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 and small. It’s a very good production and 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, and 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.
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