Asteroid City (2023) July 24th, 2023

With Asteroid City Wes Anderson reacquaints himself with the concept of measured pacing since 2022’s The French Dispatch, which I viewed as an exercise in how much a Director can bathe their audience in pastiche before they nauseously exit the theater to the sounds of The Kinks. I suspect it would be difficult for a Wes Anderson fan to dislike Asteroid City because it is full of his trademarks. Pastel colors, dry subdued delivery, stop motion animation, and astoundingly clever and masterful filmmaking.

Above all else this is Anderson’s most distinguished signature. His ability to build a wonderful world and photograph it like none before him. Every shot a painting indeed. Or so it should have been.

My Asteroid City experience was marred by a growing problem in the adventure of moviegoing, pisspoor projection. I haven’t operated a theater projector but I understand after the transition from reels to hard drives the skill involved in the film projection took a nosedive. Perhaps it is just my theater but multiple times in the past couple years have I requested a refund or raincheck passes due to abysmal projectionists. Asteroid City was the latest victim joining the ranks of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Lawrence of Arabia.

I knew there was something off from the start, the frames had odd headroom and characters on the left and right of shots had their shoulders cut off by the edge of the screen. This didn’t feel like Wes Anderson’s typical attention to detail and masterful composition. I stowed my criticism because I had no other proof, nothing but the odd mouth feel this projection was giving my brainspace. Then it happened, as luck would have it one of the few ways to spot a misaligned projection popped up. Subtitles. For a brief moment in the movie a song is played with subtitles and due to the shoddy projection those subtitles were cut off. I quickly whipped out my phone and snapped a shot of the mistake and after the film concluded brought my evidence to the theater management and politely but sternly requested a refund.

They obliged but the experience is still tarnished. Theaters are cathedrals, and we the faithful who still flock to the sticky soda soaked pews, the piss covered toilet seats, and the parking lot vagrants ask only for our beloved films to be presented perfectly. This is not too much to ask nor is it too much to complain about. The pandemic nearly killed theaters and if they want to hold their place in our culture they need to step their game up. This wasn’t the newest How to Train your Minion movie or another babysitter proxy whose aspect ratio doesn’t matter because the audience isn’t finished teething. This is Asteroid City a Wes Anderson joint meticulously crafted and entrusted to our local projectionists as stewards of the great american art form. Apologies to those expecting a detailed Asteroid City review but it must serve as a sacraficial lamb for the greater good.

Yet they fail us, bolstering the streamers and the stalwart physical media enthusiasts to stay home. We can pop popcorn, we can buy a cheaper hotdog and cheaper soda ourselves, some of us even build our own home theaters so we can pray in the comfort of our own home. For the sake of those of us who still make the pilgramige to the theater and endure wet seats and interuptive audience members please make sure the projector is aligned correctly, it’s the least you can do.