My son likes Wes Anderson movies, so we got Asteroid City, and looked at it. I can’t testify that we watched it, only that we looked at it. Watching something has a specific meaning.
Watch
intransitive verb
To look or observe attentively or carefully; be closely observant.
“watching for trail markers.”
To look and wait expectantly or in anticipation.
“watch for an opportunity.”
To act as a spectator; look on.
“stood by the road and watched.”
The thing being watched requires a certain amount of interest to merit watching, and Asteroid City was a solar system removed from that level of interest.
Of course ol’ Wes has always wanted his audience to look at his movies. He makes them bizarre and otherworldly for just that reason. He favors two-dimensional scenes, with exaggerated colors, anachronistic clothing and props, and weird, static poses for his actors. He’s the filmic equivalent of walking along a wall in Tutankhamen’s tomb, and wondering what everything means and why everyone has two left hands.
Believe me when I tell you that the trailer has a more coherent storyline than the movie.
But Wes didn’t always produce such directionless kitsch as Asteroid City. The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel had a more subdued version of the same sort of visual style, but they also had a story of some sort to knit it all together. It’s always a loopy and somewhat misanthropic story, but it gets you to watch. Asteroid City isn’t even a disconnected series of tableaus or vignettes. It literally starts noplace, goes nowhere, and ends in midair. I can’t give it a bad review, because it’s not coherent enough to merit one. It’s simply a self-indulgent mess.
Call me crazy, but my mind started to wander pretty far afield about ten minutes in to Asteroid City, and as it dragged along, it struck me that I’d seen this movie before, only not so sucky. An excuse to put a bunch of recognizable, but mostly second-string actors in a movie for no apparent reason, strictly so the audience can sort of collect them as the movie bumps along, like the baseball cards of a team in last place. I couldn’t stop thinking about It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World:
Mad World is from 1963, but it’s a 50s movie all the way. The cast was mostly 50s retreads, like Milton Berle and Sid Caesar, with some up and comers like Jonathan Winters and Dick Shawn sprinkled in. The director was Stanley Kramer, famous for ponderous dramas, but Mad World is anything but.
It’s funny, but Kramer captured the stark high desert vibe with oversaturated sunshine much better than Anderson did. And unlike Asteroid City, the movie was a genuine attempt to entertain the audience. There is nothing as funny as Jonathan Winters wrecking a gas station in Asteroid City, and there are ten things as funny as it elsewhere in IAMMMMW.
Like Asteroid City, IAMMMMW is a single joke told over and over more than a plot, with a sprawling cast and disconnected actions. Unlike Asteroid City, each scene is at least amusing, and the actors are all used to good effect. There are many uber-short cameos by people who just want to be included in the movie, very much like actors lining up to work for cheap money in a Wes Anderson flick. The difference is Stanley Kramer gave them all something to do, and knitted all their zany efforts into a bag at the end at the foot of the big W.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, actors, writers and producers rebelled against a studio system that they felt stifled their creativity, and put a brake on their off-camera behavior. IAMMMMW is a product of the studio system, the result of a committee of people who were honestly trying to make entertaining movies. The writers, Bill and Tania Rose, the directors, the studio, the actors, everybody was constrained by their roles, but worked as hard as they could in their orbit to make the best movie they possibly could. It was a trifle, but it was a stone cold groove. And it made plenty of money, too.
So the studio system is so dead and buried that it’s out of memory now. Wes Anderson doesn’t have to listen to anyone, and he doesn’t. He writes it and produces it and directs it, and if Asteroid City is any indication, he figures he’s the only person that needs to be entertained by it, too. He’s trying too hard to be Wes Anderson at this point.
Sometimes, trying too hard is the same as not trying at all.
10 Responses
I saw It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World when it was first released in the theaters — the “cinerama” or wide-screen version — in 1963. I was 11 or 12, and I loved it. I loved it every time I saw it thereafter. Terrible jokes, terrible puns, an insane premise — and it all worked.
Hi Glynn- It was before my time, so I missed out on whatever big screen effect it might have.
Your review: “Terrible jokes, terrible puns, an insane premise — and it all worked.” is better than mine.
When IAMMMMW comes on the small screen I can generally only watch the first few minutes. Jimmy Durante is spectacular in those few minutes before (literally) kicking the can, while the “…just sailing right out there” line repeated over and over is hysterical.
The rest of the flick is slapstick, and mostly un-funny. There’s your pocket review.
Hi Blackwing- The movie is a trifle, but we find it to be harmless fun. We watch it from time to time for no particular reason. We immediately erased Asteroid City. Why would you look at it again? It’s the only way I know to keep score.
I think I have mentioned before that I grew up behind Hollywood. I had the opportunity to work on the Mad World set for six weeks (might have been a little longer). It was a good job. My job was to stand in the crowd in front of the pet store. The scene where the man slides down the electric cable and crashes into the window of the pet store. I stood around, sat around, roamed around and, played with a little puppy from the window from 0800 to 1630 Monday through Friday. They fed us nice box lunches and paid $60/day. The rent on our house at that time was $65/month. It was a nice little 1930s two-bedroom bungalow. On the last day of filming, I asked the animal handler if I could buy the little puppy in the window–it was a mixed breed so he gave it to me with the instructions “don’t let the guard at the gate see you taking it off the lot!” While walking around the other sets one day a chauffeured Cadillac pulled up and out stepped Kathryn Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It was just a few weeks before he died he looked very weak. They were putting the finishing touches on “Guess who is coming to dinner”. That was the extent of my Hollywood career!
Hi Anne- I like the movie better knowing that you’re in it. It’s a travesty that you weren’t even nominated for an Oscar. The puppy is a better prize, anyway.
Glad you enjoyed the background story! That puppy turned out to be the smartest dog I have ever had.
I forgot to mention that I had just turned nineteen! Chatted with the producer a couple of times, he was very nice.
I saw IAMMW when I was a teen. I don’t remember much about it, except I found it quite entertaining. My family drove 30 miles to see it, which didn’t happen much. IIRC, that is the only time we drove 30 miles to see a movie. During most of my childhood, the nearest movie theatre was 12 miles away, and we saw a movie there maybe once a year. When a movie theatre opened 8 miles away, a year before IAMMW came out, we saw more movies
By comparison, Lawrence of Arabia, which came out about a year before IAMMW, left more of an impression on me: the opening theme (?) music, the desert scenes, and the implacable nature of Peter O’Toole/Lawrence.
Good story from Anne about her work on the set of IAMMW. Internet comments like that are what make reading comments worthwhile.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Sid Caesar in the hardware store basement is classic.
Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett in the plane; classic.
Milton Berle and Ethel Merman classic.
Who can NOT love this movie?