WEBVTT - From the Archive: Asteroid City 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.360 This episode is brought to you by Peloton break through 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.840 the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.600 Cross Training tread Plus powered by Peloton Iq. With real 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.680 time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:15.960 your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:20.120 goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.560 and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training tread Plus 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:29.440 at one Peloton dot com. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:31.680 What kind of a show you guys putting. 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.120 On here today? You're not interested in art? 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.000 Now we look, we're going to do this thing. 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.800 We're going to have a conversation. Hey. Film spotters Adam 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:40.320 and Josh. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:40.640 Here. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.159 The Film Spotting Archive has reviews of Wes Anderson films 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.839 going back to two thousand and seven's The Darjeeling Limited, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.400 plus Sacred col reviews of Rushmore and The Royal Tene Moms. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.120 With Anderson's latest, The Phoenician Scheme, now in theaters, we're 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.680 sharing our review of his previous feature, twenty twenty three's 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.440 Asteroid City from June twenty twenty three. Pierce that review. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.679 Junior stargazers and space cadets. Each year we celebrate Asteroid 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.920 Day commemorating September twenty third, three thousand and seven BC, 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.600 when the Arid planes meteorite made Earth impact. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.640 Let's start this discussion by doing what every character and 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:19.440 we meet a lot of them, is trying to do. 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.760 An asteroid City, Get our bearings. Wes Anderson's latest is 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.559 a play within a play that's also a TV show. Okay, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.479 that probably wasn't helpful. Let's try this. Actress Scarlett Johansson 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.560 portrays fictional actress Midge Campbell, who comes out West Asteroid 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.640 City with her junior stargazing star daughter, Midge Campbell. Well, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.679 she's played by an actress from back East named Mercedes Ford. So, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.000 as Anderson himself has explained, you're ultimately seeing an actress 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.280 playing an actress playing an actress. Now that we've got 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.440 that all cleared up, truthfully, I've almost surely oversold how 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.160 confusing the mid fifties set Asteroid City is while totally 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.720 underselling just how dense it is post war America and 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.600 the fractured men who return from battle, the mythic West, 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.720 the space Race, Broadway, and the actor's studio and Playhouse ninety, 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.120 not to mention direct references to the Cinema of Steven Spielberg. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.320 It's as if Anderson created Asteroid City the movie and 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.959 the place to intermingle all of his greatest inspirations and influences. 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.000 Anderson said, when I started wanting to make movies, this 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.720 period was the center of everything. We were watching The 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.520 Godfather and Taxi Driver and Brian de Palma, but maybe 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.320 even more Marlon Brando and James Dean, Montgomery Cliff and 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.720 Elia Kazan the emotion of this period of movies and 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.840 their relationship to the stage. I want to get to 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.440 a question for you, Josh that may seem a little silly, 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.600 as I've just put forth why the play within a 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.519 play approach was always at the core of this project. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.040 And this certainly isn't new territory, as we could run 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.360 through a litany of similar framing devices and meta layers 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.440 in Anderson's films. But I hope that it will provoke 0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:59.560 us to really consider what the director is up to 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.360 here and how successfully he achieves it. Imagine that the 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.560 whole movie Asteroid City is comprised only of the events 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.040 that we see take place within Asteroid City, events that 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.040 already comprise the majority of the movie's runtime, Johansson's Midge 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:19.760 and her flirtations and existential musings, with Jason Schwartzman's Augie Steinbeck, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.160 a war photographer now widower struggling to break the news 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.040 of his wife's death to his four children, Steve Carell's 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.919 industrious motel manager, Tilda Swinton's astronomer doctor Hickenlooper, Jeffrey writes, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.920 General Griff, etc. Instead of these characters stemming from the 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.040 mind of Edward Norton's playwright Conrad Irp, they come only 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.920 from the mind of Anderson. No TV sound stages with 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.200 Brian Kranston playing the host, no black and white acting 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.480 class interactions, just all of these a little bit lost 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.480 souls coming together in the desert, forced to stay together 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.480 a little longer than planned following a close encounter of 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.800 the third kind. And I don't mean here imagine an 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.560 alternative version of the film Asteroid City. I'm saying this 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.720 is the only version we'd ever be aware of. I 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:06.320 think there's a pretty good chance that the two of 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.640 us and many other Anderson appreciators would have been satisfied 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:15.240 with that hermetically sealed off presentation of Asteroid City. What 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:16.120 will we have lost? 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:21.640 Though, great question, one that I was circling around as 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.000 those layers began to unfold. And I'm glad you noted 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.920 that you probably are making it sound more complicated than 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.000 it is, because that's true, and I don't want this 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.719 to scare off anyone, particularly people who thought the French 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.200 Dispatch was a little too dense for them. This to me, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.960 is much simpler than that in terms of its construction. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.680 But you're not incorrect to lay out all those layers. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.920 They are there, the one you just asked me about. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.400 I'll be honest, We're four or five days from seeing 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.320 Asteroid City. That's the one I'm still immersed in. I'm 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.080 immersed in that eighty percent screen time set in the 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.280 title town story, the characters there, what happens there, what 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.800 that might mean. I'm going to need another viewing, or 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.040 at least a couple more days until I start digging 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.159 deeper than that. I think that's partly because to your point, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.800 I was satisfied with what I got there. I have 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.680 as much as I've loved his more recent films that 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.000 have added on the layers to the cake, so that 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.360 these are layer cake movies, which really started I think 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.880 in Earnest with Grand Budapest those again, have loved them all, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.760 huge fan, but I connect more strongly with the more 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:37.320 straightforward narratives that he did previously, and so that's how 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.400 I've responded to this one as well. I'm not trying 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.040 to ignore those other layers. I'm going to have to 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.120 get to them a little later. And my reasoning is 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.120 I don't want to rush through it. I want to 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.279 enjoy what is taking place in Asteroid City, because, again, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.239 as you said, that could be a movie of its own. 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.200 What movie do I think that is. We'll get to that, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.080 but I want to hear your response to that question 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:05.480 before we get there. I would say that, and you've 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.560 hinted at this, this could very much be a movie 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.479 entirely about the acting experience, what it means to be 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.919 an actor, the art of acting, how audiences receive acting. 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.440 That may be enough for what Asteroid City is about. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.440 I think it's in that next layer that I've yet 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.679 to really dig into. But I think that's why it's there. 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.000 It sounds to me I'm unfamiliar with a lot of 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.719 the background information you shared. Maybe that was the genesis 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.640 of this project many years ago, perhaps, and I think 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.320 there's a lot of richness there. There are some fantastic 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.960 performances here, performances within performances within performances, as you said, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.880 but just on the surface of a single character performance. 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:50.560 I think Schwartzman and Johansson are excellent in particular. That 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:52.920 may be all this movie needs to be about. That's 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.680 the layer I've yet to get to. But how are 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.040 you feeling? Is that the layer this movie needed for 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.560 you to like it as much as I'm hoping you did. 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.320 Yeah, I think I probably did appreciate it even more 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.720 because of that ambition, because of that audacity, would have 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.400 been fine, I'm sure with that more stripped down version 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.800 of this film. And I'm gonna say it's probably a 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.840 little silly to suggest that making a movie smaller would 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.400 make the movie seem smaller. Yeah, that's what would have happened, 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.600 I think, though, I think it would have been satisfying 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.559 without being as rewarding. And look, every good movie should 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.920 get better with repeat viewings. Definitely the case with Anderson's films, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.800 which are very rich. Asteroids City, though, is one that 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.840 almost demands I think that you go back and unpack 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.600 all of its references and all the ways it kind 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.760 of folds in on itself, and not just to get 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.200 the references, though I would like to do that. I mean, 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.240 we can get as minute even as the fact that 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.840 that character I mentioned, Scarlett Johansson, one of her characters 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.600 in this film is named Mercedes Ford. You know, it's 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.840 as if is if this woman has probably taken a 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.200 stage name where she's grabbed like this more exotic foreign 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.480 car and they've merged it with the basic American car. 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.840 For it's playing with all these myths and ideas everything, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.600 even Hickenlooper is a reference. Of course, I don't think 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.679 there's anything in this film. Of course there's nothing by accident, 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.280 but it's one of those films where it really does 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.480 feel as if every detail matters. And watching it again 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.640 or multiple times after that isn't just to sort of 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:31.880 pick up on the trivia of it to get all 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.920 those references, but to really see how all of those 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.920 references contribute to the narrative and the ideas and yes, 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.760 the emotions that Anderson I think is exploring here. And 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.040 there were really two moments then locked it for me, 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.840 and we were talking about this a little bit afterwards. 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.520 I think even the next day you said that there 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.480 were some lines that you really wish maybe you had 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:57.640 taken better notes on, or that you could reference. I'd 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.280 like to see if we have any overlap here. Two 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.600 that unlocked it for me. One is a moment I 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.040 think it's Maya Hawk is a teacher who's got a 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.280 group of young students I don't know, maybe eight, nine, 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.680 ten years old on a field trip. They've come to 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.320 Astoid City to learn about space, and this is one 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.840 of her scenes where she's trying to teach them the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.400 morning after this alien sighting. Now, I hadn't actually watched 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.840 the trailer for Asteroid City before seeing the movie, so 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:27.640 I kind of thought. I kind of thought, you know, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.760 even though it's not like it feels like a gigantic spoiler, 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.160 I wouldn't have expected that that was something they revealed 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.400 in the trailer. But it's right there. So it's not 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.439 like the whole movie hinges. It does kind of thematically, 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.560 but it's not as if the movie, in terms of 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.600 the plot hinges on this moment, not giving anything away. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:51.160 They have an alien sighting. It is completely by surprise. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.920 They have no expectation of this before this moment. They 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.959 believe they're alone in the universe, and you can see 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.840 how sort of upset she is. Not upset like angry, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.679 more just she's clearly been rocked. Her world has been 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.160 rocked by this, and now she's trying to she's trying 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:12.000 to teach. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.320 Students, well, it's changed her plan, Adam, you should know 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.960 this as a teacher. Now, I mean, there's nothing worse. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.760 And it's changed so much more than that, it's changed 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.000 the plan for all of their lives in a way. Right, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.480 So she says, some of our information about the Solar 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.160 System may no longer be completely accurate. Anyway, there's still 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.920 only nine planets in the Solar System as far as 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.040 we know. And one of the kids, Billy, raises his 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.079 hand and Billy says, except now there's an alien. And 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.400 you really do you sense? I love the performance. You 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.040 sense her hesitancy and the doubt that's creeping in as 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.680 she's saying those words, Like the way she says, as 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.760 far as we know, as far as we know, there's 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.319 still nine planets in the Solar System. And it just 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.600 raises for me this idea that I think this movie 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.840 is really exploring, among so many other ideas and questions, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.880 which is what do we cling to as truths, universal 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:14.760 foundational truths. How do we navigate this experience, this experience 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.960 of life with out a set of rules? Twelve hours ago, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.360 they thought they understood the rules, They thought they understood 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.800 what kind of universe they lived in. Now they realize 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.960 they don't. Everything is up for grabs, and that chaos, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.080 that uncertainty is disconcerting. And I think that even ties 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.840 back Josh to the central storyline of this film, which 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:43.319 is surrounding grief. These Steamback kids. There's a life with 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.080 a mother, and there's a life now without. They're just 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.079 now coming to terms with it. They just discover it. 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.520 It just gets thrown thrust onto them, and they have 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.320 to reckon with it. So there's life before and after, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.120 just like there's before and after life with the alien? 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.520 What do you what are you going to be tethered to? 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.640 Which then gets to the second moment and I can't 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.160 remember the line. Maybe you do, but I know a 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.560 character says it. I don't remember the exact context, Steve, 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.440 and I wish I had better notes here. Someone says 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.440 something to the effect that you just have to keep 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:21.600 telling the story. And for all of these artists, including 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.480 Anderson himself. The sense for me is that the only 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.800 way you can deal with all that chaos and uncertainty 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.680 is to just keep telling the story. Are you ever 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:33.400 going to find the meaning of it all? Are you 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:34.400 going to find the answers? 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:34.800 No? 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.599 You just keep telling the story. And that story involves characters. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.880 The stories involve people. All you can do is keep 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.480 taking some comfort and solace in each other. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.520 Yeah, that's one of the lines. It absolutely is. And 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.880 it's so funny because it comes at a point where 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.439 you are starting to feel overwhelmed a little bit about 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.160 what this all might mean. Not overwhelmed by the style, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.439 you know, I couldn't get enough of that, the filmmaking 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.400 those sorts of things, or the performances, but starting to think, Okay, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.160 this has been fun, but what are we doing here? 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.880 And what happens? This is in the TV documentary you mentioned, 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.640 which is chronicling the production of the play that is 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.520 the story proper and Schwartzman, who is the actor at 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.400 this point, not the father in Asteroid City, but the 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.280 actor playing him, asks Adrian Brody, as the play's director, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.400 doesn't even ask him, he just kind of says, an exasperation, 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.520 I still don't understand the play, and it just hit 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.640 me because I was right there with him. It was 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.800 like exactly where I was. And then Brody's director is 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.839 the one who says, you had it, just keep telling 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.720 the story. That was his direction. I love your reading. 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.160 I love this idea of you know, being disconcerted by 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.320 events and wondering what truths can we cling to. I 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.960 think that absolutely fits. I had a little different response 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.640 to the alien encounter, I think, and then a reading 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.920 that worked backwards for the film. I almost found that 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.120 for the characters to be it's the end epiphany, right, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.360 And we've gotten these in almost every one of his 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.520 movies where a character suddenly it's Max Fisher flying the kite, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.840 it's Steve Zizou underwater encountering the jaguar shark. I think 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:14.559 I'm gonna lose my cred if I got that wrong. 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.400 You know, these epiphanies, they often come in the you know, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.880 the final twenty minutes of his films. What's so interesting here? 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.200 And why you're right that it's not necessarily a spoiler 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.240 though I did not know it going in. As well, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.560 the alien appearance, it's about the midway point. It feels 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:36.200 like and so it is an epiphany that turns a 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.560 little differently than previous ones for me. And I'm going 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.600 to back all the way up and then say that 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.000 I found asteroid City. My takeaway was this is maybe 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.120 his darkest film, maybe his bleakest film, And I think 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:54.880 it's capturing a feeling right now that for me at least, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.000 is very appropriate this movie, Adam. I think maybe because 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:00.880 of the atomic setting, it had me thinking about the 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.720 doomsday clock. And this is not something I really think 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.640 about very much, but I actually thought, I'm gonna go 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.200 see what's the doomsday clock saying right now? And this 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.080 is that, you know, it's kind of a pseudoscientific thing 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.440 that's supposed to measure how close we are to destroy ourselves. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.760 Right It's at its worst right now. And I thought 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.080 that fits. That makes sense to me, just how kind 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.760 of I've been feeling when you talk to like younger people, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.800 how they talk about their future. It's like, yeah, this 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.560 tracks that the doomsday clock is saying things are pretty dire. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.040 And then I'm thinking about this movie, which is set 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.360 decades later but sort of a similar time. Right, we've 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:43.160 had a pandemic, We've had American insurrection. Those are unique, 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:50.880 but Russian aggression environmental degradation that we have now. But 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.440 you think also about the atomic testing element and what 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.480 that meant when it was first dawning upon humanity's consciousness 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:04.240 in the fifties. The extreme existential angst of nineteen fifty five, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.360 I have to imagine, was similar to what we are 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.680 experiencing now, as the doomsday clock attests. And so I 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.360 think this movie is wrestling with all of that and 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.160 making it personal to your point, not only in the 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.480 Schwartzman character's family wrestling with the mother and wife's death, 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:28.640 but Midge's character is performing. She's rehearsing this suicidal scene 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.960 in her next movie, and she is giving it such 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.440 pathos that you really worry for her as a character, 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.720 not as an actress playing that part, but as a character. 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:42.040 This is also a common theme in Anderson's films, considering suicide, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.120 and it's darker for me because it just feels both 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.480 personal and bigger. It really does feel as if the 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.960 world is on the verge of crumbling. There's another line 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.720 that I wrote down, We're doomed or something like that, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.960 and someone says in a response, maybe we are wondering 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.280 it feels like we're doomed? Is something like that, Maybe 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.040 we are? And I think there's stylistic touches that support 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.520 this reading. Think about that highway ramp in the middle 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.120 of town that goes to nowhere. It's just like, very 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.000 funny but also kind of an unsettling joke. The atomic 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.720 testing constantly going on in the background. How about the 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:23.080 police chase that interrupts every favorite guest. It's so funny 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.439 in the film, right, It's like police car chasing a 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.320 hot rod down main street, screaming. They're shooting at each other. 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.520 It's funny, it's another one of the Roadrunner cartoon elements, 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.879 but it's also deeply distressing in a way, like your 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:37.880 life is going to be interrupted by this any moment. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.520 There's nothing you can do. You're in the gunfire. Why 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.040 do so many characters carry guns with no explanation in 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.480 this movie? Adam Tom Hanks's father in law, he doesn't 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.679 need a gun, Steve Carrell's hotel keeper, he doesn't need 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:51.679 a gun. And they're just kind of in their holes 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.240 in their belts. This is a movie that's deeply disquieting 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.040 to me, constantly reminding of me of that, and then 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.080 the Alien comes, and for me, it was almost as 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.560 if it opened things up for these characters. You know 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.520 what I thought about. We've talked many times about how 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.280 Tarkowsky's Mirror has affected our viewing of every movie since 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.560 The Alien for me was a little bit like the 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:22.920 wind in Mirror, where inexplainable, disturbing in a way, unsettling, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.360 yet somehow also maybe a little bit comforting that, Okay, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.040 things feel out of our control, but maybe that's because 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.760 we're not in control and there's something else out there 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.119 we don't understand, and there's something comforting about that. And 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.760 the reason I turned to that is because there are 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.560 very subtle changes for some of these characters after that 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.240 point that I won't get into now because I've talked 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.119 long enough, but did find the movie for me moving 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.879 a little bit away from that despair and unease that 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.720 it otherwise was really steeped in for me, almost more 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.640 than any of his other films. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.119 Yeah, I think we saw the film the same way. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.280 We're thinking about it, very much the same way. Some 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.440 of our word choices might be slightly different. You mentioned 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.240 bleak and that it might be his bleakest or his darkest. Yes, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:14.320 those elements are there. That's what's grounding everything and what 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.199 the rest of the film is riffing on and responding to. 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.840 But as I said, really following up that mantra of 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.639 just keep telling the story, it feels to me his 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.000 most hopeful in some ways. And just to mention about 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.080 Hank's real quick I like that character touch because it 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.919 seemed to me one where because of the way he 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.280 carried himself, and he has a very kind of stern demeanor, 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.840 and that gun obviously was an indicator as well. It 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.000 made me think this guy has to be a military guy. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.600 He's someone who probably comes from that world, the military world. 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.640 Now he's trying to domesticate back into regular life, and 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.879 that's one of those barriers that he can't quite break. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.960 That's just now who he is. And I think this 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:06.320 movie is filled with those kinds of dichotomies, including the 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:11.000 types of dichotomies that surround what you're expressing or this 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.560 conflict of the film, the hopefulness versus the bleakness, the 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.879 sort of fatalism of it, it's all there. I think 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:22.520 that is what he's really exploring, and it does feel 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.600 to me that that time You're right that time in 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.439 the fifties that he's tapping into it must have felt 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.400 like that every day for people, for a lot of Americans, 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.600 but especially people maybe living in some of these these 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:40.040 towns around places like the you know, real asteroid cities 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.920 where bombs are being tested. But even then on the 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.359 East Coast, that's another dichotomy at play here, the East 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.080 Coast and the actors and it's all very cerebral and 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.959 they're trying to get inside these characters and understand them. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.919 But then we've got the West, and everything about the 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.120 mythicness of that is in opposition to what we think 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.639 of as the East. This movie is those things, and 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.240 then we get the dichotomies in terms of the color 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.320 and black and white, yep, the aspect ratios that switch 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.199 here in this film. And I'll come back to that 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.040 a little bit more, but that, for me is really 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.399 why you can't separate or I don't think you get 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.440 a quote unquote better film if you separated out all 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:24.879 the asteroid city story stuff, because it's so tied to 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.280 all the other stories that we get and all the 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.680 other storytellers we see. Without the dichotomies of the movie 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.600 simply isn't as rich. So that actor's studio stuff. For example, 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.840 I really feel like, Josh, if you if you know 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:41.639 anything about that group at all and what some of 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.240 those actors, and that includes people like Marilyn Monroe even right, 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.040 it's part of the actor's studio, lots of other famous 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.679 people whose films that Anderson grew up on and that 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.000 you know, we're all familiar with. There was a sense 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.720 by doing this work, the work of being an actor, 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:01.360 and this is just my sense of it too from 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.359 what I've gleaned from movies and reading, is that they 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.680 were they were unlocking the mysteries of the universe too. 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.959 They were, or at least the mysteries of humanity, trying 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.120 to deeply understand what makes us all tick and then 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.240 translate that to the screen, to put that in a 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:24.359 box and make people see themselves reflected in that and 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.240 better understand where they stand in the universe by living 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.240 through it through these characters. Now we can sit here 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:37.240 and say, well, that's maybe way too grandiose a notion, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.399