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0:20

Writer-director Wes Anderson's latest film

0:22

is Asteroid City. It's about a tiny

0:24

town in the middle of the American desert where several

0:26

young scientific prodigies gather to receive

0:28

a distinguished award. Also,

0:31

there's an alien. If you know Anderson's

0:33

work, the themes are familiar. Teenage

0:35

awkwardness, grief, wistful alienation,

0:38

strained familial bonds. The

0:40

ensemble includes many Anderson go-tos,

0:42

like Jason Schwarzman, Jeffrey Wright, and Tilda Swinton.

0:45

But there is some new blood in the mix. Tom

0:47

Hanks, Steve Carell, and Maya Hawk. And,

0:49

of course, there's those characteristic Wes

0:51

Anderson formalist visuals. So

0:54

recognizable, so stylishly symmetrical,

0:57

so memeable. I'm Glenn

0:59

Weldon, and today we're talking about Asteroid City on

1:01

Pop Culture

1:02

Happy Hour from NPR. Joining

1:04

me today is one of the hosts of The Indicator from

1:06

Planet Money, Waylon Wong. Welcome

1:08

back, Waylon.

1:09

Thanks. Great to be back. Great to have you. Also

1:11

with us is writer Chris Klimek. Hey, Chris. I

1:13

saved Latin, Glenn. What did you ever do? There

1:16

you go.

1:17

Asteroid City is set, sort of, in

1:19

the tiny desert town of Asteroid City, population 87,

1:22

in 1955. I

1:24

say sort of because what we're watching is

1:27

actually a television broadcast hosted

1:29

by a narrator, played by Bryan Cranston, of

1:31

the making of a play called

1:33

Asteroid City. Got all that? The

1:36

central plot of the play Asteroid City

1:38

has to do with five young people receiving the Space

1:40

Cadet Award. Jason Schwarzman,

1:42

Scarlett Johansson, and an Andersonian

1:45

ensemble of actors play both characters in the

1:47

play, which is to say the movie we're watching, and

1:49

the actors playing them. So at every

1:51

layer of storytelling, TV broadcast,

1:54

play, movie, pretty much everyone's

1:56

grappling with what it all means and how to render

1:59

it truthful. This is writer-director

2:01

Wes Anderson's 11th film and

2:03

it's in theaters now. Waylon

2:05

wants to chew on, so bite me off a piece.

2:08

What'd you think?

2:08

I was very charmed

2:10

by this movie and it's

2:13

been a while since I really

2:15

connected emotionally with the Wes Anderson film. I

2:18

think the last few, they didn't quite

2:20

do it for me and I was thinking

2:22

about why this one did do it for me. I

2:24

think it's because I connect

2:27

most with Wes Anderson

2:29

films that are about oddball,

2:32

precocious children, which is obviously a big

2:34

recurring theme of his. But even

2:37

more importantly, in those films, I

2:39

like that the adults take

2:41

the children seriously. That's what's really

2:43

important to me, that kind of theme, which

2:46

is why I like Rushmore, which is why

2:48

I like Moonrise Kingdom, like Royal

2:50

Tenenbaums, I would throw in that category

2:52

as well. And I think

2:54

that it's something maybe kind of prustean

2:57

for me, I don't know, because being

2:59

an odd child who's

3:01

just kind of into stuff that not

3:03

necessarily my other peers are into and

3:05

then now being the mother to a bit

3:07

of an odd duck kid who's

3:10

very precocious as well. And

3:12

I think it all just kind of clicks into place for me

3:15

emotionally. Did you guys ever play

3:17

with Calico Critters or Maple

3:19

Town or Sylvanian Family? Those

3:22

are these little toys that are woodland creatures

3:24

and they wear old-timey clothes and you can get play sets

3:26

for them. When I watched a Wes Anderson

3:29

film, that's what it reminds me of. I

3:31

used to play people's court with my Maple

3:34

Town families and I had the school

3:36

room set for them and everything with these

3:38

tiny books. So when I'm

3:40

in this world with these deeply

3:42

serious, nerdy children and

3:45

their grown-ups, I just

3:47

love it. I can't get enough of it. So that's kind

3:50

of why I liked it so much.

3:50

That's really interesting. You found a connection,

3:53

a through-line through some of this awkward teenage,

3:56

child prodigy, child genius kind of thing

3:58

to kind of give yourself away.

3:59

That's interesting. Chris, what do you think of the movie? I

4:02

love this. I mean, when it comes to Wes

4:04

Anderson, I am, I am predictably a stan.

4:07

I feel like this movie is maybe slightly

4:09

a bit of a course correction from him after

4:12

the French dispatch, which I loved the sort

4:14

of nesting doll structure of this thing, where we're

4:16

watching the TV broadcast of the stage production

4:19

of this incident. That is even more ornate

4:22

in the French dispatch to a point where, like,

4:24

even though you get broadly that we're seeing different

4:26

features in the same issue of the magazine

4:29

dramatized,

4:29

it becomes difficult to follow.

4:32

And the number of people I talked to who told me they started

4:34

that film but didn't finish it was kind of

4:36

surprising. I didn't find in the case of

4:38

the French dispatch that nesting dolls within

4:40

nesting dolls kind of structure forbidding.

4:43

But I do feel like going into this, Anderson

4:45

wanted to simplify it a bit.

4:48

And I think it worked. I

4:50

think that overcame the coldness

4:52

that with which some people receive his

4:55

films. I mean, I never did. The Royal

4:57

Tenant Vounds makes me cry every time.

4:59

And I know that's

4:59

the one that people often cite as like,

5:02

well, I liked your early work, Wes.

5:04

But yeah, no, I love this. All

5:07

right. Well, okay. This is across

5:10

the board, tens across the board, because I dug it. I love

5:13

this era of American life. Let me clarify.

5:15

I love the aesthetics of this era of

5:18

American life. A lot of bad things going on. But

5:20

like having a Wes Anderson interpret

5:22

those and juice them and goose them the way he has.

5:25

This film is a joy to look at. And look, you

5:27

both mentioned it, this guy delivers what he delivers, and

5:29

no one else delivers it. That's a pretty good working

5:32

definition of a stylist, right? So this

5:34

is why the critique we're going to get when this

5:36

film comes out, we always get the same

5:38

critique. It's style over substance, aesthetic over

5:41

emotion, dioramas over drama,

5:43

which I just made up, but I think it's pretty good. Affectless,

5:46

cold. He's doing what he does. Right?

5:49

He is he accomplishing what he sets out to do?

5:51

I think he is. And if that makes me an apologist, then

5:53

I am. You don't go into Joanne Fabrics looking

5:55

for a power drill. You don't chomp into a Hershey

5:58

bar and say it doesn't taste enough. like

6:00

lasagna. He does this, this precise

6:02

thing. This is what he does. And if you don't like it, that's fine. That's

6:04

taste. But complaining that you're not

6:06

getting the kind of emotionalism

6:09

you get out of a Spielberg or Barry Jenkins,

6:11

you're going into a butcher shop and you're asking for mung beans

6:13

and he doesn't owe you mung beans. But

6:16

you both kind of proactively push back on that point that I

6:18

made there because you say in films

6:20

like, and again, it's always Rushmore and Tenon bombs, where

6:23

he's doing more in terms of emotion than he's

6:25

doing here. So what do you think is

6:27

like this distancing technique of these framing

6:30

devices, he's not a filmmaker

6:32

I would go to and say, you know what, Wes, maybe

6:35

a little bit more distance from these characters. Maybe that should

6:37

be a thing you should do. If you do feel an

6:39

emotional connection, where is the emotional connection coming

6:42

from?

6:42

For me, it's like, I

6:44

guess I should preface this by saying that I

6:46

approach like all films and books

6:49

and TV with my emotional drawbridge

6:52

like fully down all the time.

6:54

So like, if the person making

6:56

that art is like sincere about it and even

6:58

like reaching out a little bit, I am like going

7:00

all the way to meet them, right? And I'm like always

7:03

looking for something in my own

7:05

kind of like inner psyche that

7:07

I can bond with. I've never

7:09

found Wes Anderson chilly in that way. And maybe it's

7:11

also because his visual style appeals to me, but

7:14

I do go into it kind of like fully open

7:16

and wanting to feel something. So whatever he's

7:18

giving, even if it's like a little bit and it's like very tightly

7:20

controlled and in the form of just

7:22

like a exquisitely designed

7:26

sign at a diner, like I'm there and I'm like reaching

7:28

for it and I'm grabbing onto it. But I think

7:30

it's like what I connected

7:32

with emotionally is like, there

7:34

are these kids who are like geniuses

7:38

and they don't have

7:40

necessarily the most kind of open

7:43

affects, right? Like you can, you know

7:45

that they're thinking a lot of big thoughts and big feelings

7:47

that are like too big for their like adolescent brains.

7:51

And they're also like trying to relate

7:53

to the grownups in their lives who grownups who

7:55

again like take them seriously, who support them, who have like

7:57

brought them all the way out to this like

7:59

teeny.

7:59

tiny town to get this award because

8:02

it's important to their like development and what they're interested

8:04

in. But even within those grown up relationships,

8:06

it's like, they have trouble relating

8:09

to each other. Everyone is like feeling feelings that they

8:11

can't say, right? And that is like very

8:13

clear in the Jason Schwartzman storyline.

8:16

Sure. But I guess I just really love the

8:18

marriage of this like extremely

8:21

locked down, detailed,

8:24

fastidious visual style with

8:26

this idea that everyone is feeling big feelings

8:28

that they can't like express in a big

8:31

way. For me, it's like almost metal. It's

8:33

like looping back on itself where like maybe Wes

8:35

Anderson is feeling some really big feelings, but

8:37

he's not the kind of guy who is going to have someone

8:39

like shouting something from the top of a building.

8:42

So instead he builds an incredibly

8:44

detailed diorama and then has

8:47

these people saying things

8:49

to each other where there's a lot going on beneath the surface,

8:51

but they're only saying like a tiny little bit or they're

8:53

just staring at each other. And I really like

8:55

that.

8:56

Yeah. I go through life with my drawbridge

8:58

up and the portcullis down and a row

9:00

of archers just kind of looking up. So

9:03

we approach these films differently and

9:05

I have a

9:06

visceral reaction against sentimentality,

9:08

not sentiment, but sentimentality. And that's nothing, something

9:11

I've never accused Wes Anderson of because

9:13

again, he writes about these characters who are so disaffected

9:16

because they're broken because it's

9:18

exactly as I said, William, and they're afraid to connect. Yes,

9:21

it also happens that they're standing very still. So

9:23

the composition of the shot looks good, but

9:26

filmmakers are drawn to a kind of persona,

9:28

a kind of personality, a kind of personality disorder. And

9:31

I think Schwarzman, as you mentioned, is great here. He gets to

9:33

emote as much as anyone in

9:35

an Anderson film has ever emoted, not necessarily

9:38

as the character of Augie, who's the guy in the play,

9:40

but as the actor in the behind the scenes

9:42

stuff. He gets to do a lot more stuff than I usually see

9:44

Jason Schwarzman doing. Yeah,

9:46

that for me is the emotional through line

9:48

of this Glenn, is just watching that evolution of Jason

9:51

Schwarzman from Rushmore to this. He's

9:53

an adolescent in that movie. And in this,

9:56

he is a widower. He's a dad in his 40s who's responsible

9:58

for it.

9:59

for these four children, he has

10:02

withheld the news of their mother's death

10:04

from them. She died weeks ago,

10:07

and he has not yet found a way to

10:09

tell them. And he's holding all that

10:12

internally. And although his- And

10:14

in a Tupperware container. Hello, 1955. Exactly,

10:16

yes. He is holding emotionally internally, and

10:19

he is holding the remains of his wife in

10:21

Tupperware. And what you said about

10:24

a sort of monotone acting

10:26

style that accompanies the very rigidly

10:29

controlled symmetrical pastel

10:32

kind of visuals of these movies. I mean, I think

10:34

Wes Anderson movies are kind of

10:35

useful for helping people to understand what subtext

10:38

is, what actors do, all the things

10:41

that they're thinking but not saying. And

10:43

I think Anderson really likes to sense

10:45

one of the things that I find so delightful about

10:47

him as a director is that he likes to reuse

10:50

the same company of actors over and over again

10:52

to the point that I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, when are we going

10:54

to see Tilda? You know, when is- Something I ask myself

10:56

all the time, just in the- I know, I know, Glenn. But

10:59

much more recently, a delightful

11:01

recent addition to the Wes Anderson players

11:03

as of the French Dispatch is the magnificent

11:05

Jeffrey

11:05

Wright. Yeah. Oh, love him. Who

11:07

is absolutely the star of that movie of

11:10

the French Dispatch, I mean, playing the sort of James Baldwin-like

11:13

figure where he gets to be very

11:15

emotional. And then in this film, he's

11:17

the military man, right? He's the general overseeing

11:20

this quarantine of this town where

11:22

the government isn't sure that they want to go public

11:24

with the story of a maybe, maybe not

11:27

UFO visitation. So I

11:29

love that. I love that we take Jeffrey

11:31

Wright and use him this way and we got to use him again, but we're

11:34

going to use him in a completely different way.

11:36

I find that very satisfying as you look

11:38

at, you know, all of these movies in the arc

11:40

of Anderson's career.

11:41

Oh, I was going to ask if, when

11:43

you were watching Jason Schwartzman in this

11:45

role, if you thought

11:47

about whether or not this was kind of like Max

11:50

Fisher, grown up and now parenting

11:52

weird kids of his own, because obviously the timelines

11:54

don't work out, but kind of in this alternate

11:56

timeline where Max Fisher lived in this time,

11:58

he grew up.

11:59

and now has this really

12:02

cute teenage kid who loves science

12:04

and he drove him out to get

12:06

this special award. I had all of that going

12:09

on emotionally in my head when I was watching this. And it

12:11

felt really poignant, because it's like we've grown up with

12:13

Jason Schwartzman. And I'm like, I cannot

12:16

believe I've been watching this collaboration between

12:18

director and actor for all of this time. It

12:20

made me feel old, but not necessarily in a bad way,

12:23

just in kind of a poignant way.

12:24

Yeah. Yeah, me too. But there is an addition

12:27

to the Anderson ensemble in

12:29

this movie too, and that's Tom Hanks. He plays the father-in-law

12:31

of Jason Schwartzman's character, Augie, and

12:34

look, the dig against, and my

12:36

dig for, Anderson's style is like,

12:39

it's a mannered style of acting. There is an archness to

12:41

it. There's a stiffness. None of those words

12:43

are associated in the popular mind with

12:46

America's dad, Tom Hanks. So

12:48

does he make a good fit? What'd you think of Tom Hanks in this? I

12:51

think the way that a big star like Hanks is

12:53

willing to subordinate himself

12:54

to the company here is

12:57

really terrific. I think

13:00

he gets the Andersonian restrained

13:02

delivery without sacrificing the Hanks.

13:04

The best example I can think of is, and

13:07

I wish I could remember if it was Hope Davis or Scarlett

13:09

Johansson, who he's speaking to,

13:11

when there's this conversation where there are six

13:14

other things going on, and he just slides

13:16

up to her and just says like, are you married? Which,

13:18

to a man of his generation, that's

13:21

the most explicit come on that you could imagine,

13:23

right?

13:23

I really liked him in this, and I was thinking,

13:26

would I watch Tom Hanks do Steve

13:29

Zizou in Life Aquatic? And I don't think that

13:31

would have worked, but I think Tom Hanks

13:33

really works in this one. I think because it's limited

13:37

and because it's a very specific

13:39

kind of thing he's doing where he

13:41

is kind of buttoned up, right? He's emotionally

13:43

reserved. You can tell he's also quite

13:46

broken, but he's like making an effort.

13:49

And he comes to get his grandchildren

13:52

and where I think the Tom

13:53

Hanksiness has allowed to shine through a little

13:56

bit, you know, is when he's talking to

13:58

his granddaughters and they're figuring out... out,

14:00

you know, what to do about the mom's ashes. It's

14:02

a beautiful scene. I think I cried in that scene.

14:05

Because it's like, you don't necessarily expect

14:07

him to be so, like, indulgent

14:10

of these children and their feelings. But

14:12

he completely is. Do you know what I mean?

14:15

He lets them direct what

14:17

is happening with their own grief journey

14:19

and what they need to do to process what's happened

14:21

to their mother. And I thought that was beautiful.

14:24

And I thought that having the Tom

14:26

Hanks aura come in there was

14:29

really lovely.

14:29

And, you know, it was great to see

14:32

Tom Hanks doing that.

14:33

Right. Well, to Chris's point, this is, you are imposing

14:35

all these, like, restrictions on your actors.

14:38

Like, the Tom Hanks character is gruff

14:41

and a little broken and certainly closed

14:43

off. But within those tiny parameters,

14:45

you get to see the warmth of

14:48

Tom Hanks peeking through. Same

14:50

thing happened in French Dispatch with Jeffrey Wright.

14:52

It's exactly the same kind of thing where when you're

14:54

hemmed in by either genre constraints

14:56

or any kind of creativity, there's room in that little tiny

14:58

space to really innovate and really

15:00

create and really make a huge impression. All

15:03

right. Well, we want to know what you think about Asteroid City. You

15:05

know what we do. We like it. Find us at Facebook.com

15:07

slash PCHH. Up next,

15:10

what is making us happy this week?

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works.

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Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and

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every week. What is making us happy this

16:17

week? Weyland Wong, kick us off. What's

16:19

making you happy this week?

16:20

Okay, so recently I saw a tweet

16:22

from someone who said that

16:24

they used to put on the DVD

16:27

of the social network in the background and

16:30

just

16:31

watch and listen to the DVD

16:33

menu over and over in the background.

16:35

And so then I was like, oh yeah, that was

16:37

a really good DVD menu. So then I

16:40

just found it on YouTube because I didn't feel

16:42

like digging out my own social network DVD,

16:44

which is in the basement somewhere. So I put on

16:46

just the YouTube video and I was like, this

16:48

is amazing. There's like the

16:50

sound of like a luxurious envelope sliding

16:53

under a door. There's ambient

16:55

noise from the Harvard campus. There's

16:57

a clacky keyboard, which to me was very like

16:59

proto ASMR.

17:01

And then there's a few bars of the Trent

17:03

Reznor Atticus Ross score.

17:13

This is what's making me happy because it was something

17:15

I hadn't thought about in a long time that

17:17

when I discovered it gave me like a

17:19

very simple moment of pleasure. And

17:22

like the DVD menu itself seems like

17:24

a piece of pop culture ephemera that's

17:26

getting memory hold because we don't really have physical

17:29

media anymore. And like one day

17:31

I'm gonna be trying to explain what the DVD

17:33

menu is to my grandkids. It's gonna be that meme

17:35

where it's like, okay, grandma, let's get you to bed. And I'll be like,

17:37

no, you don't understand. You heard like one

17:40

bar of music from the score of the social network

17:42

and it was amazing.

17:43

So I recommend everyone check out,

17:45

just look up on YouTube, the DVD menu from

17:48

the social network. All right, the DVD menu from

17:50

the social network and DVD menus

17:52

writ large, going away the dough. Awesome,

17:55

love it, love it. Chris Clemick, what's making you happy

17:57

this week? Glenn, sometimes I like to.

17:59

come in, as I occasionally do, to endorse

18:02

a book that I wish I had thought to write. That

18:04

is the case this time. What is making

18:06

me happy and deeply envious is Nick

18:09

DeCibelin's The Last Action Heroes,

18:11

the triumphs, flops, and feuds of

18:14

Hollywood's kings of carnage. This is a series

18:16

of profiles. It's Stallone,

18:18

it's Bruce Willis, but also some

18:21

people who came to the United States to make it big

18:23

in action movies. So we get Jackie

18:25

Chan, we get Jean-Claude Van Damme. I

18:27

did learn the origin of the famous shot

18:29

in Predator when Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers

18:32

greet each other, and then there's the closeup of their

18:34

bulging biceps as they're clasping hands.

18:37

But what is making me happy and

18:39

envious is Nick DeCibelin's The

18:41

Last Action Heroes. Great

18:43

book. Great recommendation. And Chris, I'm

18:45

sorry. What's making

18:48

me happy this week is Dungeons and

18:50

Drag Queens. Hey, who's

18:52

got two thumbs and feels ruthlessly targeted?

18:55

Who feels heavily marketed too? It's this

18:57

guy. It will premiere on June

18:59

28th on Dropout, which I never know

19:01

how to explain this kind of stuff, but it's an independent

19:03

nerdy comedy streaming service app.

19:07

And the players of this game of Dungeons

19:09

and Dragons and Dungeons and Drag Queens is Bob the Drag Queen,

19:11

Monet Exchange, Jujubee, and

19:14

Alaska. That is a solid group. And

19:17

maybe more importantly, the GM,

19:19

the game master, the guy who's taking them through the world of the game

19:21

will be Brennan Lee Mulligan, who is very, very,

19:23

very good at what he does. Haven't seen it yet, to

19:25

be clear, but the Dropout people know what they're doing.

19:27

I am on Tenterhooks about

19:30

Dungeons and Drag Queens. Say it

19:32

soft and it's almost like praying, which is coming

19:34

out on Dropout.tv starting June

19:37

28th. And that is what's making me happy

19:39

this week. And if you want links for what we recommended, plus

19:41

some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org

19:44

slash pop culture newsletter. And that

19:46

brings us to the end of our show. Waylon Wong, Chris

19:48

Klemek, thank you so much for being here.

19:50

Thanks, what a blast. Thank you. This episode was produced

19:52

by Ramel Wood and edited by Jessica Reidy

19:54

and Holoakamon provides our theme music.

19:56

Thank you all for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour

19:58

from NPR. I'm...

19:59

I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next week.

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In the brain, the future self

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