How to Write Family Members Who Hate Wes Anderson

Disclosure: This isn’t an exact facsimile of what I wrote to my family. It’s been enhanced in certain places to make it more palatable to a general audience. This article is also on my Patreon and my Medium.

Dear my entire extended family. When I mentioned that my favorite film of the year was Asteroid City (although, to be fair, I greatly enjoyed Tetris, Killers of the Flower Moon, Holdovers, Fool’s Paradise, and Oppenheim), I’m flattered that you all took it as a recommendation but I would have told you he has a very stylized way of making films.

Asteroid City is by Wes Anderson who has a very stylized way of making films. He started out in the 1990s with low budget movies (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore) and just a few characters. These were probably not that out of step with regular movies and would have been more palatable to you. Martin Scorsese and James L Brooks were very strong early champions of his work.

Royal Tenenbaums is probably his most effective piece emotionally. It involves a dying elderly man (Gene Hackman) trying to connect with his wife (Anjelica Huston) and adult kids before he goes. The kids are all accomplished geniuses in their field, but they are beset by loneliness and intimacy and are even romantically entangled.

Ed Norton was asked why his favorite director was Wes Anderson and he said that it spoke to people’s need to belong. That’s why he’s maybe my favorite director as well. The characters might be enemies in the middle of or whatever, but they ultimately recognize each other’s humanity at the end. I would also say that for unmarried people, Wes Anderson provides a comfort because he leans so heavily on found family tropes, and not the belief that happy endings are based on romantic ones.

From there, his works have gotten more idiosyncratic with more bloated casts. This, I suspect, might be the turn off to regular moviegoers. If there are 40 speaking roles, it’s harder to form a coherent story.

It’s probably this kind of stuff that has made him fodder for humor. Amy Poehler once joked at the Golden Globes that he rode to the ceremony on a bicycle made from tuba parts. SNL did a skit on him. So if you want to just laugh at him, check this video out:

In fact, there's a whole cottage industry of Wes Anderson parodies on YouTube:

But isn’t this normal for all our favorite directors? Don’t you lean into the stuff that hits for you and your fans?

What I’m essentially saying is sometimes you have to grow up with a director. Can you appreciate John Ford’s The Searchers (a film where he humanizes the Indians) without seeing films where he painted Indians as flat characters.

I also like Asteroid City because he had worked with such bloated casts and he corrected the problem. His worst example of this was the previous film, The French Dispatch. In this film, he has a ton of actors as well, BUT the key to appreciating the film, is that only five characters matter. The Tom Hanks character, the Jason Schwartzman character, Scarlett Johannson, and the two respective children of J.S. and Scar-Jo (Technically, Schwartzman’s character has more than one kid, but the others aren’t really important, and Wes Anderson smartly doesn’t give them many lines so they’re not a distraction). The three adults have different ways of living and dealing with loss, and the two children are the hope that the future could be unencumbered by that loss. Everyone else in the movie is just window dressing: They’re just flashes of color and texture that Wes Anderson uses really well.

Then there’s the play behind the story (the part with Bryan Cranston, Willem DaFoe, Ed Norton, and Adrien Brody fall into this). Some might call it extra and unnecessary, and some might see it an extra layer of genius. I’ll even give you all that point: It’s excessive, EXCEPT for one thing. It lends credence to the visual artificiality. TV Tropes (A favorite site of mine, here is their entry) mentions that the geography of the town doesn’t make sense. It’s mostly an excuse to use the stock desert interstate. There are a lot of easter eggs like that. It’s a way of more clearly illustrating that the film maker is a product of his influences (Tennessee Williams, Rod Sterling, and Elia Kazan are influences for the play behind the play).

This movie might not be an easy, breezy watch. However, it is a film that leaves you thinking (provided you watch it to the end).

For example, what’s the reality of the scene when Jason Schwartzman’s character burns his hand? Both he and Scar-Jo react not as characters but as actors who are taken out of the moment because something went wrong on set. Is this commentary on the film’s artifice or part of a deeper meaning? Perhaps, it reflects how a parent might have to be performative to help their kids cope with loss? It's the kind of thing that a think piece like this can be written about.

Even if you didn’t love it, I’m proud of my recommendation because it’s a lesson that films don’t all come in the same form and they entertain in different ways. Sometimes, if you expand yourselves out of your comfort zone, you will be rewarded with a richer experience.

Top 20 Movie Scenes of 2023

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1. Bernstein Conducts at The Ely Cathedral Conducting Scene, Maestro­: Like most biopics, one of the selling points of Maestro is how much Bradley Cooper put his heart and soul into the role. It’s hard to tell if the anecdote about how he wanted to be a conductor as a kid is true, but he certainly mastered this esoteric art for the film. In a scene shot in Ely Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra, Cooper (the director) makes the brilliant decision to shoot Bernstein’s highly animated conducting largely with the camera’s focus on the director as the camera zooms in and then outward of its principal subject.

2. The Climactic Negotiation, Tetris: Who would have thought a film about intellectual rights could be so thrilling. The film follows a Dutch entrepreneur (Taron Eggerton) who mortgages his house and future in his quest behind the Iron Curtain to secure the rights to the titular game. The film’s climactic scene features a cross-cutting between our protagonist, the an amoral father-son (Anthony Boyle and Roger Allam) conglomerate who screwed him over, and a befuddled middle-man (Tobey Jones) as they try to make their case in darkened rooms with the KGB breathing down their necks. Although fictional, the negotiation is topped off with a chase out of the country a la Argo.

3. Diana Makes it to Land, Nyad: The docudrama chronicling Diana Nyad’s historic 2013 swim from Cuba to Key West has an ending that’s pre-ordained. The challenge, therefore, is to sell the audience on the strength of the two key relationships in the film: One between two best friends (Jodie Foster as trainer Bonnie Stoil) and another with a foil tempering her unound optimism (the boat’s captain played by Rhys Ifans). This all comes to fruition at the sight of Diana Nyad making it onto land after 50-straight hours of swimming. She’s so dazed that she can’t make the final steps without Bonnie coaching her step by step, until the two fall into an embrace (shortly joined by her captain). A litmus test of emotion-driven films is how well one interprets the power of their ending. This one hits.

4. The Cowboy Dances with the School Teacher, Asteroid City: Like all of Wes Anderson’s big ensemble films, Asteroid City has a few characters providing the central story and a lot of characters who are sprinkled in to provide different dashes of color. The marmish school teacher (Maya Hawke) and the rugged cowboy (Rupert Fiend) exhibit the kind of sexual chemistry that seems destined by the Western tropes that encoded these caricatures in the first place. Then again, they exist in a Wes Anderson movie which often keeps the characters in a rigid state of introspection. Fortunately, spontaneity wins out and the pair share a very spirited dance with virtually no segue beforehand.

5. Latte’s “Wipe Out” Dance, Fool’s Paradise: Charlie Day’s Fool’s Paradise combines the physical comedy of the silent clowns, with the comedies about idiot savants who fail upwards like Being There and Broadway Danny Rose. In this pivotal scene at a Hollywood party, the song “Wipe Out” plays and our previously catatonic hero suddenly awakens like a wind-up toy. He loses all inhibitions as his limbs flail widely through a crowded party and dances on a the ledge of a skyscraper, before falling into a pool. In a possible homage to The Graduate, Latte sinks to the bottom with a sense of childlike wonder.

6. Elizabeth Reveals Her Voyeurism in a Talk on Method Acting, May December- Iconoclast director Todd Haynes’s latest film challenges us to think about how we classify people as pariahs in our society. The film centers around a doppelganger of 90s scandal Mary Kay Letourneau (Julianne Moore) who prayed on a middle school student and is still married to her victim (Chris Melton) 25 years later. Natalie Portman plays a method actor who travels to her home to study her for the role. But she’s not so innocent herself. In a speech given to the local high school, a version of Elizabeth creeped in that showed herself to be devious and her motives for capturing a subject to be less than pure.

7. Keith Shares a Drink with his Viewers, Dumb Money-Judging by how often the pandemic has been dealt with in real films, it appears that the public might have been too traumatized by it to enjoy seeing it presented on screen. But the pandemic gave way to moments of unique social celebration that are worth celebrating. The scheme of a bunch of have-nots to short-circuit the stock on Reddit is the kind of social media ingenuity that is hard to believe wasn’t strengthened by the pandemic. The emotional touch of ring leader Keith toasting his viewers on line and revealing to a group of (by some definitions) strangers that his sister just died: That’s something.

8. Richard Calls the CEO of the Company, Flaming Hot-This rather typical story little-engine-that-could docudrama tells of a janitor at the Frito-Lays company, Richard Montanez (Jesse Garcia), who invents a spicy new brand of snack food. The movie’s fairly by-the-book, but one stand-out scene distinguishes the film. After hitting the predictable red tape of a factory janitor who wants to revolutionize the company, Richard takes a gamble and calls headquarters from the janitor’s closet. He gets through to Tony Shalhoub’s CEO who responds with the kind of tempered curiosity one would expect. It’s a very effectively written scene. It also channels that frustration we all have in this age, where getting through to someone on the phone is a relic of the past.

9. The Score Powers Through the First Look at the Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Brothers-There’s very little chance this film will go down as a classic. That’s not to say that the score didn’t deliver the nostalgic feels for a 90s kid like myself, and that it didn’t have striking visuals to match. This is especially apparent when Mario gets his first site of Princess Peach’s castle and the full vista of the Mushroom Kingdom after being led there by Toad.

10. Ernest Meets His Fate in Tom White, Killers of the Flower Moon-At the 2005 Oscars, Chris Rock got flack for one of the least controversial comments ever made at an Awards ceremony: That actor Jude Law acts a lot. Aww, quaint times. When Killers of the Flower Moon gets nominated for an Oscar (a near certainty), Jessie Plemons will have the distinction of having been in an Oscar nominated film seven of the past nine years: In other words, a new Jude Law. Is this a good or bad thing? There’s a such thing as overexposure, but Plemons’ ability to say a lot with silences can certainly have a chilling effect when utilized correctly. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Plemons instantly establishes himself as the adult in the room when he visits Leonardo DiCaprio’s wreckless manchild and tells him in few words that there will now be consequences for his actions.

Ten Runners-Up in Slightly Less Detail

11. Next Goal Wins- Oscar Knightley revealing himself as a cameraman who moonlights as a federation soccer executive, kicking off a running gag of everyone taking on multiple jobs in the impoverished Samoan economy. 

12. Oppenheim-The very real explosion. Conducted with no CGI. Certainly worth the hype that the first half of the movie was building towards.

13. Holdovers-That electric kiss between Angus and Miss Crain’s niece. The niece was a bit childish and immature (she did finger paints, after all), but it had a great sense of youthgul playfulness

14. Asteroid City-Jason Schwartzman’s Augie photographing ScarJo’s Midge like an avant-garde French movie. 

15. Maestro- Maya Hawke initiating a dance to the Clap Song and everyone joining in; the family’s culminating in an emotionally messy hug.

16. Saltburn-Ollie’s cryptic seduction of Venetia. It’s the first time that Ollie’s undertones of deviousness are shown and it comes out of nowhere. 

17. Holdovers-Mary gifting Paul an open book. Mary also made a mark for being gracious in accepting the same gift that Paul gave to Angus, but subtly pointing out how it’s not a particularly thoughtful gift. 

18. Migraton-Carol Kane’s heron alternating between extremely threatening and highly accommodating to the protagonist duck family. Sometimes cartoon characters can endear me to them lightning-fast simply by being drawn in a certain way. This was one of those cases 

19. Dumb Money- Pete Davidson putting the breaks on being a douche for a second to bond with his brother over their dead sister, running, and their shared goals. 

20. Quiz Lady-Awkwafina’s winning the audition round on a gnarly acid trip.

Interview with Anna Brisbin AKA Brizzy Voices

Anna Brisbin is a Voice Over Artist with over 70 IMDB credits and over 2 million subscribers on YouTube. Check out her channel and don't forget to subscribe to mine.

Anatomy of a Pitch: Being a Star Trek Fan Before the Era of Popular Nerdom

This is one of approximately 15 articles I've pitched that I also posted on my Patreon where I detail how I went about the pitching process. Check out more of these.

 This pitch calls for a first-person essay, so I wanted to start it off like that.

I'll never forget the Sunday night in 8th grade when, in my media-regulated household, I snuck into my housekeeper's room I'm often hesitant about this part because it does acknowledge that I'm rich and I had a house keeper to sneak in some TV and fell upon this show I frame it as this show because I'm writing in the past tense and I barely knew of it when I watched it called Deep Space Nine. I had been only marginally familiar but somehow I was hooked because I'm writing for Star Trek magazine, I have to be positive about the show . I remember the specific episode ("Facets") and would keep going back week after week.

Though I was a couch potato who loved nothing more than relaxing in front of the screen as a kid, this was my first TV obsession. I had never experienced serialized storytelling, religious subthemes, science fiction, and such deep concepts What I meant to write was world-building. Since then, I've studied film history in college, enjoyed stints as a TV critics, started a YouTube channel and have been blogging on film and television since I graduated college over 15 years ago. Wanted to keep this part brief. No more than one sentence

But this was 1997 and I was in the boiler room Using fancy vocabulary and vivid imagery helps of middle school before wide-scale anti-bullying initiatives had taken over secondary education. After a couple years of being bullied, I was starting to tweak my image and marginally enjoy the social experience of school. I had a great fear that expressing an interest in Star Trek with the kids who signaled their fandom with t-shirts would be a massive step back

Therefore, my my first foray into TV obsession was one that I did in silence. My very first use of the internet was the message boards for Star Trek. The first password I ever logged was on IMDB so I could discuss Star Trek with others. When I vacationed with my grandparents for a month with no internet, I remember dying to come back to check what responses my board posts had got. I also peaked through books at the library on Star Trek (like the DS9: Technical Manual) though I often wanted to make sure no one was looking. I even had such a phobia of being a nerd that I didn't even want my parents thinking I was a Star Trek watcher and would change the channel if they passed by. I personally thought these touches were humorous (or at least cute) in very specific ways

As I gradually felt secure enough to discuss liking Star Trek, it made the connection more real. Though I can't claim as much bravery as the people who were out-and-proud about their fandom in the 1990s, I'm thankful for the way that nerd culture has been popularized through shows like the Big Bang Theory.

My first-person essay would discuss a little more on a personal level, what drove me to Star Trek, the way that Star Trek fandom might have been seen as negative in my youth, and how Star Trek transformed me from a passive couch potato into someone who critically watches TV..

I already sketched this out (maybe at 50%), so this is simply saying where you'd add more info

I might also draw from research over nerd culture: Certain pop culture like Saturday Night Live sketches, comedy routines, or sitcom episodes (3rd Rock from the Sun's convention episode with George Takei, for example) that initially stigmatized nerds. Showing I'd done my homework, although the nice part of this was that I thought it up in 10 seconds. You don't want to spend the whole day on a pitch you don't know will result in greenlighting Additionally, I'd like oops, I spelled this wrong, I did proofread but sometimes you can't catch anything at the antithesis of that movement: conventions that might have integrated more and more hobbies/interests so that everyone became a nerd of one thing or another; The Big Bang Theory; whatever else I might find,  Admitting that I don't know everything, but hopefully showing enough that I do know....two advantages of this is, you want to fire off pitches quickly before you burn out, and you want to be flexible about what they'd want to see more of anyway   etc.

Sincerely,

Orrin Konheim

This might be my best combination of first-person and film review:

https://sophomorecritic.blogspot.com/2023/01/other-peoples-money-1991-capitalism-at.html

Pop Culture Clips:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/02/evolution-star-trek-franchise-says-shifting-tv-landscape/

https://www.tvfanatic.com/2020/07/what-if-parks-and-recreation-had-stayed-closer-to-its-original-t/

https://fanfare.pub/snls-most-talented-cast-the-ups-and-downsides-of-the-1991-season-15c66d6d4dcd

First person essays:

https://thezebra.org/2020/04/27/sometimes-waiting-is-the-hardest-part-one-writers-experience-with-fear-delay-and-a-virus-with-no-name/

https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/bureaucrat-mom-konheim/