MOVIE: Asteroid City (2023)

Asteroid City Year: 2023 Rating: PG-13 Length: 105 minutes / 1.75 hours At this point, when I see a Wes Anderson film, I know what I'm getting. Not just the visual aesthetic or the almost monotone line delivery from every actor. Instead, there's a framing that either brings the disparate narrative together (like in The French Dispatch (2021)) or acts as a lens (like in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)). Now that we're almost 10 years into this phase of narrative framing (with a few exceptions like Isle of Dogs (2018)), it's finally gotten to the point of being distracting. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the base story that's being told in Asteroid City (2023). It hearkens back to some of Anderson's earlier works that dealt with the death of a loved one (a la The Darjeeling Limited (2007)). The science fair subplot was fun, and the whole military lockdown of the second half was entertaining. Just by itself, the core plot of...
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MOVIE: Isn’t it Romantic? (2019)

Isn’t It Romantic? Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 89 minutes / 1.48 hours I generally enjoy “self-aware” movies. Those films that know which genre they’re in and make fun of it the entire time. While it’s entertaining to see all the various tropes of a particular genre exposed in this method, these films still have to abide by these rules as well. This has been done to varying levels of success for action movies (Shoot ‘em Up (2007)), Disney movies (Enchanted (2007)), and superhero movies (Deadpool (2016)). Filling the hole of the self-aware romantic comedy is none other than Isn’t It Romantic? (2019). Despite not being terribly into romantic comedies, this self-aware film piqued my interest. Isn’t It Romantic? doesn’t necessarily fully commit to the self-aware theme. Instead, it encapsulates the ridiculous romantic comedy bit in the framing of a coma. The main problem I had with doing it this way was that Natalie—the main character played by Rebel Wilson—realizes she’s in a romantic comedy fairly quickly. However, she still seems...
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