader American audience with science fairs that are reminiscent of county fairs with outrageous food and butter sculptures and games and prizes and haystacks. Why does Anderson want to be child like?

Among other visual qualities of the southwest it's the UFO lore.

Pretty much what I expected from the trailer, and as I posted above, I'm no longer objective. The thing I find most appalling is the way he takes a lot of people I generally find quite engaging--Schwartzman, Johansson, Norton, Hanks earlier in his career--and deadpans them into nullity. He's probably more disconnected from the world at this point than Kubrick or Lynch at their most hermetic.

Is this the play Max Fischer was destined to write or direct? No--Max was very, very much alive.

He doesn't actually work with early career Hanks in this if that's any consolation.

I wanted him to get Hanks to reach down deep inside and find the guy who made That Thing You Do!

Wes Anderson’s Bosom Buddies

Worth a read:

https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/asteroid-city-wes-andersons-new-movie-explains-wes-anderson.html

That article is quite good, intelligent, informed, well written. But it doesn't - as I may have briefly hoped - much clarify the film for me. Indeed it admits the unclarity (for instance re why the character deliberately burns his hand).

ppl sometimes self-mutilate in times of deep depression and grief, didn't go beyond that for me

U reached the same conclusion. It's not that big a deal, pinefox!

U=I

The movie is enjoyable, no need to hurt oneself trying to figure out what it all means. I would lokke to see it on streaming or Blu-ray, there's a lot of quick pans and thngs in the background that I missed whilst seeing in the theater.

I wanted him to get Hanks to reach down deep inside and find the guy who made That Thing You Do!

Just when I was about to finally say "I agree with clemenza" ...

I must be old, because I still think of 'Early Hanks' as Bachelor Party and The 'Burbs.

Asteroid City would have been much improved by Hanks tapping into the same energy that gave us his heartbreaking portrayal of alcoholism in that one episode of Family Ties.

Actually if I do have a theory of why the character burns his hand, albeit from one viewing perhaps not grasping everything, it's that the character or actor was looking for a way out of the fiction - the shock would burn him out of the drama, say, and into the real world or next level of fiction - where he also seeks to escape the theatre for a time.

hmmm I like that.

i do too! that's why the "you can't wake up if you don't go to sleep" scene makes the movie for me, it's like stepping out of the dream ("asteroid city"), into "reality" (the behind the scenes scenes, which are as constructed as the dream), which it turns out only yanks the movie further into the dream (the conversation between augie and the character deleted from the movie)

(That was a joke, Eric.)

Where's that "jokes vmic" thread?

I liked the theory I read that we're not just seeing the character Augie burn his hand in that scene - the actor Jones Hall is actually burning his hand too, out of some reaction of grief for the dead playwright. That's why Scarlett Johansson is so shocked - "that really happened!" she says - that's Mercedes breaking character that Jones really burned himself.

(That doesn't actually explain why Augie burns his hand, admittedly)

many xposts to pinefox: i like that theory! & it fits with the nested construction

i loved ScarJo’s Liz/Marilyn combo, so goddamn perfect & at times v moving

Also idk maybe everyone is onto this already but i read that Kubrick was an inspiration for Schwartzman’s character of Augie & thats why he’s a war photographer, wears a safari jacket, has a big beard, is completely impassive etc

David Ehrlich’s review comes pretty close to capturing my feelings abt the movie

love the final para
Will Augie ever see his wife again? It’s hard to say. But somewhere in Asteroid City, or in the play called “Asteroid City” within the play called “Asteroid City” within the television show whose title we either never learn or instantly forget, he will come to appreciate that death is just another of the great unknowns that we all have to live with in the waking dream we share together; a mystery both as cold as a meteorite at the bottom of a crater, and as infinite as the stars in the night sky above.

https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/asteroid-city-review-wes-anderson-1234866295/

also i rewatched it again tonight & i still love it

the tupperware funeral for the mom in the motorcourt is so <3

remember, if you look directly at the ellipses rather than thru your refracting box, not only will you not actually see the effect, but you will burn the dots straight into your retina, probably permanently. i know that for a fact because they're still burned into mine from when i was 11 going on 12. that's when i realized i wanted to be an astronomer.

this was great. very funny. best alien. it's about infinity. which includes entertainment, if you let it (although as people have said above, this is double-edged)

the seeming infinitude of the star cast adds to the effect ofc

this was great. reminded me of John Barth more than anything else.

I loved this. Love French dispatch too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RdncisZ_QA

All new on Netflix, based on Roald Dahl stories:

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (41 minutes)
The Rat Catcher (17 minutes)
The Swan (17 minutes)
Poison (17 minutes)

What a strange, fascinating movie this was

i loved it, think it's his best film. definitely the one I've thought about the most after watching, anyhow

I really liked this. Nobody does <ABSURD> like Anderson.

Also got a kick out of the actor Schwartzman character being named "Jones Hall" after the symphonic hall in downtown Houston

And they running gag of the hot rod car chase

AND THAT ROADRUNNER

yeah i really loved this

I had my doubts and admittedly didn't watch it all in one setting, but it does seem a rich well of ... whatever it is up to. And I'm equally unsure of exactly what it is up to as I am of whether I would ever watch it again, because I feel like I got it, I soaked in every scene and every line of flat dialogue and all of the little fleeting in-jokes and winks and subtle exchanges of glances and ... I'm still not sure I get it.

I never saw his last one, either, "French Dispatch." I guess I should. It's remarkable that Wes Anderson has gotten so much out of such a seemingly limited style/approach. I also like how his acting troupe of regulars just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I wonder what it's like to be directed by him?

I'll have to check this out. I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel, but had mixed feelings about Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch - some great set pieces, but it also felt like his limitations were becoming more apparent with little to say that made up for it. I skipped this one after hearing some very negative reactions from people who were otherwise Anderson fans, but I just caught up with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and thought that was excellent.

From what little I know about Asteroid City, the most substantial characteristic it shares with The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (besides the usual elements you'd find in Anderson's work) is how they're set up with a matryoshka-like structure of a story within a story within a story, etc., calling attention not just to story creation but interpretation as well. It'll be interesting to see how that works with Asteroid City when it's an original work rather than an adaptation like The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar or, in the case of The Grand Budapest Hotel, a story that heavily draws from the work of Stefan Zweig.

I look forward to hearing what you think, because, yeah, it is like that - story within a story, kind of - but like I said, it's ... strange. It's hard for me to discern which story is the story within the story, and what that story is, exactly. Compared to "Grand Budapest," which does something different and maybe more ... safe (?) with the story within the story conceit?

I’m not sorry I saw this, but … am not in a rush to see it again? Like JiC noted above: I kinda got it, you know?

The French Dispatch I liked better.

(Haven’t seen any of his other movies but would like to get to The Royal Tenenbaums sooner or later though.)

It's good! They're all pretty good. In fact, the only ones my brain tells me were at all disappointing ("Life Aquatic" and "Darjeeling," and "Dogs" I thought was dull, too) I still see cited by some as favorites, so I feel like I have to see them again.

Schwartzman in the Criterion Closet, mentions the Clu Gulager influence on his performance in Asteroid City.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92yxBp7tce4

What sort of a name is Clu Gulager?

Clu Gulager was born William Martin Gulager in Holdenville, Hughes County, Oklahoma. His nickname was given to him by his father for the clu-clu birds (known in English as martins, like his middle name) that were nesting at the Gulager home at the time Clu was born.