<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2cXPyx_0myAGAFj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2cXPyx_0myAGAFj00" width="1200" height="500" ></figure>The trend has thankfully died down, but for the past several months, a video meme has been going around that apes the style of Wes Anderson. These reels or TikToks or whatever the hell you call them utilize the same music—Alexandre Desplat’s chirpy “Obiturary” from the French Dispatch soundtrack—and they all have the same basic style: Hyper deadpan longshots, symmetrical images, an orderliness that borders on obsessive. Some get fancy and incorporate AI, like ones I’ve seen recently that send up Succession or Star Wars in the style of Anderson. They often make reference to Anderson’s troupe of actors: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and so on.I got so sick of the Wes Andersonification of everything, I feared that I would grow weary of the auteur. “If Instagram turns me against Wes Anderson, I will never forgive it,” I tweeted.But here’s the thing: Wes Anderson does have a very distinctive visual palette and voice, one that has spawned thousands of imitators. But no one can ever successfully impersonate Wes Anderson because, well, he’s Wes Anderson and you’re not. There’s the meme, and there’s the man. And the man is a genius.Take his latest film, Asteroid City. In some ways, it fits neatly into his oeuvre. Yes, Jason Schwartzman is there. And Edward Norton, too. Tom Hanks seems to be stepping into the role normally reserved for Bill Murray. And yes, the film has Anderson’s normal obsessions: diorama-like sets, pristine costumes, candy colors, precocious children, and baffled adults.But much is going on in Asteroid City that no one could possibly anticipate.It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try, briefly: The film manages to be a TV show, a play, a backstage drama, and a meta commentary on all of the above. (It’s also stunningly beautiful, looking like a bleached out travelogue from the 1950s, but I guess that’s par for the course, too.)Bryan Cranston, doing his best Rod Serling impression, serves as our narrator, explaining that what we’re watching is a play by idiosyncratic playwright Conrap Earp (Norton). The play, which suddenly becomes a TV set of sorts, centers around Asteroid City, a famous spot in the desert where an Asteroid once landed—there’s a giant crater in the ground. The desert town also has an observatory and they occasionally detonate H-bombs there, what with all that open space and all.Asteroid City is the setting of the annual Junior Stargazer competition, which is why Augie Steenbeck (Schwartman), driving a Woodie station wagon, arrives with his four children in tow. They include his budding astronomer son, Woodrow (Jake Ryan), and his adorable young triplets (Ella, Gracie, and Willan Faris), who despite their matching bows and dresses are kind of scary, alternately claiming they are witches or aliens. Augie doesn’t have the heart to tell his kids that their mother died—four weeks ago, in fact. But when the Woodie breaks down and they’re all stuck there, he has no choice but to calmly break the news that she “succumbed to her illness.”“She’s in heaven,” he says. “Which doesn’t exist for me, of course, but you’re Episcopalian.”The triplets were en route to see their cantankerous but loving grandfather (Hanks), so he decides to come to them.Others gathered at this astronomy convention include troubled movie star Midge Campbell (ineffably glamorous Scarlett Johansson), whose daughter, Dinah (Grace Edwards) is in the stargazing competition; weary parents of more competitors, including Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, and Steve Parke; a busload of sightseeing kids and their teacher who have gotten stuck there when the bus leaves without them; the astronomist who oversees the compound, Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton); and the general who carries out those military tests (Jeffrey Wright). Also looks for Jeff Goldblum in an inspired cameo.If broken down cars and rogue buses aren’t bad enough, something major happens that forces the guests to essentially quarantine there. It’s in the trailer, so I’ll go ahead and say it: An alien comes down from a spaceship, steals the asteroid (which is just a little bit bigger than a basketball), looks at the stunned onlookers with curiosity (and maybe a touch of contempt?) and flies away.No one seems particularly excited about this, or even very scared. The quarantine is a nuisance. The alien is a point of obsession for the children, who make-up songs about it and ignore the rest of their studies. (Their teacher is trying very hard, in vain, to teach them about the eight planets, which is a bit of an inside joke, since we all know that Pluto has since been demoted.) Augie gets closer to Midge. Woodrow gets closer to Midge’s daughter, as they bond over feelings of alienation. (“Sometimes I think I feel more at home outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” Dinah says. “Me too,” Woodrow says, adoringly.)But then, occasionally, we see the troupe behind the scenes. The actor who plays Augie visits the playwright Earp, and they share a tender kiss. The actor also worries about getting into character—does he have too many tics? Is the beard too much? We briefly meet the actress who was to play his late wife (a touching Margot Robbie), who bemoans the fact that her part was cut. There’s also Adrian Brody as the play’s cocky director, dressed in a white tank top and looking every inch a member of Stanislavski’s theater troupe.So what on (or off) earth is going here?I’m not one hundred percent sure, to be honest. Clearly, Anderson is reflecting on grief, on man’s place in the universe, on the euphemisms we tell ourselves about stars and heaven and death. He’s also reflecting on the power of images and storytelling—even within this elaborate, self-referential framework, I still got caught up in the characters and story. I’ll definitely need to see Asteroid City again to make all the nesting doll pieces fit. But I felt melancholy and contemplative when I left the theater, in that way you do when a movie’s emotions sneak up on you. I’ve seen all those Wes Anderson parodies and they never made me feel like this.Asteroid City opens in Baltimore on June 23.</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

Movie Review: Asteroid City

The trend has thankfully died down, but for the past several months, a video meme has been going around that apes the style of Wes Anderson. These reels or TikToks or whatever the hell you call them utilize the same music—Alexandre Desplat’s chirpy “Obiturary” from the French Dispatch soundtrack—and they all have the same basic style: Hyper deadpan longshots, symmetrical images, an orderliness that borders on obsessive. Some get fancy and incorporate AI, like ones I’ve seen recently that send up Succession or Star Wars in the style of Anderson. They often make reference to Anderson’s troupe of actors: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and so on.