Rock wrote:

I didn't stick a rating on my review but I think I landed around where you did.

I wanted to steal all of your good insights before posting my own review

Since I'm not Canadian, I have to take your word on that aspect of it.  I was curious with that scene early on, where they pass by a horse-and-buggy in a car.  I know that's a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for technological obsolescence.  But I wasn't aware that such horse-and-buggy cultures existed so far north as Ontario, as we have around here with the Amish/Mennonite communities in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

Rock wrote:

I knocked the movie a little as I don't think it quite evokes the genius of Lazaridis and Fregin, but I appreciate that doing so might be a difficult task.

I think that Lazaridis is OK (who else can construct a cell phone prototype from hotel room electronics in 15 minutes?), but the film definitely short-changes the talents of Fregin (played by the film's director, and uncoincidentally the lesser of the actors among the mains), showing him as more of a force of enthusiasm and moral support than anything else.  In fact, it seems, Fregin does have a considerable amount of engineering credentials that are not at all evident in this portrayal.

I was really concerned for much of the first half of this film.  Its 'too-sweet' tone and Charlie Day's lack of the invoked Chaplin-esque empathic charm, along with the very on-the-nose idiot eye-of-the-Hollywood-hurricane conceit, seemed weak on its face.  This initial naive sweetness appears to be an intentional introduction, which is still a bit too obvious to be very funny, but the film does ultimately contain quite a bit of quality modern Hollywood industry satire, and Day is ultimately more of a faceless straight-man to all of this, allowing the truly comedic performances come from the stacked supporting cast like Ray Liotta (apparently his last role), Adrien Brody, Kate Beckinsale (best spit take ever), Jason Sudeikis - even Ken Jeong has moments.  Day is a debut director here, and it took him several years, and reshoots, to finish the film to satisfaction, so all of this plays into the more imbalanced tone of much of it, but the real challenge is just making through that first 20 minutes or so without bailing over some very cliched filmmaking.

7/10
 

In terms of American metaphoric media-medley microcosms, this is far superior than some of the other so-called pastiche "meta-cinema" from the likes of Tarantino or Chavelle.  First of all, not only is Wes Anderson cinematically literate enough to match the memes of imitators, but has a broader appreciation for media culture generally - film, theater, literature, television, photography, graphic design - so he ultimately has a wider and deeper palette from which to mine.  It also helps that he has insightful things to say about social and moral character rather than simply appropriating vapid dazzle.  It also helps that Wes Anderson has a sublimated imagination that, for all of the gorgeous teal and saffron visual beauty, he still retains a potent reservoir of suggestion where his films are not merely surface entertainments but resonate within the vantage perspectives of memory, and in certain proximate orientation with his prior work.  I'm sure you'll not have trouble noticing the many of Wes' recurring Freudian themes and motifs - stubborn fathers, dead mothers, naive romance.  Yes, there be whimsy as well, but probably not as much as you'd hoped for.  Classic Wes.  But in terms of the meta-media construction, from a specifically mid-20th Century view, the grace with which it dovetails that era's predominent mythos of the Wild West and Sci-Fi speculation is far more profound than such relatively lazy Hollywood merch juxtopositions like Cowboys and Aliens.  Wes has a far less cynical appreciation of nostalgia than that and it is his subversive sentimentality that is his secret weapon, that makes his films so human and singular.

Out of all of the assorted cross-path characters, I most appreciated the connection between Jason Schwartman's Augie Steenbeck, a battle-scarred photographer and disinterested father, and Scarlet Johansson's Midge Campbell, a fading former movie star.  The film is a quarantine piece, after all, replacing web-cams with window panes, and their consumate courtship dances along the line between art and intimacy in a way that's almost entirely told in its visual compositions.  It's one example in an extraordinarily complex, and equally sublime, prism of American artifice.

9.5/10

Thanks for the heads up. Hope to go see it next week so gonna avoid reading any reactions.

crumbsroom wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

Reading through the professional reviews of Asteroid City, it's really alarming how blithely so many of them spoil the central surprise in the film.  I'm glad I was in review-quarantine before seeing it.  Just a warning, folks.

I only read one review, but I was safe as it was predictably without a shred of substance. Just lots of complaining about man babies and there being no story and all his movies being the same so why doesn't he just stop.

You know, the kind of thing people actually get paid for.

One of my least favorite critics is Stephanie Zacherek, so I obviously have to seek out her awful reviews of my favorite films so I can laugh at her and the fools who pay her salary.  For Asteroid City, she moans about the typical issues with Wes Anderson films, and only seemed interested in complimenting the wardrobe.  She pines, "if only the film had come with a shopping app", like the basic bitch she is.  She even added a hyperlink to "shopping app" that, I presume, led to her preferred shopping app.  So I guess she's also got a little side hustle.  Head as empty as a broken coconut.

Can’t find too many goodd examples at the moment (I imagine they avoided putting the most blatant offenders in trailers and promotional images for obvious reasons), but this article sheds some light on the behind the scenes factors.

https://www.cbr.com/the-flash-vfx-artist-reason-for-bad-cgi/

Of course Kevin Smith liked it.

Rock wrote:

Of course Kevin Smith liked it.

I would almost want to see a live action Ren and Stimpy with Ezra Miller and Kevin Smith in the respective roles.

Not because I think it would be any good, or even that I'd actually watch the thing myself, but just so I can see their mutual mortal humiliation play out in civil society.  I think it could be the necessary sacrifice to effectively end both of their careers in utter disgrace.

Rock wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

Didn't Disney/Marvel also somewhat recently fire their long-standing FX director, which was blamed for some of the weaker looking graphics in Quantumania?

Don’t remember this particular story, but the MCU movies have been notorious for subjecting FX houses to insane deadlines.

Looks like it was Victoria Alonso.  The stated reason is clearly an excuse.  Alonso has been criticized for the "toxic" work environment with the VX schedules, but I wonder if this was entirely her fault or if she was trying to meet the demanding deadlines being set by Marvel/Disney.

Obviously a great technical achievement, but I remember zoning out pretty hard whenever Nastassja Kinski or Raul Julia weren’t on screen.

Most of this film is a spoiler, so I'll safely just quote the basic template description: "In the film, Alain (Chabat) and Marie (Drucker) see their lives turned upside down after moving into a new home which has a mysterious tunnel in the basement."  And if that isn't in-croy-ab-le enough, we have a subplot involving Alain's boss (Magimel) who's dealing with his own fears of virility.

Anyone familiar with the prolific Quentin Dupieux's brand of straight-faced surrealism will know the ballpark and likely won't be disappointed.  As with his more recent films (Reality, Deerskin), his style has shed a lot of the more overt slapstick of his earlier movies while maintaining a perverse conceptual edge, films that are maybe funnier in hindsight, but always amusing enough to keep you engaged.

8/10