In Review of Asteroid City

Our Birkdale Plex was relatively crowded on the first day of summer as parents were accompanying their kids to the cash cow plethora of summer children's movies, Of course, Lynn and I are no longer children so we got our tickets for screen 8. We were a few minutes early. We were the only two present for the matinee showing of Asteroid City. As we watched the trailers another dozen people entered the theater almost all of them thirty somethings lugging some formidable popcorn.

Sure enough, three of them sat directly behind us. 

Before I go any further let me tell you a story about Mary, me and Ava. Maris my youngest daughter and Ava is  Mary's lifelong friend and as such like a duaghter to me 

One day the three of us decided to make up a "joke" that wasn't funny and always laugh at it whenever any of us told the" joke".

The joke/riddle went like this: "Why do college students hate to drive?" The answer is "because they love peanut butter."

Yuk, yuk, yuk, we would always get each other's joke knowing that nobody else would except our placaters. We would always laugh too loudly, wink too obviously and mutter not asidedly enough.

Maybe I shouldn't have told you that anecdote.

Maybe I should have had Bryan Cranston come out tell you that little story as a way of preparing you for what you are about to read like Wes Anderson does in Asteroid City when Cranston is used as a William Castle type producer who is introducing his latest film which is based upon a famous play written by an obscure writer named Edward Norton which has morphed into the movie we were about to see. 

This is known as a framing device and is a clever way to introduce the film and to set the faux documentarian tone of the film to come while paying homage to the sci-fi movies of the fifties.

Cranston informs us that the play/movie is in three acts and centers upon a gathering of award winning "stargazers" who have been ensembled in order to be celebrated (which is in fact a pretty good description of the movie itself which may or may not be intentional). Cranston makes clear that the film is not a literal adaption of the play rather a "loose" interpretation of not only the play but of the creation of the play as well as the movie itself.

Immediately, the three souls behind me over-reacted to Cranston's opening by laughing too loudly , muttering sagely and wittering about the genius at work. This wittering, muttering and laughing would continue throughout the movie as if Mary was continuinuosly whispering the word peanut Butter to Ava and me and we got it.

Naturally, this irritated me but since they kept their appreciative mutters and murmurs barely within the boundary of acceptable etiquette, I decided that my best move would be to walk out of the theater which I considerd doing for the first half hour of the film. Then I got used to the wittering chatter and it disappeared in the same way that tinnitus disappears in your ear shortly after it's driven you crazy at which point it has become such a constant in your life that you wouldn't knw what to do without it.

Meanwhile, on the screen itself, I was getting exactly what I had expected because I was getting both more and less than I had figured. Yup, both Adrian Brody and Willem Dafoe showed up and Jeff Goldblum must have been in there somewhere and Scarlett Johnansen had a wink and you missed it nude scene which I fortunately winked through.

So what's it about?

Asteroid City is set in a fictional American deset town circa 1955.The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention has brought together a group of people who would never have met except for the convention and gives them a chancence to walk around an talk even as their lives are being spectacularly disrupted by world changing events which somehow center upon Jeff Golblum playing an alieninasuitasaurusian.

The plot is metatextual which means it is thinking bout itself as it is telling its own story and isn't quite sure what to make of itself but maybe if we watch it enough times or are hip enough we'll be able to discern the brilliance lurking beneath the aestetic and directorial off showing. While we wait, let's have some formidable focus and technique until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

Kinda like building your canoe while white water rafting or watching somebody build that canoe on some irrestible fake water.

I almost dozed off with a few minutes left in the film. This makes Asteroid City the winner of this years Best movie that I almost walked out on before dozing off award. So if you're a fan of Wes Anderson films and or ensemble film making and or metamanipulation and or you either love or hate to drive and or you love or hate peanut butter, you've got to see Asteroid City to believe it.