Asteroid City (Wes Anderson, 2023)

[therewillbeblus]

Absolutely. I can't remember the last time I've really enjoyed Hanks in a comic role

I thought Hanks had a pretty comic role in Bridge of Spies and I really enjoyed him in it

[flyonthewall2983]

I can’t ever say I’ve seen him in something so devoid of humor that it took away the thing that makes him so magnanimous in the huge films he did for Spielberg, Ron Howard or Zemeckis. And I thought he was good in The Ladykillers but I get why it didn’t work all the way. Barry Sonnenfeld was originally going to direct and said he wanted Tommy Lee Jones in that role, as he would have made that role more ominous. But as it is Hanks did some hilarious stuff within his performance that never made me dislike it, which I can’t say for most anyone else in that movie.

[Brian C]

He was very funny on SNL as recently as 2016, when he hosted an episode a few weeks before the election - the famous David S. Pumpkins and Black Jeopardy episode. The former sketch hasn't aged great, but the latter has held up amazingly well.

It's not that he can't be funny, but I think he is prone to trying too hard, I suppose. I was mostly not a huge fan of Hanks in the pre-Oscar days, his comic persona seemed kind of overbearing to me as a kid (although I'll give another shoutout to the seemingly mostly forgotten Dragnet!), and he's kind of hit-and-miss for me since in terms of comedy.

Did he really take down The Ladykillers or was it just a poorly-conceived remake to begin with?

Yes.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The more eagle-eyed readers (not me) noticed that Bill Murray wasn't mentioned in the cast list put out by Focus. Turns out he dropped out after getting Covid and was replaced by Steve Carrell.

[domino harvey]

Is this the first Wes Anderson film without Murray since Bottle Rocket?

[swo17]

Yes, if you only consider features

[Never Cursed]

What do you think the odds are that he’s given some tiny pickup shot/voiceover role

[Boosmahn]

People hate anthology films

Is that entirely true? Thinking of semi-recent anthologies, Certain Women was critically successful, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was that as well as popular with audiences. Horror anthologies are also fairly common, from classics like Creepshow to modern (moderate) successes like The Mortuary Collection. (Granted, I've only seen the last one... )

[swo17]

It's at least as true as any other generalization

[yoloswegmaster]

The limited release date is set for June 16, 2023, and the wide release will be a week later.

[yoloswegmaster]

[geoffcowgill]

It might take up less poster space to list who is not in this.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Maybe because the last two Anderson films left such a foul taste in my mouth, seeing a poster with all it's stars listed like that gives me a stomach ache.

[therewillbeblus]

Interesting order of names - I thought Hanks was going to be more of a cameo, but if it's based even somewhat on prominence, it'll be great to see Jason Schwartzman lead another ensemble for Wes

[soundchaser]

I’m just excited to see swo’s new avatar

[DarkImbecile]

New Jason Schwartzman avatar opportunity

[Kracker]

The trailer is up and every frame of this thing looks like it could be a vintage postcard. Its pretty amazing.

[MongooseCmr]

The spotless blue sky in every exterior background is really surreal. Everything looks more like a diorama than it usually does

[therewillbeblus]

The trailer's degree of focus on themes of loss and community and the spectacular found in natural space reminds me more of Moonrise Kingdom than anything that's come since (not that two of those haven't focused on these ideas as well) - really excited for this

[domino harvey]

A million percent over these affectedly flat line reads, but otherwise looks fine

[Matt]

The spotless blue sky in every exterior background is really surreal. Everything looks more like a diorama than it usually does

I may actually be more excited to read the probable American Cinematographer article than to watch the movie itself.

[aox]

The spotless blue sky in every exterior background is really surreal. Everything looks more like a diorama than it usually does

I may actually be more excited to read the probable American Cinematographer article than to watch the movie itself.

Every colorist I have talked to yesterday is bracing for the sudden deluge of requests this summer and fall to obtain this look with the requestor having done nothing in pre-production or on-set to prepare for it.

[pistolwink]

not the first to notice this, I'm sure, but Asteroid City's West looks a lot like that of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

[Never Cursed]

I mostly came away from this with a sense of aggravation at its flippant inability to be about or do anything. Anderson remains as talented a composer of images and a collator of compelling production design and curlicued little details as ever (though the aural components definitely don't keep pace - some sound effects are badly mixed and Desplat really phones it in), but neither of the film's dueling narratives use these components well or arrive at anything resembling a focused goal or emotional state. There's a lot of lip service paid to some Big Ideas pretty inelegantly invoked by the characters of the film's metatextual play-within-a-play,

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(the loss of purpose/existential dread/lack of connection to things outside of themselves that people feel when they're forcibly isolated or quarantined, the inability to properly grieve for a loved one in such a place)

but Anderson seems to equate mentioning these themes with their interweaving into his text, and so they drown in a collection of folksy motifs and character quirks and recurring visual jokes that don't even scan properly or intersect with the film's other visual jokes or its internal logic as a stage production. Mysterious devices pop out of cars and hum and spark erratically and then disappear, cop cars chase criminal cars through the remote roads of the titular city (why the same two cars chase each other over and over again when the town is 250 miles away from all other towns is beyond me), and wacky "real estate" and "daiquiri" vending machines hum alongside soda-and-chip machines. This is all very droll and almost as unfunny; it's rarely a good sign for these types of visual jokes when characters interrupt themselves to explain in terse yet controlled monotones why a given contrabulous fabtraption is so weird and bizarre and confusing. The paper-thin characterization of most of the players is similarly grating. The film's bifurcated focus and adoration of its little details reduces everyone to the minimal visual affectations needed to explain who their characters are, almost to the representative level of a stark stage play, itself working against the overdesigned world of Objects in which they reside. Rupert Friend might as well be his cowboy hat, Edward Norton his quaffed Ben Hecht/Tennessee Williams front lick of hair, Adrien Brody his sweat-stained, inexplicably Brando-esque (why cast him as the appealing theater director?) tank top. Jason Schwartzman even draws attention to how little is needed to effect his transformation into his character: all he does is fashion himself fake facial hair and voila, he's a second-rate simulacrum of a tormented family man! Anderson has let these presentation aspects of his films do some heavy lifting before (and they've all worked so much better in other contexts, with more completely realized narratives or themes or even just genres in which he's tried to operate), but never has he given so much to do so little. The whole film eventually collapses into pure noise,

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ending on a fight scene so half-assed and senseless (there's no reason why anyone involved would even be trying to kill each other) that the film just stops following the plot of the play after that point.

I hope and suspect that those of you that have loved everything he's ever done will enjoy this one, too, but I'd go so far as to call this his worst film, certainly his least whole or coherent.

A special "thanks," too, to Focus Features and the AMC Lincoln 13 as well for handing out a promotional knick-knack with my ticket that also constitutes a spoiler for an element of the film that was deliberately avoided in its marketing and trailers, and was clearly intended as a surprise.

not the first to notice this, I'm sure, but Asteroid City's West looks a lot like that of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

One of these creatures shows up, complete with sound effects, but it's hardly a selling point - it falls into the same category of distracting set dressing that so much of the film's effort is wasted on

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, Strand Bookstore is now selling signed copies (signed by Anderson) of Do Not Detonate, “a collection of new and classic writing on mid-century cinema and the American West” including “an exclusive interview with Wes Anderson in which the director details how the pieces collected here influenced the characters, stories, and settings in the film.” You can buy them online as well.