This year, Hollywood’s back, or almost. There are very successful movies in theaters this summer, very good movies, & very good movies that are very successful. All told the great American audience is interested—lots of fun being had & lots of money being made. It’s also a good opportunity for Hollywood to attempt moralistic suicide again, since COVID panics didn’t kill it: The business ground to a halt with the big actors’ & writers’ strike this summer—nothing from productions to promotion is happening. Directors aren’t striking, they made a good deal, apparently. What might be a good deal for the striking guilds is anyone’s guess, since the entire industry is in trouble because of streaming & digital media more broadly, which is also a trouble from which everyone involved profited.
Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is the last of the interesting movies of the season. It’s a very clever look back at mid-century America, something that has long interested him. It’s also a comedy aimed at the pretensions of liberal elites. I reviewed it for Law & Liberty, with no small admiration:
America is a strange country, and it seems we tend to celebrate that come summer. I’ll give you an example. There’s a very funny movie in theaters just now, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, that seems to include about two dozen famous actors, from Baby Boomers to Millennials, in roles large & small. It’s a very good production & only cost $25 million, since Hollywood stars queue up around the block to appear in Anderson’s movies, which nevertheless never win him any Oscars.
Asteroid City, Anderson’s tenth studio picture, is sure to be one of the top ten Hollywood movies of the year, but I don’t think it’ll make much money. How can you have this much star power, as we used to say, & fail to make bank, as we used to say? What’s all that beauty for if not for popularity? Maybe Anderson is too gentle for success—at any rate, that’s my guess as to why his sense of humor isn’t more appreciated. There is something gentle in his pointing out absurdity, as though he wished not to give offense to his fellow countrymen.
Here are the other summer movies I reviewed: Barbie, for the Acton Institute, which is part of the ongoing catastrophe of middlebrow culture. The consequence of so much Taylor Swift…
But the movie I recommend is Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which I also reviewed for Acton. I guess it will win all the Oscars—otherwise, Hollywood will add yet another work of self-sabotage to its already diminishing prestige & prospects of prospering. The movie is beautiful, yet overwhelming on first viewing & so I wrote a review that does not spoil the plot, but guides you as you see it. I might say more about it if the occasion emerges—I believe I understand Nolan’s intention in presenting this one man, Oppenheimer, rather than his times or even his work. I’m surprised that critics have not paid attention to the remarkably happy attempt to portray cinematically his sensitivity & offer it as an experience to the audience, as much through sound as through imagery…
By the way, if you’re interested in learning a bit about the movies this year, the audiences, the critics & scandals, the problem for conservatives, listen to the Acton podcast, they interviewed me with great interest & patience for my very unusual views.
Of course, as your loyal reviewer, I’ve already covered most of the big movies: Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, & Sound of Freedom.
My review:
Plot-wise and character-wise, nothing much, and nothing we haven't had before from Anderson, though they are charming-enough.
Visuals-wise, one the most amazing films ever, making it worth any very long drive you might have to take to still see it on the big screen.