The Big Picture - ‘Asteroid City’ and the Wes Anderson Movie Rankings

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Adam Nayman joins Sean and Amanda to discuss Wes Anderson’s career and filmmaking aesthetic before they dig into his latest film, ‘Asteroid City’ (1:00). Then, Sean and Amanda rank all 11 of Anderson’s feature films (50:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Adam Nayman Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Joanna Robinson. Join us every week on the Prestige TV podcast feed as your favorite ringer hosts like Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, Mally Rubin, Sean Fennessy, Chris Ryan, Julia Lippman, and many more cover the latest episodes of your favorite TV obsessions. From boardrooms to throne rooms to courtside and through the mushroom apocalypse, we'll be here throughout the week breaking it all down. Subscribe to the Prestige TV podcast feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Get started. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Wes Anderson. Joining us today is Ringer contributor, renowned film critic, and mean podcast guy, Adam Naiman.

Hello, Adam. Hey, guys. How's everybody? How are you, Amanda? I'm thrilled to be here with both of you. Out of the comforts of your home, into the podcast studio. I'm in the world, and that is a great place to be. Today we are discussing Asteroid City, the 11th feature film from Wes Anderson.

And Amanda and I will be ranking Wes Anderson movies. Adam, you're here to talk about Wes, the idea of Wes, the execution of Wes, the Wes-thetic that is dominating our lives. Are you telling me I don't get to do my favorite thing, which is rank movies? Well, I was informed that you have an out. And so men who have outs need to be left out of rankings. They're all tied.

And that is why you won't be ranking the movies. Adam, hey. Yeah. So, Asteroid City is out. We're going to talk about the movie in just a minute. But before we do, there's been this interesting thing going on with Wes Anderson, I guess in the discourse of popular films right now, which is that his style and his career has kind of come under the microscope with the onset of the artificial intelligence artistic

revolution of sorts. We've seen renderings of what could be his ideas in the movies. He's been a hot topic of discussion on TikTok, a platform that I do not use. And he obviously is also, every time a film comes out, it is a kind of event amongst the film culture because he's one of our best filmmakers. He's one of our most remembered and thought about filmmakers, and he has such a defined style. So, you know, I think Amanda and I are probably just going to lavish a lot of praise on him in this episode because we love him. But I was curious because you and I have not discussed this. What do you make of this resurgence of conversation around the West aesthetic? I mean, first of all, you know, all the people who've

observed that you can use, you know, AI to replicate the symmetrical framing and put it on TikTok, these people are brilliant. It's such thoughtful and considered analysis of visual culture. They obviously understand everything about what's in those movies. And I defer to them. It's just so smart. It's so smart to suggest that if you shoot someone waving at the camera head-on in Budapest, you're satirizing him. I think what's interesting is that he is one of the few American filmmakers under a certain age, let's say under the age of 70 or 80, who's famous enough at this point, other than maybe maybe Tarantino that you can even have this discussion with more than 10 people caring. Right.

And like, in a way, this is his reward for cultivating a distinctive, personal, masterful aesthetic, which is every couple of years, people who call him all those things. And they're like,

yeah, but it's too easy or it's too cliched or it's easy to parody. I mean mean this came up the first time i think when snl did their their wes anderson parody the midnight coterie of sinister intruders which was really funny and really affectionate right and which um was kind of like the purge directed by wes anderson but what i remember thinking when that sketch came on was like how often does snl parody or even talk about anything remotely resembling an american art house filmmaker you know like they parodied there will be blood once they parodied no country for old men they don't really look to you know narrative

film for for satire so the fact that anderson's popular enough and distinctive enough that snl could do that 15 years ago and now we get the cycle of like Wes Anderson, Lord of the Rings or whatever. In a way, it's a compliment to him, even though I think each individual piece kind of belittles him, you know, or, or, or underestimates how hard what he does actually is to, to, to do. Have you been enjoying the AI Wes Anderson recreations? No, no, listen, I don't, listen, I too am not on TikTok. I tried it again for about a week and it took up too much data, or not data, storage space on my phone. Because you can't really save that because you're not using the cloud.

It was like a whole gigabyte. It was a lot. A whole gigabyte. You got to get a bigger phone. Listen, call Sweden, okay? That powers it with you. No, I'm not on TikTok and I don't really engage with AI, but it, it, it is interesting to see this, this kind of filter

down to, to Adam's point. I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan and I am of the age where I kind of grew up along with him. But it's not like AI and TikTok that are, that's the latest imitation. As I was watching Royal Tenenbaums last night, I noted once again, the wallpaper in Margot's room, which is a, I believe it's Scalamandra, like red zebra print that has become very Instagram famous, you know, and from that movie then filters down and shows up in the like wannabe designer rooms of places that get sold to you. So it's like this, this aesthetic is not recreatable because it is so specific and masterful and has a lot of intention and emotion and reference behind

it. But I mean, people have been stealing from it and trying to, and being influenced by it and commercializing it in different ways for many years now. So to Adam's point, yeah, in a way, it's sort of a compliment. It's nice. It's like, oh, the kids noticed, you know, the kids are on TikTok trying their best. Yeah. i saw someone say something along the lines of recently that wes anderson's style often comes under fire because he has a style that is otherwise imperceptible to people who don't know what style is you know his style is so distinct that it's easy for dumb people to locate that he's doing something a little bit different and that that makes him open to a kind of criticism you know obviously i think that's foolish i i think it is interesting i think you're

right adam that this is the not the first wave of criticism he's received or sort of like gentle mockery he's received for the style of films i myself have written badly about wes anderson i think around 2012 i was writing around how the idea that he needed to let certain things go in order to advance as a filmmaker. And I just feel like looking back on some of those things, I was just completely wrong about that. I think it's actually quite the opposite, which is that I think his themes and his ideas, not necessarily his visual aesthetic, but the ideas that he keeps going back to and actually keeps digging into even deeper is part of what is making him an even more resonant filmmaker for me. That's at least true from my reading on Asteroid City, that it is like, I don't know if it's a culmination,

but it feels like- A synthesis. Exactly. Of a lot of things. You know, I think it's interesting that he is being recognized in the discourse for being just the sum of his parts, as opposed to, or maybe just parts, when in fact, I think he's doing something different. But let's talk about Asteroid City because it's an unusual thing in a time when specialty films and I guess quote-unquote independent films are somewhat struggling relative to the rest of the box office and they don't quite know where their place is. It was only seven or eight years ago that Grand Budapest Hotel made over a hundred million dollars worldwide and that he was a culture commanding auteur.

And this movie enters in a slightly different marketplace. It enters with perhaps the most stacked cast of any Wes Anderson film. Here are some of the names you might find in this film. Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Brian Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrian Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chao, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum. People will show up to read eight lines for Wes Anderson movies. He commands an uncommon respect among actors. That is actually a through line of this film.

In fact, directors and their actors. And it's a kind of self-analysis. I mean, the movie is this convergence movie that features a nesting doll style of filmmaking that I've not exactly seen before. That is a TV sort of Twilight Zone-esque documentary about the staging of a play. And that play also becomes a feature film. The feature film is in color. The play and the TV series are filmed in black and white. The characters are playing both the characters in the color film and also the actors in the TV series and play. This sounds extremely confusing. And in some ways it is, and in some ways it is not. Maybe that's an interesting place for us to open. Did you find this movie confusing at all, Amanda? I don't think I could do like a strict diagram of the timelines. I couldn't read it out on who's in what.

You know, can I ever read it out? No, despite my famous science corner. So I guess I didn't totally follow it in a moment to moment sense, but I sort of felt that that was the point and it landed for me. I was like really swept away because the kind of intricate structure builds to what I thought was a very moving sort of, I mean, emotional, not revelation, but summit.

And I was like, oh, I get it. Like this works for me. And I did find myself frustrated with the structure for the first 30 minutes. Oh, God, why are we doing this again? And what are we doing X, Y, Z? And then it paid off. It like clicked together for me. So maybe confusing, yes, but also effective.

I thought it was a little bit distancing as I was watching it and purposefully so. And then the more time I've spent thinking about it and reading about some of its intention, I think I started to become more interested in it. I haven't seen it a second time. I thought I would get a chance to see it a second time before seeing it. But Adam, I'm curious for your sake,

I know that you're not necessarily over the moon for the movie. What did you make of the way that Anderson structures it? It's a temporal pincer movement, right? And speaking of Christopher Nolan, I like as Nolan keeps giving interviews about how the atomic explosions in Oppenheimer are going to make people literally sick. Anderson has this like tiny mushroom cloud in the background of his movie. Just like wonderful that they're both coming out in the same summer.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what did I make of the, you know, what I, you know, what I made of it or, or, or maybe what he, what, what he makes of it is a lot of making, you know, there's a lot of construction. There's a lot of intricacy. There's a lot of very, very foregrounded engineering and, and Jerry rigging. When I wrote about the film for the Ringer, I sort of tried to talk

about feeling two ways about that, which is like you admire the intricacy of it and the rigor with which it's brought off. But yeah, that question of whether it distances you, how intentional the distancing is, what does it mean if you have these kind of thin, almost kind of goofy characters up top that the structure is supposed to suggest that the people playing them have these deep roiling emotions that they're bringing into the performance like does it flatten it out does it deepen it you know i mean you can only sit and write as best you can and i have to say this is a case where reading reviews of the film from people who like it more than i do has been very enjoyable i'm glad they like it so much because I think we all saw the same movie. It just didn't open up or deepen for me the way

it has for other people. But that idea that everyone in the film is kind of playing a character on top of the person who they really are and the actors who that who actually get a chance to take that for a bit of a drive like schwartzman and johansson especially they're doing very good work right that that idea that they're they are playing characters and then they are also playing actors who are filtering things going on in their real life into those characters it's very sophisticated structure you have to give it up to him for for how he manages to hold that together and to the actors too yeah i it felt very much like a not unlike tenant i think of this as sort of like his tenant and sort of like his the searchers if you'll

forgive me for that comparison um in that it feels as though wes anderson has been reading his own criticism and in reading his own criticism he's in reading his own criticism, he's attempting to kind of elevate and say, you think I can't go get crazier? You think I can't get more labyrinthine in my structure? You think I can't add more characters and more well-known figures? You think I can't make more overt references to historical figures? Watch this. Here's James Dean. Here's the Meisner method. Here's the history of American playwrights, here's also the history of the American West, here's also nuclear testing, here's also young science, here's alien culture, all of these things that are interesting to us that feel kind of like essential to the last 75

years of American culture. He's kind of jamming into this one moment in September 1955. I'm always at odds with this idea because I'm a guy who just loves a reference you know I love to watch a movie and say I know exactly what you're doing with that and on the other hand I know that there is something um if not cheap a little bit shopworn about doing something so that someone recognizes what you're doing you know that that is there is a it is a low culture to do that Wes is a very sophisticated writer and filmmaker and designer of films as adam indicates so there's this confusion that i have when i watch his movies especially movies like this which are about you know performance and and making films and staging plays but but don't you think the movie

is about that in some ways and it is knowing of it i mean the main family's name is like steenbeck you know like it's that's that's in on the joke and, like, pointing you to the joke or the reference or the project or the self-excavation. other people connect to them can actually mean and how much emotion can or you know real stuff can you find in these layers and layers of of artifice and references so i don't know i give him credit for it but i'm inclined to because i like wes anderson movies you know there's something interesting about this too because he is has always been to my mind and it's easy to feel this way having started watching his movies as a teenager a tremendously sincere director and writer and i think that there's a perception that he is one of the most ironic filmmakers we have because of the directing style he takes with his actors which is to say that there is a kind of deadpan a flatness particularly between um Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson in this movie.

There is a kind of anti-energy between them that somehow becomes kind of hot. Like kind of, you sense like a propulsiveness. It's almost like building a nuclear bomb. Adam, I don't know. That worked on me. Our Oppenheimer podcast is going to be insane. I mean, I remember watching rushmore for the first time and i think being 17 or 18 like leaving aside the hundred things about it that everyone

was charmed by or fell in love with there's that scene where bill murray meets seymour cassell for the first time right meets max's dad and it's an amazing meeting of actors because like bill murray and seymour cassell that's like, that's like the hang dog Olympics, you know, and they're both so, they're so great. But in meeting Max's dad, the Herman Bloom character, he instantly registers a bunch of the things that Max had kind of lied about and why, right? Including his parent, his mom not being around. And no one says anything and it passes so off handily but there's this like look of dignity between Cassell and Murray and even in this really like you know goofy and showy and tricked up movie it's a very very very believable human moment and I've just felt

that as he goes along he keeps wanting to have those moments but the contrivance around them and the elaborateness that he takes to build to them just gets more and more. Like I wrote last year about French Dispatch for a different publication and how I've never, since that bit in Life Aquatic with the jaguar shark, where I felt so played, like that was such a built moment for me. It made me cry when I saw it when I was 22 or 23, but I've resented how much it how how how manipulative it felt and the difference between conjuring those moments offhandedly like also in tenenbaums when stiller says to hack but like it's been a rough year dad you know he's been chased he's been chasing that for 20 years and for people who think that the

equivalent moments in asteroid city between hanks and schwartzman work the same way like more power to you if you're moved by it that's great we should be moved by movies i just feel the engineering and that may be my fault and not his but i can't get over it i can't get over how in addition to how the sets and the costumes and the framing device and the frame itself is engineered the emotions feel engineered i can't i can't get past it i wanted to ask you about that yeah because you still are responding to his movies and this is a criticism you hear sometimes sure i think when you were talking about the the sincerity it isolated something from which i i do think that these are very sincere movies and

that's often something that i recoil from um but i think that there is like a sincerity to the emotions and also a person and a bunch of characters who like don't know what to do with the emotions. And so is building an entire play box world of places to put and reflect these like very deep, real feelings that to Adam's point, you can only like get to every once in a while.

And even if you do get to it, you're just like kind of overwhelmed and don't know where to put it. And I just have to say that I relate to that on a just on a primal level. I do too. I'm glad you mentioned that. And Adam, I got to say, you don't strike me as a man who lives hard on his sleeve all day long. So I'm surprised that it doesn't work on you as well. But there's one important, the key relationships in the movie are obviously emanating around Schwartzman's character, Augie, and his children and his father-in-law in the aftermath of his wife's death. death and this new relationship between this woman with this woman mitch campbell who is a kind of marilyn monroe-esque screen siren and they talk to each other across these cabins that exist in this very small town asteroid city and there's one exchange where scarlett johansson says to schwartzman's character we are two catastrophically wounded people who don't express the depths of our

pain because we don't want to and that that's the thesis of the Wes Anderson tone. That felt like a direct reply to the criticism that you just levied in his direction, Adam. And I find it interesting that he has a consciousness about that and that he's even putting that into the world because you could feel him responding to it in the past, but not quite so directly. Well, and like, I don't even want to say something glib like, well, it's, you know, that that style has had diminishing returns because for all the similarity and the redundancy that lets people, you know, AI him to death, the variations that he rings on the surface

are important, right? You know, if they contextualize and recontextualize this stuff, sometimes it's through history that's obviously very far away from him. Sometimes it's in different mediums, that the melancholy and the french dispatch was all about to some extent i think what he saw is the death of print and the dropping of certain standards and roles for you know you know plays for journalistic expression like i think the things that each movie is melancholy about are all slightly different and to amanda's point i couldn't agree more both of you i mean i couldn't agree more that he's sincere. Distance doesn't obviate sincerity at all. I think he's

very sincere. I've found that the deadpan surface over these sincere emotions, he's done it so many times now. I don't think it comes from a bad faith place or an insincere place. There's sort of just the questions of how many times can you pull the same trick? And in this one, none of that stuff that you just talked about between those two characters, it never felt like anything more than dialogue to me. It never felt anything more like a thesis. I think it's true that they say that to each other, but what's supposed to be underneath for both of them, I never felt, but that's subjective. And as a critic, I can't even say that's a reason

that the movie's bad, because other people have felt it. And again, more power to them. No, Adam, I mean, it's interesting that you say that about those characters and those setups, because I would agree that in that, which is, I guess, like the top level of this you know elaborate structure it's it's the movie that's the adaptation of the play that is within the tv whatever so i i don't know whether that kind of that surfaceness is the point or whether it's Anderson not really getting to

where he wants to with that scene or whether it's that I am the only person in the world who doesn't 100% respond to Scarlett Johansson which like I feel like I'm taking crazy pills but anyway I mean she's obviously like a very talented and beautiful actress but there is something that I have read a lot of criticism about this film in particular and what she's bringing to it. And I was like, what is she bringing to it? So I don't know, but I would agree with your assessment of those scenes. And I just kind of wonder whether they are supposed to be a setup for a similar scene that comes later in the movie um that i think has a lot of the emotion or the underneath that is missing or that you and i didn't pick up on and which is a stellar scene

which is yeah that's kind of when it transcended for me and i i like I felt it all come together and I really felt the purpose of of the film and the emotion in it and and again also some of that synthesis I really did watch this also as like a Wes Anderson nerd and to me it felt like a a summation like a coming back to major work after like kind of dabbling in the you know sandbox of French Dispatch or Isle of Dogs or like following your own interests which is important as a filmmaker but that scene in particular was just kind of like I'm back I still know how to do this I remember everything that we've all done together and crystallizes the film for me. It's interesting because he's graded on a curve not in the good way because his highs are very high. And so the thing that I've been thinking about as you guys talk about his sincerity and

the way that he tells his story is that something that feels different to me about his films now, and this has been true for the last few, is that they are amusing, but no longer funny. And his early films are very funny. And that sounds like something a dumb character from a Woody Allen film would say about a Woody Allen film, but it is kind of true.

And some of it is that sharp edge that you identified, I think, in Rushmore and the sort of like, a little bit of an emotional hardness that made some of the jokes hit a little bit harder. And some of it is, I'm sure he's, you know, evolved as a person and is interested in a different kind of storytelling. And there are funny jokes in this movie.

They're not just not as funny to me as they used to be. And so what you're watching is truly like a diagram of his feelings. That is what the movie feels like. And I like that. I'm interested in that. But, you know, you got Steve Carell here to, you know, do psych gags

about martinis and machines. Yeah, real estate and the martini machine. That was good. I thought of you and your new adoption of martinis.

It was amusing. Was it, did I laugh audibly in the theater? I thought it was clever. It feels, he's always been criticized as being someone

who turns New Yorker articles into movies. And then, of of course he made a movie about the new yorker and almost obviated that criticism but this did feel like that at times well it's interesting i mean in the review i i made mention of there's something that he does in this movie he does it in all his films when i was younger you look at something like tendon bombs i would laugh at how incredibly elaborate certain setups were when they lasted for a second. And just, it was like a joke on viewership. It was like, wow, he put a lot of things in one place to shoot it for half a second, right? I mean, he's like, it's just like a formal joke.

But in this movie, he had a lot of images that are kind of blink or miss it, but they're really actually quite loaded and and substantial like i love that image briefly of the american flag tattooed on the moon which starts which starts getting into filmmaking that i really like like that idea of the kind of you know the socio-cultural distillation and but you know i couldn't help but compare this not just because of scarlett johansson something like the man who wasn't there by the coens which is around the same period and dealing with some of the same anxieties with some of the same distance. And like, he doesn't have that like great counter mythological, you know, grand design storytelling that the Coen's do.

He's not trying to, I'm just saying that when he tries to distill like the atomic age anxiety and UFOs and like Roswell paranoia and all that, it's pretty glancing. Like what Sean was saying earlier about just kind of collecting references. That's just sort of bric-a-brac, but like the bric-a-brac is pretty diverting in this movie. All the little inventions that the kids make and some of the signage and the background gags,

like the mushroom cloud. I mean, when you're saying it's more amusing than funny. Yeah, it's more amusing than funny, but that stuff's pretty amusing. It is. And for a movie that I didn't exactly give a rave review to, I did smile through most of it.

I mean, it's pretty funny. That's an interesting mode. I just want to say that I thought the three Macbeth daughters, the three witches, but their tiny children were hilarious. Spoken like a woman who does not have a daughter. I laughed out loud at all of them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that what you're saying,

Adam, is those are not the things that he's most interested in, in the movie. I think that those are props for the story. And the more I think about the movie and the more I think about the ideas, I think he's much more interested in the acting from the outside in and the artifice of the world and this idea that nesting doll structure is kind of fundamental because when the movie really kicks into high gear for me is when he starts like pulling out

of the movie and showing us what goes into making something like this and how to channel feeling and then putting anti-feeling on screen which is is, I thought, really sophisticated for him. But I did think for a common moviegoer is a lot to ask to kind of grapple with some of these things. And you don't have to know who Ilya Kazan and Marlon Brando and, you know, you don't have to know what the method is to better understand. You don't have to know that Willem Dafoe, you know, was in the Worcester group and that he changed the performance style in the American theater. But it helps a lot to get what he's going for if you understand all of these things. And I guess like whether or not that is, that's not necessarily good for common movie going, but it's good for art making. And so there's this interesting tension where he's somebody who has been able to have both.

He's been able to be a commercially successful artist. And he's also been able to say, I super into pg wodehouse and here's why and i i love this as like a challenge to that the same way that i think i really responded to tenant where i was like this is what you actually want to do why don't you just put your cards on the table and show us that you want to just make these magical images that you have in your head that nobody else can make and And so I really admire it, but I don't know. There's something like,

and it's really the distance between like a four-star movie and a five-star movie for me where I'm like, there's no denying that he is unbelievable at crafting these worlds and at crafting these stories

and building out this lattice structure. I don't know what I'm speed bumping on. I honestly don't. No, can I ask you guys something though? I forget if this was in the plan, but there's also in this movie has stirred up a bit of discourse around the idea.

And I wrote about it in my review too, that the most gifted American directors right now of a certain age, there's a tendency to want to recreate and to use a less positive word, you know, like retreat or luxuriate and kind of pastness right not just like making a movie but abstractions that as you say are a little hard to grasp for for for for an audience and not just the idea of personal because i don't

think he's capable of making an impersonal movie you know his movies are very very personal but i found funny about the lord of the rings and the Star Wars parodies. It is what's funny about them. And again, the people who make these observations are just so smart about how, you know, Wes Anderson's films are symmetrically framed and that's all that he can do. But the pastness is interesting too, right? The idea that when you look at who the real virtuosos are

or considered the real virtuosos, it's a lot of period pieces. I just wondered if you guys, you know know thought of that as a larger talking point like what does it mean that he's not interested in making movies about the present tense not framing it negatively not necessarily framing it positively but he's a real kind of locus point for this argument as well as as well as the other anderson well and and a few other filmmakers we could mention. This came up in a recent interview with Steven Soderbergh. And one of his rationales was the cell phones.

Cell phones made conventional modern movie storytelling really challenging. I think that's the practical correct answer from my second husband, Steven Soderbergh. But for a Wes Anderson movie, I think there's something more emotional. It's just it's another form of distance, right? It's another it's another boundary and another way to take a step back and also thus allow Anderson a little more control in terms of the world that he's making a control is another major theme through all of these films both in terms of the style of the filmmaking um and and the characters and what they're what precision can do to help you try to make sense of your emotions or can't as the case may be again i really relate to us it was so funny It was so funny in Rushmore, the degree to which Max is obsessed with anachronism.

Yeah. You know, like his music and his films and his style of dress. But then every so often you'd be watching the movie like, this is a contemporary film. Right? I mean, it is. And Tenenbaum's kind of sort of is, too. It looks like the 70s, but those tracksuits are from now. Or they were from like a

19 you know 2001 version of now it's interesting how he's gone from anachronistic characters in the present just fully in some past and he takes it as a subject he treats it as part of what the movies are about but i don't know what him taking on the present would look like anymore. Well, I've thought about this a lot, sadly for me. Um, I think that the, the most acclaimed filmmakers

of that generation, which is to say filmmakers roughly between the ages of 45 and 60 are ultimately pastiche artists. And one of the primary reasons for that is because they have more movie history

to work with than any filmmakers that have come before them. Yeah. And so there is a kind of iterative nature to a lot of the work reasons for that is because they have more movie history to work with than any filmmakers that have come before them. Yeah, totally. And so there is a kind of iterative nature to a lot of the work that they do. And almost all of them were movie maniacs. Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, obviously Wes, obviously Fincher, obviously Paul Thomas Anderson, the people who are in many ways the heroes of this very podcast, grew up obsessed with movies and desperate to put their own visions of the things that they liked into movies. Likewise, with Wes Anderson, when I first saw Rushmore, which I think it's safe to say changed my movie-going mentality. Really, it is one of the signature movies of

my lifetime. I had not seen Little Murders or Jacques Tati movies at that time. I didn't know tonally or visually what he was playing with. And so because of that, I thought he was a wholly original invention. And so for whatever reason in my mind, I view that period as more valuable or more meaningful. Now I'm more educated and now I know he's part of a continuum. Just like all of these directors are part of a continuum. One of the best things about following Quentin Tarantino's career is he would get in interviews and he'd be like, oh yeah, that's from that movie. I love that movie.

You should watch that movie. And not only should you watch it, but I'm actually going to put it back in theaters with my production company because I love it so much. So I think we just kind of have to think of those things a little bit differently. It is interesting to watch younger filmmakers who are less film literate, who don't care about pastiche. That did seem to be like this conclusive moment of Gen X filmmaking, where they were the same way that Ethan Hawke's character in Reality Bites would be singing along to a cartoon theme song or thinking about which was the best Saturday morning breakfast cereal. That was a kind of definitional aspect of that generation.

Wes is doing it slightly differently than referencing theme songs to cartoons, but not so differently by saying, here's a streetcar named Desire, but my version of it. And it doesn't bother me and there's nothing bad about it. But you're mad right now. No, I'm intellectually fired up about it.

Like, I think it's really interesting that a lot of those guys have kind of quote unquote retreated. Now Soderbergh, whose name I didn't mention, and this is also true of Spike Lee because Spike Lee is not like this either, are desperately interested

in what's happening right now. So is David Fincher. Yes and no. Make notwithstanding. I think, but I think with an acid burn cynicism that is like, there's nothing positive

about the modern world. And so his point of view is predictable. I think his craft is unpredictable and that is like, there's nothing positive about the modern world. And so his point of view is predictable. I think his craft is unpredictable. And that is why I keep coming back as the feeling that gives me. But Spike and Soderbergh want to make movies about what's happening in the world right now. And sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.

It's much harder to do that, honestly. It's much harder to have a strong point of view. Even Magic Mike's Last Dance, it's a fascinating idea movie about working for power in the corporate age the movie itself is okay you know he kind of missed and that's all right if there's something awkward about it it feels like it's stuck in a kind of covid production time feels smaller than some of his movies do but those guys doing something that the other guys are like i'm

getting older and i want to keep going back it's it's, it's, it's fascinating. I mean, Sofia Coppola's Priscilla poster was just debuted this morning. She's going back, you know, these people are going back because I think, I think that was a very smart observation that there's more control there for them, that it feels like you can, even if you want to move parts of history, it's you moving the history and not trying to predict where things are going in the future. It's a notable moment. To me, in a lot of ways, Asteroid City is, it's not even just like Wes doubling down on Wes Anderson. It's like, and I don't know, Sean, whether I read it as like a response to critics as much as just like, I am weird and interested in the things I'm interested in. And you want to see me like get really

interested in them. You want to see me like be in a, in a room for however, you know, here are my obsessions, here are the things and here are how many I can cram together. It's just kind of like crawling more into the world of Wes Anderson, which is maybe not welcoming to the common movie goer, but as a fan, I found i found you know as a enthusiast of his work i found it rewarding and also like i don't know you get older you just want to do the stuff that you're interested in and go down weird rabbit holes like that's okay with me like i you know i kind of earned the right to just be like i don't know i'm gonna get really into like printing presses or whatever for a while okay this. This is, this is not that deep into like the West's apocrypha, but I think of it a bit.

There is a bridging thing that he has with the seventies because of the, the Pauline Kael meeting that, you know, he did at the, you know, when he tried to show her Rushmore and then wrote about it, he made a lot of her, her, her colleagues and friends very angry doing that. And there was a back and forth about, again, whether it was ironic or sincere, like that piece about meeting Pauline Kael and showing her Rushmore is a great litmus test for sincerity or irony.

And he's always said he never meant to be anything, but loving or affectionate by, by, by doing that. And the, the admiration he had for Kael, but that's an amazing hinge moment if you think about it. Like, here's one of the millennial hero directors

before he really has much of a pedestal to stand on. He's like literally reaching back to the 70s and being like, boy, if only the person who reviewed the new Hollywood could review me. And I'd really like to know what that looks like. And that's where a lot of the tension around him, at least when I was growing up as a critic, came from. Because I had older colleagues who hated him. And I wasn't sure if it was a generational thing or if it was an aesthetic thing.

Or to Sean's point, they'd seen this all before and didn't think that he invented any of it. It was the same. I had older colleagues here in Toronto who hated Tarantino. They're like, it's all stolen and they don't like post modernism and and whatever else it's weird i don't know what you guys would would say about this we're not trying to like throw out hyperbole here but like other than tarantino he's probably and he's probably the most significant american director to come of age since the 90s in terms of having a name style brand and meaning something to a big audience of of people

right i'm not saying best or most important or the one that i care the most about but he'd be in any conversation about that right yeah because he's not one for me he's not he's not a personal favorite of mine yeah joe and anthony russo um oh god and and and quentin uh probably true. What I mean is something at stake is what I mean. I think that there is a kind of marketing and commodification because of the design that came along with the Wes idea and this aesthetic that we're kind of talking about that made it easier for him to kind of ride. There are a lot of coffee table books dedicated to the films of Wes Anderson that he exists in a kind of you know he's friends with people who design men's clothing you know that he is a wallpaper inspirer right that I mean he touches the world in a bigger way than many film directors do before that the classic Halloween costumes you know like there has there's always been something about his imagery that was like really broadly accessible even if what he was referencing

or what he was trying to do with those references kind of get lost on people yes i agree with that i guess whether or not he is like number two that's an interesting question to pose i mean you're probably right i'm not sure if we're forgetting anyone at this point in terms of just sheer recognizability even though those his movies in total don't don't add up at the box office to no one tenth of probably what clinton's movies have made and and even his movies are not as big as the biggest movies in the world in the last 20 years so how to become a famous film director is an interesting challenge especially at a time when film is on the downside of modern culture. I don't even know who would be number three.

But I think that that idea, it's a very, again, it's very 70s. Spike, I guess Spike, if you think of Spike, Spike is probably more famous than both of them. Is that possible? I think because of his relationship to sports, that he may be even more well-known. I mean, maybe, but he's also of an older generation of filmmakers, not to be like, you know, he's a, he's an eighties, the spike Mike Slackers Dykes generation that Tarantino comes after. What I was just thinking was, I think as everything becomes content and even good filmmakers

describe their work as content, I think why a lot of people cling to Wes Anderson or still care is because there is that idea of a kind of vision as opposed to a mood board or a playbook or an algorithm. Like he's not a project manager, you know? And I think that still means something to people. I think maybe it was, you know, maybe it was a more crowded field of people actually making what they wanted to make even in the 90s or 2000s. Not that those times are utopian in our memory, but it's pretty grim now. outed field of people actually making what they wanted to make even in the 90s or 2000s not that those times are utopian in our memory but it's pretty grim now so the idea that he still kind of represents some kind of vanguard or incursion against blandification and blockbuster is pretty

funny because he's not a kid anymore no that's the other thing i i've thought about as i prepared for this conversation was he's 54 years old and though he has this kind of childlike wonder and often tells stories about very young people he's getting up there mid-50s is no joke well that's another thing I liked about this movie is that it felt like a bridge in a way between his films that are told from kid or kid-like perspectives or you know teenage perspectives pre-teen i guess and like the overgrown children of uh ten and bounds and and life aquatic etc and you know they're they're like the adult plot lines in this movie and the child plot lines and they are mirroring each other and trying to speak to each other um to me that seemed conscious and and effective like rewarding i guess if you've

spent so much time with the rest of these movies you're like oh i get it yeah i agree i adam what else about asteroid city you want to say you hated it it's your least favorite movie of the year no you're trying to get me in trouble i'll we'll talk about what i hated another time um i mean some some other time no i i i again i'm there's been wonderful writing on it like there's really good writing by vicar mercy and reverse shot glenn kenney wrote really smartly about it i've really enjoyed writing reading those pieces because i want to see the same movie that everybody else uh you know that that everybody else sees. One number we didn't pull out,

and I'm not pulling it out in a trolly way, but to talk about this relationship between, let's say, how critics view him and how audiences view him in the mainstream. Do you check out the cinema score on this movie or the Rotten Tomatoes score? It's a 54 from audiences, which, again, means nothing, less than nothing, but it's interesting that it's there, right? Yeah.

Because we are asking that question of kind of who is this for and who is, you know, equipped or sympathetic to taking in kind of what he's doing. And as a guy with kind of one foot in the mainstream and one foot in the art house, this might seem like a step maybe a out of the mainstream a bit, despite that cast, because it is quite dense, you know? Certainly. And, you know, I don't think it's done particularly well commercially, certainly not like Budapest did, as you alluded to 10 years ago, because that film, for his standards, was a blockbuster. Well, we don't know yet, because over the weekend, it had the largest per screen average for any specialty film

since 2019. However, it's only open in six or eight theaters right now. And we're not really spoiling the film by having this conversation in many ways.

Frankly, it probably is incoherent from a plot perspective based on how we've discussed it. I am very curious about its commercial prospects because it is star-studded and it is a name-brand filmmaker,

as we've identified. And it is tremendously dense and distancing in some respects. And I... It's a real, like, what would my dad think of this movie? Kind of a movie. I'm quite curious.

I think he would watch it and maybe even enjoy it. Do you think he's listening right now? Hi, Sean's dad. Sometimes he listens. Sometimes he listens. Happy Father's Day, belatedly. Every couple of weeks when I talk to my dad on the phone, he's like, what's going on with Amanda? Is she okay? Yeah, she's doing great. I see her three times a week, every week. I don't know what the common moviegoer or streaming movie watcher, which is more common these days, would think of this

movie i hope it is a great success uh just because i want to see more movies like this you know from people who are just incredibly bold as you say this there's something and i can't figure out whether you're just stressed out because you're like you've taken on the mantle of the common moviegoer because you think that you need to like single-handedly save movies right now no or whether you were just like medium on it you know no i was i think the standards this he set the bar very high for me sure you know he has made movies and i i watched um i want the only one of his films that i revisited before this conversation was moonrise kingdom which i think is the end of an era for him i think that that that is the end of his middle period, and it is the most grounded movie that he's made.

And I think while it does have a kind of complex structure in terms of moving back and forth through time and cutting between the correspondences between the children, it is doing West things, so to speak. It's very simple. It's about a small island, and particularly these two young people and i love that movie i think that that is a perfect movie one other piece of west lore to hang over you guys when you do your rankings you guys remember the steely dan wes anderson saga

no where where the guys from steely dan wrote him a letter around the time of jarjeeling limited and which is already how many years ago, like 15 years ago, 15, yeah, 15 years ago being like, you know, we love you and we watch your movies like the rest of the criterion

collection on our tour bus, but you've kind of been going downhill and let us write your theme song, which was, which was all very like affectionate and, and, and jokey. But I always thought it was interesting that the guys in Steely Dan, who I,

uh, you know, like very much great band. They, they thought bottle rocket was the best one. And there's layers of irony and like layers of humor in them saying that. And you go read it. It's all,

it's on like the Steely Dan website. And then Wes Anderson responded, I think, but they were like, you never duplicated the spontaneity and the surprise sort of out the gate of bottle rocket, which is the only one that I rewatched before asteroid city. And you know what? It's great. People don't put that one towards the top, but it's very close. Um, I don't think it is, but I think it's amazing to watch him

make a world without all of the tools that he has now. You know, that's what I'm, I think it's amazing to watch him make a world without all of the tools that he has now. That's what I'm, I think it's great. Yeah, I love it. But, you know, these are, I think that the tension that you may sense in my voice is like, really, what is the difference between, because I've had a couple of people, yourself included, be like, wow, this is really one of Wes's masterpieces.

And my posture is like, is it? I'm not quite sure yet. I think it is a bold experiment in his storytelling. I'm not totally sure I locked in i was really moved i i wasn't and nothing moves me as listeners of this podcast no so uh it it worked for me um where would it rank for you adam before we we send you off in his filmography i i it's somewhere in the vast accomplished uh you know somewhere in the vast accomplished middle okay uh i'm i i'm i'm i'm always gonna stick up for the ones that i saw when i was most impressionable so somewhere in a top three for me are still going to be

rushmore and tenenbaums and and bottle rocket which again i, I think is me failing a little bit as opposed to, you know, I like those ones the most. And I think that Tenenbaums definitely is a film because of it coming out on Criterion, how it did, and the packaging around it was one of those examples of Criterion doing something really contemporary. Yeah, that beautiful pink box. That beautiful pink box and like, oh, well, this is part

of film history instantly they didn't do that that much back then right as opposed to now where you know there's so many contemporary movies that come to the label because of output deals and collaborations and stuff it that it felt quite momentous when they put those movies out like oh film history bends forward and anderson's a big of it. So that was very impressionable for people around our age, I think. So yeah, I'll say Rushmore is the best one. Okay. You ready to go to war? Yeah, I am.

Adam, I appreciate your time. I'm now ready to announce that this has in fact been an AI mid-journey version of Adam that we've been speaking with for the last 45 minutes. And you've been rendered perfectly. How ironic. Yeah, I'm happy to have turned into a parody of myself. Younger even than Wes Anderson. The algorithm is true.

Yeah, the algorithm is true. I will see you back here about something soon, I'm sure. Thanks, Adam. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no, turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah.

There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A Really? Yeah. There's the sausage bacon and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing too. Wish I had a mouth.

Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Okay, we're back. It's the Thunderdome, Wes Anderson edition. I think this will be nice at first and then a battle royale at the end. Shall we list the films for the listeners at home?

Sure. As I said, Astro City is the 11th feature film from Wes Anderson. He's made a number of short films. In fact, he has a short film coming later this year on the Netflix service, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which he revealed to IndieWire last week. It was actually just 37 minutes, which he described as the perfect home for Netflix because it's not really a movie, which I thought was one of the great subtweets of 2023. He's also made a few others. Obviously, there was Hotel Chevalier, which ran before Darjeeling Limited, I believe.

I think so. Which I quite like, but we're not going to be ranking any of those. We're just talking about the features. So here are the features. 1996 debut, Bottle Rocket. 1998, Rushmore. 2001, The Royal Tenenbaums.

2004, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. 2007, The Darjeeling Limited. 2009, Fantastic Mr. Fox. 2012, Moonrise Kingdom. 2014, The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2018 Isle of Dogs, 2021 The French Dispatch, and 2023 Asteroid City. What is the least successful Wes Anderson movie, Amanda Dobbins? You and I were texting about this. I was on the playground while I was texting you. I don't know whether I told you that just to add it. You gotta be careful with that.

You gotta keep your eye on that kid. I do, but this was, it was actually at your local playground where everything is like, there's some nice foam coating,

you know? There is, but there's also some maniacal seven-year-olds that you gotta watch out for. Yeah, there are some really mean girls. They're intense, yeah.

And they wear, anyway. So we were texting about the fact that Wes Anderson doesn't have an unsuccessful film. It's remarkable. He does not have a film that doesn't work. Some feel more essential than others. Some feel major league and some feel like dalliances or, you know, dabbling in something.

So that's the context in which I'm making this list. But I would say the least, to me, essential is Isle of Dogs. I would agree with you. Now, some will say the wretched anti-animator has arrived on the podcast. Here I am. That Amanda, who despises drawn photorealistic pictures, has logged on. But I stand with you because this is a strange film. And I don't really understand

why it interested him after the extraordinary achievement of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Correct. And it just feels a bit redundant. It's cute. It is amusing.

It is definitely not bad. The sashimi scene, it's sashimi, right? It is absolutely glorious. And I think about it all the time and now I'm hungry. It does feel certainly quite a bit like a portal to his desire to tell stories of his interest in Japanese culture. And similar, like a kind of wartime culture that he seemed to be interested in. And it's sort of like without actually pursuing the sociopolitical ramifications of some of those stories, at least setting those stories in the worlds. And it is actually kind of an interesting

double feature with Asteroid City because of its kind of like warring factions and all of these people gathered in this kind of remote destination where all the dogs are on this island of garbage. It is somewhat similar. What I liked, one of the many things I liked about Asteroid City was that it kind of explained the last 10 years of Wes Anderson to me. I was liked, one of the many things I liked about Asteroid City was that it kind of explained the last 10 years of Wes Anderson to me. I was like, oh, okay, now I understand why you made Isle of Dogs. I'm like, oh, okay, now I understand what was going on with French Dispatch, which I did feel like both of those films are extremely accomplished, have their own value. But to me, it was like, oh, like Wes Anderson, you know, just really likes

The New Yorker and just like wanted to get into that for a while which again you you have a certain level of success do what you want but Asteroid City brings kind of those experiments together to me in right and I started I saw the pieces come together so it's interesting you say that about the French dispatch because after we did an episode about it I re rewatched it. Okay. And it revealed itself to me in a way that it didn't. And I liked it quite a bit. And so what I'm concerned about is that it will be very similar with Asteroid City. Okay. Where I saw the French Dispatch at Telluride. I walked out of the screening. I'm sure I told this story on the podcast. And I was like, another great Wes Anderson movie. And everyone around me seemed to be like, eh, he's kind of doing the same thing.

This is iterative. But that's a tough crowd, obviously. That's a festival crowd. It's people who know real cinephiles. And then the second time I watched it, it revealed itself even more. And I liked it even more. And I felt like I'm going to bump up my grade on this. That doesn't mean it even pierces the top five.

But I appreciated it more. But then as I looked down the list, I don't think it's number 10 French Dispatch, but we're in range, I would say. It might be number nine. Well, let's discuss that. So to me, 10 is the Darjeeling Limited. It is. Okay. That's my suggestion as well. I thought you were going to try to do your, I've, you know, I've been revisiting the Darjeeling Limited. Well, the thing is, is that if we had had this conversation 10 years ago i would not have said to you what i did say to you when we were having that glorious text exchange which is this might be the director with the highest batting average you know barring quentin pta you know like a very

small group of directors who every time out do something where i'm like wow that's that was at a minimum you took a cool risk. Darjeeling is the one that has improved over time, but is still deeply flawed to me. And there are some storytelling reasons for that. There are some, it feels like he's trying to push himself out of his little New York dollhouse strategy, but it was not quite ready to go there yet.

I do think that the performances are very good it's you know adrian brody jason schwartzman and owen wilson as this trio of brothers on the road in india after the death of their father but i don't know there there is a like an emotional disconnect in that movie for me, even though it is amongst his most emotional movies. I did not revisit it for this podcast because I went back and revisited the ones that I thought had a more one-to-one connection to Asteroid City, though, you know,

they all do. Three people in search of a lost parent. It just pops up a lot. It sure does. In all of these films. One thing I wanted to say about Asteroid City that I don't feel is a spoiler is, my God, does Adrian Brody look handsome yeah in that that's another thing that's all of

the movie stars look like beautiful movie stars in asteroid city it's really that's true but in this one i was like because it is about theatricality and and movie stars and um and artists they just they look beautiful. His character is really funny because he is playing Ilya Kazan. If he were in Marlon Brando's body, it's a really amazing. Yeah. But like Maya Hawk looks just absolutely beautiful.

And there's even something there about she, I mean, you're watching her and she's beautiful, but you're also watching like Uma sort of, because they have like the resemblance and, you know, those echoes of he's he's just playing with all of it i just you know there is real skill in making movie stars look like movie stars so i just want to point that out at the risk of getting back into asteroid city one thing that i did feel that slightly holds it back is actually a compliment which is i i just wanted to spend

more time with my hawk and rupert friend i wanted to spend more time with Maya Hawk and Rupert Friend. I wanted to spend more time with Hope Davis. She was a great teacher. I liked her pedagogical style. And I thought that she- It didn't seem like it was being terribly successful in that environment. Well, that's on the kids. You got to give them to, well, I think it is. You got to be responsible for your own education to a point. But I liked the way that she was relating to the children. I liked the way that she was handling the parents and the crisis. It seemed good. We'll see if she's available for homeschooling for your child. Okay. So number 10 is the Darjeeling Limited. Yeah. I'm working off of my private Letterboxd list right now as we talk through this. That's really cool. Which I know will be disrupted. It is cool. Thank you for saying so. Letterboxd is

rising in the culture. Are you aware of this? i just want to let you know that anyone with a letterbox account is a fucking man cannot be a cool man bang decided i will verdict i'm not cool well once upon a time margot robbie had a letterbox well she's a woman so it's a completely different what yeah it's a devious double standards of the dastardly dobbins jesus christ does martin scorsese have a letterboxd account he is letterboxd he is a living letter sure but that's the thing he embodies it rather than just logging on but what i was attempting to do the same until i found this wonderful app well you go go live your life instead of vlogging things. And then we can discuss.

I know that it's common for me to say you're dead wrong on this podcast. But in this case, you are dead wrong. I want to let you know also that the Cool Men Committee convened. And Juliette absolutely backed up my assertion that Porsches are in no circumstances cool. So I think we learned pretty clearly that the cool men committee should be disbanded immediately and reassigned to a new topic. Okay. Number nine.

I have bottle rocket here. Now, despite Adam's suggestion that it is near the top, I do not feel that way. Now, that is not a criticism of the movie. It is at minimum a four-star film, maybe even higher than that. I would put French Dispatch here. So I have French Dispatch at eight. Okay. I would flip them.

Some of this is personal tastes and beliefs. You know, write a novel, not a short story. Thank you very much for your time. I see. I forgot that that was your... Right.

Even though each of the short stories in French Dispatch are incredibly accomplished. It also, like, it is, like, Asteroid City, really, really dense. Like, really dense. French Dispatches. Yeah, French Dispatches. Even for someone who also really likes The New Yorker.

Great work, everyone there. I appreciate that shout out. You know? Minute 57 of this pod. And I also did finally sort out my subscription issues with them online. I don't know that it has always the same emotional payoffs that it's like cerebral without some of the emotional heft of Asteroid City. And again, I don't think you can make Asteroid City without French Dispatch, but Bottle Rocket is,

I rewatched it yesterday. Zach was in and out of the room just being like, I love this movie. There is something, to your point, really, like,

unformed but still formed. It's like, oh, it's all there, even if the tricks and the what have you aren't there. So, that, I,

I like my order. i don't want to compromise i don't feel strong i don't feel strongly about this okay so i'm willing to let you have it but since you just said i don't want to compromise i want to fight you um i'm fine with that okay i probably I probably need to revisit Bottle Rocket. Okay. I did watch it during the pandemic. And here's the thing. Obviously, it's the introduction of a style and a tone.

And I think that Wes and Owen Wilson together are so special. And I desperately want them to get back together and to make a movie starring Owen, where he is the lead in the film. Because I think that they are magic together. And they're obviously close friends. This movie also stars Robert Musgrave and Lumi Cavazos and they're not great actors like they're just really not on the level of Owen let alone Luke and certainly not James Khan and so there is an imbalance in this early production especially when you look at something

like Astrid City or French Dispatch where you're like, oh, so literally the greatest actors of their generation come to play for eight minutes in this movie. Meanwhile, in French Dispatch, Owen Wilson's just like biking around. You know? And I really think that he looks wonderful cycling around wherever

in France they are, but you know. I don't know. At least Bottle Rocket uses him. So you're just, I mean, you're going to have to give me something back in the future. No? No. Actually, I will. You're twirling your hair right now as you pine on what's coming next. This is quite an energy from you.

I can see how it's all going to go, and I feel okay with it. Interesting. What would you like to submit next? Well, so we're at Isle of Dogs at 11. The Darjeeling Limited at 10. French Dispatch at 9. Bottle Rocket at 8. To me, this is where the Thunderdome begins.

Because there is a blurriness at 4, 5, 6, and 7. Can I tell you what I have at 4, 5, 6, and 7? Yes, but you have to do it in reverse order because, you know, this is a podcast with standards. I don't know that I feel very strongly about this. Okay. This was, you know, hash work. Okay, number 7? The Life Aquatic.

Okay, keep going. Fantastic Mr. Fox at 6. Okay. The Grand Budapest Hotel at 5. Okay. And Astrid City at 4. Absolutely not. What the fuck is wrong with you? What. Okay. The Grand Budapest Hotel at five. Okay. And Astrid City at four. Absolutely not. What the fuck is wrong with you?

What? All right. You can have Life Aquatic at number seven. I thought that was so generous to you. So generous. Wait, wait. Do it again? Seven is Life Aquatic.

Okay. Six is Fantastic Mr. Fox. I didn't put the animated movie in the top five. I love Fantastic Mr. Fox. Okay. Number five, I have Grand Budapest Hotel, which I think many people would say should be much higher. And I'm one of those people. So that's where you lose me.

Okay. But Astrid City at four I thought was quite generous because I know how much you like it. I really like it. You like Grand Budapest more. The problem is, I mean, this is like reverse recency bias. You know, I've lived with Grand Budapest for a decade. And as we discussed, was also like commercially pretty popular for a Wes Anderson film. I really like that Ralph Fiennes performance.

Sort of invented millennial pink. I think it's very significant in his career. And it's obviously one of the more broadly significant ones. And I just don't know where Asteroid City is going to be yet. But I really love Asteroid City. I'm fine with Life Aquatic at 7 and Fantastic Mr. Fox at 6. I always think that Life Aquatic is underrated. I could literally go Life Aquatic at 4 Fantastic Mr. Fox at 5

Grand Budapest Hotel at 6 and Asteroid City at 7 like that's how loose I feel about this I Grand Budapest is at is at 4 for me okay

I just I have to even though I think if we make this list in a few years Asteroid City might might be higher but just right now

knowing what I know and being who I am as a person. And then I'll do Asteroid City at five. Are we sure that's right? No, we're not. This is where I can be open and honest. Oh, wait.

Also, oh, I forgot. I will not be brokered with on moonrise kingdom i i know okay and then the the true and then just the true but okay me giving you moonrise kingdom at three that's that's what you get just so you know i and i revisit yeah that's what you get well we're you said what do i get here and i've revisited moonrise kingdom at for this podcast because i know how much you love it and because there definitely are connections um and it's it's beautiful i think a lot of my isn't isn't it a little bit confusing that he just like redid the plot of young love in asteroid city

from moonrise Kingdom. Outcast kids who only understand each other and just want to be left alone to do the things that they care about in their own little world. It's the same story. Literally the same story.

That's like literally one third of all literature from like time immemorial. That is Romeo and Juliet. You know, like just like go with it. That's good. You know,

that's romance, my guy. I just mean for him, like for his tone, like he already did it. He's already done everything., that's romance, my guy. I just mean for him, like, for his tone, like, he already did it. He's already done everything. He's done A Dead Parent in literally every single movie. He's done I Like Literature. Did you know that?

And I'm from Texas, but also I have, like, an affinity for Europe and the East Coast, and I'm exploring that. You're so mad right now. God. How could you get so mad? My thing about Moonrise Kingdom is just, like, I don't know about camp, you know? That's right. I forgot you're into camp. It's just, like, I don't know about camp, you know? That's right. I forgot you're anti-camp.

It's just like really, it's like a camp thing. But so are the kids. I mean, they break free. Sure. But, you know, they still care about their badges. Oh, you know what it is? You're anti-camping. It's both camp and camping.

Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Wow. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think it works wonderfully in that film. Okay. So are we going to do, we're going you, but I think it works wonderfully in that film. So are we going to do, we're going to do Grand Budapest Hotel at four.

We're going to do Asteroid City at five. Is that right? I don't know if that's right. Wait, you have Moonrise Kingdom at three. Isn't that right? It is. To me, it is. Well, to me, Grand Budapest.

Oh. Wow. So tough. Okay, fine. We can do Grand Budapest at five and Asteroid City at four. Okay. Wow. Fine. I don't know.

Yeah, because you know it's coming. Well, I... Let's do it right now. Let's do it right now. I will not budge. No, hold on. Hold on. Grand Budapest Hotel,

I don't have the same emotional connection to it as I do the best of his movies. Even though I think there is a broad consensus that it may be the best made of all of his movies. Okay. So what matters more in the context of these immaterial and stupid rankings? I mean, you're... I think actually Asteroid City is more emotionally impactful. I think that's true.

I believe so as well. I think Grand Budapest hotel is a delight okay um and it's virtuosic okay and asteroid city is deep deep and it all it just also has that and i hope this i hope this turns out to be mid to early career for wes anderson but you know it's that i have been making films for a long time and i've gotten to this place and I am reassessing what I'm doing here. And while I'm exploring, like, you know, what this whole project has been about and what it means to me at this point in my life that I find that I really respond to as just as like an average moviegoer and as a person who really follows his work. So I think Asteroid City is really significant. Grand Budapest Hotel is really good though.

So is Asteroid City. This is what I'm saying. This is an interesting, before we get to one, two, four, five is compelling. I mean, respectfully, were I making my own list, it would be Moonrise Kingdom at five, Asteroid City at four. if you make that happen no then i need to have domain over one no we have to say i will give you moonrise kingdom at three i'm not walking out of this room with without getting our first ever 24 hour podcast i i, I see to you a lot of the time I get a little nervous. You know, I think that,

uh, I have to be nervous. I, well, I'm just like, I have to bow to like conventional, you know, wisdom,

you know, the letterbox Lords and the enforcers. Look at you removing your armor, showing your heart. Today, I will not fucking back down. Royal Tenenbaums number one or I walk

walk from what from this chair honestly if you just got up and left the podcast and I just talked for the last ten minutes it'd be fine the episode would be fine

it would be perfectly okay okay I'm not so sure it's Tenenbaums I love Rushmore okay Rushmore is extraordinary. And it's like a really nice double feature with Asteroid City.

Not just because of like the Jason Schwartzman and also the aspiring playwright. Totally. Yeah, no, I mean, it's all there. Though there is also an aspiring playwright in Royal Tenenbaums. Tenenbaums is just, is where everything like really comes together and it has all of the flourishes that he really digs deep into throughout the rest of the career but they're just like it's it's just tempered like the the balance of everything is exactly right it's you know funny like i think the gene hackman performance is still like maybe the best performance in all of the movies um like

deeply emotional stacked cast probably the well i don't know they all they all kind of become stacked after tenenbaums they do do. But it's quintessential. It's the highest of highs. It really is. And I understand that you were just like a young man, also in the suburbs, with big ideas, and no idea how to speak to people or connect emotionally or socially. And so you had to you know write plays about

Vietnam um yeah and I wrote many hit plays sure I get it incredibly important character I love it number one is time bombs you know it is you know it is you know everyone else is like it is that's the normie take that's the normie that's That's the normie take. That's fine. You know what? Sometimes the normie's right. Sometimes the most obvious thing is the correct thing. So. And your life of misery is because you won't accept that from time to time. First of all, I have one of the best lives out. I am thriving right now.

I've got, I've got it. I do have it all. Unlike the many women in my life, I can't have it all. As a white middle-aged man in america i have family happiness and the films of wes anderson i i i think that rushmore is the last time he was uh emotionally dangerous and so i do miss that i miss that there was a sense of like, is this kid a serial killer or just mildly unpleasant? And there was a kind of danger in the movie that obviously I respond to. And it felt like the last time he was really iterating on, and this is in Bottle Rocket too. In Bottle

Rocket Dignan, you're like, this guy's kind of a psycho. And obviously I love those, they feel like Scorsese movies in their own weird way. And obviously he's gotten more interested in the kind of construction paper aesthetic of his worlds. And Royal Tenenbaums really introduces that. Launches that. You're saying quintessential. I think that's right. I think that's the right word for where his films are going.

I mean, the thing is that I love Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. But I don't want Wes Anderson to make Scorsese movies. I want him to make Wes Anderson movies. Sure. But those movies are also, as we identified, they really are bound by their influences. I don't know. I also, it's not like I go to Wes Anderson movie to be like, show me like at a, you know, like a volatile young man. Well, but what I respond to is a bunch of you know over-educated people who have nowhere to put their emotions and look great doing it uh and that has been the project for 20 years and it really is summed up in tenenbaums is chas tenenbaum the

last time we saw the scary character from him the non-villain because you know he starts to create these worlds where they're like there are villains there are villains in life aquatic there are villains in grand budapest hotel right but no one's threatening yeah yeah um or the villain is like absent from the because tenenbaums is also the father figure, like the charismatic, but person who's not really living up to their end of the bargain is very present. Just like Fantastic Mr. Fox, just like Life Aquatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flawed Fathers is a big theme. The Dead Father in Darjeel Unlimited.

I mean, like Asteroid City. James Caan in Battle Rocket. To a degree, but there's a real edge to the Tenenbaum's one that I don't he doesn't really get back to it's interesting

if it were almost any other actor would we feel that way yeah but I mean it's just such a perfect you know

oil and water thing where they famously did not get along on set and Hackman really didn't understand what he was what Henderson

was trying to do but that makes it perfect it's so good there is a there was a I'll never get this out of my head and it is what I think

I said earlier which is you know being 12 13 14 while seeing these movies but i don't think he's really ever going to get back to rushmore no i just don't no and and maybe like your whatever like hesitation i was sensing about asteroid city is that he's like it's very much wes anderson diving back into his, you know, his dollhouses. Yeah, well, both his themes, but also his like extremely intricate 18 trap doors. Let's spend 40 days figuring out this one thing. It's not going back. There's nothing raw about it.

There's absolutely nothing uncut. And the way that Rushmore kind of allows... I mean, Rushmore is a young person's movie. I've always felt, though, that the perceived failure of the Darjeeling Limited put him off this forever. That it kind of not working the first time, you know, per Adam's mention of the Steely Dan note that he got, that that pushed him into this other phase. And, you know, that produced fantastic mr fox which is this kind of fascinating innovation in stop motion and is basically a movie about animals

using all the same themes and ideas that his other films have and is the most doll housey to that point i mean i i guess i'll give it to you because you gave me Moonrise Kingdom. Rushmore is more important to me. That's fine. That's great. There are plenty of things in this world that are more important to me than whatever the boys take seriously. But today... No one knew that about you. I emerged victorious.

Royal Tenenbaums at number one. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Here is our top 11 Wes Anderson films. Number 11, Isle of Dogs. Number 10, The Darjeeling Limited. Number 9, The French Dispatch. Number 8, Bottle Rocket.

Number 7, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Number 6, Fantastic Mr. Fox. Number 5, Grand Budapest Hotel. Yes. Number 4, Asteroid City. Number 3, Moonrise Kingdom. Number 2, Rushmore. Yes. Number 1, The Royal Tenenbaums.

Yeah. You choked on it, literally. I choked on it, literally. Are you angry about the ranking or the fact that you lost? I didn't lose anything. I remain victorious on every episode of this show, which I'm quite pleased about. I reserve the right to change my Asteroid City ranking. Okay. Because I don't really know yet. Okay. I need to spend more time on it. I reserve that right as well. Okay.

Hey, did you see the box office performance of The Flash? Oh, my God. Was it bad? Did no one go? It was quite bad. Yeah, I did see it. I know. No one went.

Are you going to do this right now? You're just going to have like another... Oh, is that me? Sorry. Sorry. Do you need to take that? No, no, no. Do you want to leave this right now? You're just going to have like another. Oh, is that me? Sorry. Sorry. Can you take that? No, no, no.

You want to leave this in the pod? Yeah, no, it's okay. I apologize that the doctors, they can get through somehow. Okay. That was the Marvel's calling. Make sure that Amanda. Bob, what's your favorite Wes Anderson movie? That's a really hard question.

So many of them are just like tied together like I saw my first Wes Anderson movie was Grand Budapest Hotel in theaters in my senior year

of high school so that is the one that I have like the initial connection to and then I went home and watched Moonrise Kingdom the next day so like those two together

are my two favorites but I probably would give the edge to Moonrise Kingdom wow it's number three listen we all came together two no well this is not my opinion does not reopen this list do you want to put it over rushmore no what the fuck i'm not doing with this this with you um so the flash flash bombed yeah uh elemental bombed saw elemental oh yeah i gotta do that yeah

elemental is a jungle fever with water and fire that's literally the premise of elemental okay people are big mad about pixar and elemental and it's fine they put all the movies on streaming and robbed it of its brand value i like okay like, okay, there's a pandemic, but okay. That's a good point. What were they supposed to do? Literally, I would just like one person doing all of this assessment to just like, tell me what else they were supposed to do. Were they supposed to just not really sit on all the movies for three years?

Can their business, would their business have supported that? I think Turning Red was the one because we were getting into the latter stages of lockdown when that movie was released. That was 2021. I think it was 22. Oh, yeah. No, it was 22. It was like right when Knox was born because I watched it at home, which I appreciated as a new mother. So thank you so much.

I just think the issue is that Elemental is not very good. And that The Flash is quite bad, as you and I said on this podcast. And those movies are not good. And that Spider-Verse and the mario brothers movie are doing great and it's like movies are fine even doing the rewatchables with bill yesterday he's like are movies in trouble oh yeah no i heard that i'm the only one who gets to have the meltdown about movies i was i was listening to that rewatchables on the way into the office today i really enjoyed it important movie uh really important um when will witness be rewatchables um i don't that feels like amanda dobbins and mallory rubin energy i listen john book from your lips to bill's ears because i know better

than to submit a request just ask he doesn't like requests uh i think if you asked him he would first of all witness not a big movie for me personally, so I don't care. That's wrong. It's not about not being good. It's just not a movie that means a lot. I saw it late in life. I didn't see it when I was younger. I think he wants to do it. Okay.

I can't wait for our week of Harrison Ford. We have big things coming. Anything else you want to mention on this podcast? Go see Past Lives, if you haven't. Yes. This Friday, Past Lives expands, and hopefully people will see it and we'll talk about it. And stop tweeting at me if you can't see it. You know, I'm just one woman trying to advocate for movies.

I cannot change the business. If I could, things would be really different. But I cannot single-handedly fix movie theaters. It's quite a loser's attitude if I've ever heard one. A lot of people being like, I want to go see it, but it's not open yet. Like, did I decide that? No, I didn't. Bobby, you saw it. I did see it. I had one of the more Amanda Dobbins days you can possibly have. I saw it at BAM. Then I had dinner afterwards with my friends and my partner, and I talked

about the movie. Where did you go to dinner? Tacoma, right across the street. Oh, I love Tacoma. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah. Solid option. New York City. That restaurant, that Tacoma used to be a place called like Brooklyn or Berlin. I can't remember which one. It was like a German beer bar. And they had a lot of like stuffed pretzels, pillows. And Zach and I famously on one of our early dates, we went to see a more together at BAM and then just sat at the bar with all the stuffed pretzels at Berliner or Brookliner or whatever

and drank like you know whatever beer and we're like okay and then he proposed your early movie dates are some of the more

they're absolutely deranged one of the more more in favor arguments for like actually two souls are meant to connect yeah because some things stacked against you with those movie dates One of the more in favor arguments for like, actually two souls are meant to connect. Yeah.

Because some things stacked against you with those movie dates. We worked it out. What's Zach's favorite Wes Anderson movie? I think probably Tenenbaums. I do. Should we call him right now and ask? Yeah, let's call him. Okay. This is really fun.

And then if he says Tenenbaoms, you have to hang up immediately. So I don't want to hear it. Let's see whether he answers. He might be on the phone. Hi, we're podcasting. What's your favorite Wes Anderson movie? Am I like live right now? Yes.

We didn't arrange this. I love 10 Moms. Yes! God damn it! Yes! Thank you. I love him. Yes! God damn it! Yes! Thank you! I love you! Goodbye!

Oh, boy. Well, you've just seen the conclusion of my friendship with Zach Barron. Thanks so much for listening to The Big Picture today. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week, we will either be talking about No Hard Feelings, the new sex comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence, or we will be building

the Harrison Ford Hall of Fame. You'll just have to tune in to find out. See you then.