Sometimes I think I'd feel more at home outside the Earth's atmosphere.
Wes Anderson's new film Asteroid City, which takes place in a fictional townin 1955 arrives in theaters on June 16th. The official synopsis goes like so...
The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
So it sounds a little Moonrise Kingdom with a splash of the flashbacks to the precocious youth of The Royal Tenenbaums are the closest sibling in the Anderson filmography. That's a thrilling thought since those are the two best Anderson pictures (if you ask me)
Some of our information about outer space may no longer be completely accurate. Anyway there's still only 9 planets in the solar system as far as we know.
Originally we thought we'd do a traditional Yes No Maybe So of the trailer. But it occurs that Asteroid City couldn't look any more Andersonian if it tried. So either you're a yes for his whole schtick/vibe or you're a no.
Are there even any Maybe Sos out there in the world at this point when it comes to that filmography?
In short, I'm a yes even though I usually don't love his pictures as much as I love Moonrise Kingdom and The Royal Tenenbaums or as much as the Oscars loved The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Still give me everything Scarlett Johansson in this trailer. Love that exchange with Hope Davis about her acting. ScarJo has been through many interesting iterations in her career but in a way joining Wes Anderson's troupe feels very full circle since she started out as such a deadpan adolescent (see Ghost World) and that's so inside his wheelhouse.
The other really nifty thing about the trailer, beyond multiple good verbal jokes, is how non-three dimensional it feels with its flat matte-painting backdrops and the boxy compositions.