Asteroid City Review

BY ALEX DE VORE alex@sfreporter.com

Filmmaker Wes Anderson returns at his pastel-laden Wes Anderson-iest with Asteroid City, an achingly beautiful film that either says very little or buries its subtext between so much desert strata it can be hard to unearth.

Presented as a television documentary about the making of a play (and a sort of dreamy best case scenario version of that play), Asteroid City shifts between realities deftly, even funnily, though without a clearcut message or theme (isolation, maybe, or smallness?). Anchoring oneself to its characters feels more challenging than welcoming. After all, if this TV broadcast delving into the workings of a play which is then presented as a film wanted us to connect with anyone, maybe Anderson wouldn’t have begun by professing so emphatically that none of it is real—nor would he go to such great lengths to remind us so often throughout. Anderson stacks the cast with his regulars including Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldlbum. But these people represent a fraction of the players on hand, many of whom get lost in the fast-paced shuffle of the minimalist story.

Asteroid City embraces intrigue in its opening minutes wherein its playwright (Edward Norton) de-

+ GORGEOUS ANIMATION; COOL CHARACTER DESIGN - IMMIGRATION ELEMENT TOO VAGUE scribes how he sees the staging for his reportedly popular work of the same name. Someplace in the desert lies Asteroid City, where a group of mid-pubescent scientists have arrived to claim government-funded accolades for their purportedly impressive works in science. We spend time with each of them, and their sprawling families—including the daughter of a movie star played by Scarlett Johansson—though much of our focus lies with the Steenbeck family’s Woodrow (Jake Ryan), whose mother recently died, and his father, Augie (Schwartzman), who develops a connection with the movie star. Antics ensue as the characters speak like Gilmore Girls (read, fast and samey) and the precious pastel color scheme highlights the bitter emptiness of the desert. As Norton says in his first lines, the light is neither hot nor cold— but it is clean.

Pixar’s newest movie Elemental isn’t doing too hot at the box office. It had, in fact, the animation studio’s worst-ever opening weekend with a measly $25.9 million against a $200 million budget (that’s not even mentioning the $100 million in promotional costs). ‘Twas not much better for 2022’s Strange World, either. How, though, has this once-proud outfit fallen so far? It might have something to do with the city thing.

See, most of Disney and/or Pixar’s releases over the last couple decades—and really, most folks assume all of those company’s fully-CGI films are made by the same people even if they aren’t—a pattern emerges: It’s a city, but for cars; a city, but for animals; a city, but for dead folks; a city, but for element people. That last one’s the basis of Elemental, a starcrossed lovers thing mixed with the vaguest statement on immigration. Let’s face it, the different-kind-of-city thing has become tedious, and there are only so many times we can get a joke about how things would just plum work differently for a dude made out of water than they would for a human person.

Elemental follows Ember (Leah Lewis), a young fire woman who falls for a water guy named Wade (Mamoudou Athie), in a metropolis called Element City also populated by earth and air people. Ember is second generation, with her father Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and mother Cinder (Shila Ommi) having relocated before her birth from a place called Fireland.

Plot-wise, however, cleanliness seems an afterthought. We lose track of characters easily (save a strange and very funny school kid from a group marooned in Asteroid City as part of a field trip) and don’t get to know them in the slightest. Even Tom

Nobody pulled any brain muscles dreaming up the names of places or characters there, jeeze. Anyway, Ember’s family owns a shop that sells fire products for fire folks (they eat wood and drink lava, etc.), and it’s located smack-dab in a vaguely ethnic part of town where all the fire folks live. Is the fauxlture (a term I just invented for fictional cultures) Middle Eastern? Greek? Indian? Kind of all of the above, though not really any; and mostly the particulars are conveyed peripherally, through environmental storytelling. We know the dad worships a blue flame and the mom can literally smell love, we know they’ve had a hard road in building their lives and shop.

That’s why it stings so bad when Wade shows up in his role as city inspector. He might shut down the shop, but he agrees to help Ember deal with the red tape because he’s nice. What follows is a grab bag of tropes about believing in oneself, being open with your parents, taking a chance on love and...doing art, maybe? There’s also a water guy character that seems to be a nod to Rip Taylor, so it’s hard to keep track, really. Of course, there’s no real peril because these movies are so formulaic that even kids feel underestimated. In a world with those Spider-Verse movies—which seem borderline experimental compared to this—it might be time for Pixar to dig a little deeper and trust kids to grasp more complex themes than water+fire = probably not gonna work. For now, though, it seems like another tough blow for Good Dinosaur director Peter Sohn (that movie didn’t do so well, either), both economically and artistically. The idea, sadly, just isn’t very good. (ADV) Violet Crown, Regal, PG, 109 min.

FLAMIN’ HOT

5

+ WE LIKE CHIPS; GARCIA IS PRETTY FUNNY - ROMANTICIZATION OF BUSINESS

- UNSATISFYING; ENDS SUDDENLY

Hanks can’t elicit thrills as the father-in-law to Schwartzman’s widower Augie. Somewhere, in the distance, Margot Robbie stands by, waiting for her handful of lines—here comes Tilda Swinton, a stranger to the American Southwest just like the rest of ‘em.

Anderson-heads will be quick to defend the sparse storytelling, but beautiful or not, it’s frustrating to observe the man who crafted the dense and dark brilliance of Rushmore or the weird fun of Isle of Dogs lean so heavily into style over substance. Ateroid City sure is pretty, though, and fun-ish, too; or at least light-chuckle-funny. It ends with a whimper rather than a bang, though. Odd, that, for a film set outside an atom bomb test range. There are no answers, but looking back it’s hard to say if there were ever really questions, either.

Asteroid City

Directed by Anderson

With Schwartzman, Ryan, Johansson, Norton, Hanks, Brody, Swinton and Wright Violet Crown, PG-13, 105 min.

Despite the Los Angeles Times reporting in 2021 that Pepsico/Frito-Lay janitor-turned-exec Richard Montañez did not actually invent the enduringly popular Flamin’ Hot Cheeto snack, actor-turned-filmmaker Eva Longoria sails full steam ahead in her first feature, Flamin’ Hot, a feel-good biopic that might actually feel alright if the ultimate premise weren’t that a dude helped a mega-corporation figure out how to market to Brown folks better and thus make way more money.

Oh, it’s not that Longoria’s adaptation of Montañez’s book, Flamin’ Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man’s Rise from Janitor to Top Executive isn’t fun enough or heartwarming enough or even sincerely funny once or twice, more like it suffers under the weight of its own inaccuracies and formulaic storytelling. One assumes a movie based on real events will take artistic license and pad the truth, that’s a given. But knowing ahead of time that the central plot point—namely, Montañez purportedly bucked convention and corporate nay-sayers by calling up then-Pepsico top boss Roger Enrico to pitch a spicy chip—never actually happened ultimately cheapens the emotional beats, leaving viewers feeling as burned as the snack on which it’s based.

In Hot, Longoria follows Montañez from clever child entrepreneur selling his mom’s burritos at his elementary school to the executive suite at the Rancho

Cucamonga Frito-Lay plant in which he worked, making pit stops along the way at young parenthood, drug dealing and a complicated fatherly relationship. Oh, and he saves the chip factory and everyone’s jobs, too. Jesse Garcia (Quinceñera) plays the adult version of Montañez, a wide-eyed optimist who turns a janitor job into a learning opportunity and, along the way, teaches the ’90s corporate drones what it means to make a spicy snack, thereby tapping into the Chicano market like no mainstream company had before. Garcia narrates the film, too, and represents the best it has to offer, even if Gentefied star Annie Gonzalez does provide context and levity as Montañez’s wife, Judy. She just doesn’t have enough to work with, which often relegates her to pseudo-emotional moments before we get back to Richie eating elote while a light bulb flashes above his head.

Elsewhere, screen vets like Dennis Haysbert and Tony Shalhoub deliver lines such as, “You can do it, Richie!” Of course this film needs folks like that, but Shalhoub’s turn as Enrico feels like he was told to bring Santa Claus energy to his scenes, which makes for a certain cheesy warmth that seems unlikely for a top business guy in the ’90s—it’s weird.

Even so, you’d have to be heartless to not get a little pumped for the movie version of Montañez as he shakes things up and gets those hot chips made. New Mexicans might be proud to know it was filmed here, too. Still, if you go looking into the story too deeply, those feelings dissipate easily. Whoever invented those chips, good on ‘em, maybe, just...are we really supposed to root for big business? Gross. (ADV) Hulu, Disney+, PG-13, 99 min.

by Matt Jones

thanks”

48 1980s TV character Brewster

49 Home of the world’s tallest building for about six years

51 Like Rembrandt

52 “Alice’s Restaurant” singer Guthrie 53 Pop-up breakfast food? 56 Director Ang 58 Betty White’s character on “The Golden Girls”

61 Indian restaurant basketful

62 “Another Green World” composer Brian 63 School poster paper 64 Celtic great Larry

65 Tax form ID

66 “Why am I included in this?”

67 A&E component

Down

1 Baby buggy, to Brits

2 Absolute sovereignty

3 Espionage device, pre-digital era

5 Yellowstone grazers

13 Olive’s guy

19 Miracle-___ (plant food brand)

21 Charles, now

24 “___ Flubber” (movie sequel)

25 Carried along, colloquially

26 Fond du ___, Wisconsin

27 Koln complaint

28 Goes fast

29 ___ Trinket (Elizabeth Banks, in “The Hunger Games”)

30 Straightforward

33 As a friend, in Paris

34 Completely broken

38 Author Upton

39 German Y.A. fantasy series adapted into a 2008 movie

40 Blue, in jigsaw puzzles, often

42 Two Truths and a ___ (icebreaker game)

43 Orchestral work

44 Disconcerting looks

45 Producer Spelling and others

46 Subject of the article “How Tom Hanks Made Us Cry Over a Volleyball”

50 “The Raven” author

51 Ram maker

53 City northeast of Reno

54 Chutzpah

55 Eat away (at)

57 Remnants

12 “Kimberly ___” (2023 Best Musical Tony winner)

59 On the double 60“Boo-___!”

61Hawks’ and Bucks’ org.

Psychics

Mind Body Spirit

Rob Brezsny Week of June 28th

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Visionary author Peter McWilliams wrote, “One of the most enjoyable aspects of solitude is doing what you want when you want to do it, with the absolute freedom to change what you’re doing at will. Solitude removes all the ‘negotiating’ we need to do when we’re with others.” I’ll add a caveat: Some of us have more to learn about enjoying solitude. We may experience it as a loss or deprivation. But here’s the good news, Aries: In the coming weeks, you will be extra inspired to cultivate the benefits that come from being alone.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The 18th-century French engineer Étienne Bottineau invented nauscopy, the art of detecting sailing ships at a great distance, well beyond the horizon. This was before the invention of radar. Bottineau said his skill was not rooted in sorcery or luck, but from his careful study of changes in the atmosphere, wind, and sea. Did you guess that Bottineau was a Taurus? Your tribe has a special capacity for arriving at seemingly magical understandings by harnessing your sensitivity to natural signals. Your intuition thrives as you closely observe the practical details of how the world works. This superpower will be at a peak in the coming weeks.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): According to a Welsh proverb, “Three fears weaken the heart: fear of the truth; fear of the devil; fear of poverty.” I suspect the first of those three is most likely to worm its way into your awareness during the coming weeks. So let’s see what we can do to diminish its power over you. Here’s one possibility: Believe me when I tell you that even if the truth’s arrival is initially disturbing or disruptive, it will ultimately be healing and liberating. It should be welcomed, not feared.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Hexes nullified! Jinxes abolished! Demons banished! Adversaries outwitted! Liabilities diminished! Bad habits replaced with good habits! These are some of the glorious developments possible for you in the coming months, Cancerian. Am I exaggerating? Maybe a little. But if so, not much. In my vision of your future, you will be the embodiment of a lucky charm and a repository of blessed mojo. You are embarking on a phase when it will make logical sense to be an optimist. Can you sweep all the dross and mess out of your sphere? No, but I bet you can do at least 80 percent.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the book Curious Facts in the History of Insects, Frank Cowan tells a perhaps legendary story about how mayors were selected in the medieval Swedish town of Hurdenburg. The candidates would set their chins on a table with their long beards spread out in front of them. A louse, a tiny parasitic insect, would be put in the middle of the table. Whichever beard the creature crawled to and chose as its new landing spot would reveal the man who would become the town’s new leader. I beg you not to do anything like this, Leo. The decisions you and your allies make should be grounded in good evidence and sound reason, not blind chance. And please avoid parasitical influences completely.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I rebel against the gurus and teachers who tell us our stories are delusional indulgences that interfere with our enlightenment. I reject their insistence that our personal tales are distractions from our spiritual work. Virgo author A. S. Byatt speaks for me: “Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.” I love and honor the stories of my own destiny, and I encourage you to love and honor yours. Having said that, I will let you know that now is an excellent time to jettison the stories that feel demoralizing and draining—even as you celebrate the stories that embody your genuine beauty. For extra credit: Tell the soulful stories of your life to anyone who is receptive.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the Mayan calendar, each of the 20 day names is associated with a natural phenomenon. The day called Kawak is paired with rainstorms. Ik’ is connected with wind and breath. Kab’an is earth, Manik’ is deer, and Chikchan is the snake. Now would be a great time for you to engage in an imaginative exercise inspired by the Mayans. Why? Because this is an ideal phase of your cycle to break up your routine, to reinvent the regular rhythm, to introduce innovations in how you experience the flow of the time. Just for fun, why not give each of the next 14 days a playful nickname or descriptor? This Friday could be Crescent Moon, for example. Saturday might be Wonderment, Sunday can be Dazzle Sweet, and Monday Good Darkness.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): From 998 till 1030, Scorpioborn leader Mahmud Ghaznavi ruled the vast Ghaznavid empire, which stretched from current-day Iran to central Asia and northwestern India. Like so many of history’s strong men, he was obsessed with military conquest. Unlike many others, though, he treasured culture and learning. You’ve heard of poet laureates? He had 400 of them. According to some tales, he rewarded one wordsmith with a mouthful of pearls. In accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to be more like the Mahmud who loved beauty and art and less like the Mahmud who enjoyed fighting. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to fill your world with grace and elegance and magnificence.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): About 1,740 years ago, before she became a Catholic saint, Margaret of Antioch got swallowed whole by Satan, who was disguised as a dragon. Or so the old story goes. But Margaret was undaunted. There in the beast’s innards, Margaret calmly made the sign of the cross over and over with her right hand. Meanwhile, the wooden cross in her left hand magically swelled to an enormous size that ruptured the beast, enabling her to escape. After that, because of her triumph, expectant mothers and women in labor regarded Margaret as their patron saint. Your upcoming test won’t be anywhere near as demanding as hers, Sagittarius, but I bet you will ace it—and ultimately garner sweet rewards.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn-born Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was an astronomer and mathematician who was an instrumental innovator in the Scientific Revolution. Among his many breakthrough accomplishments were his insights about the laws of planetary motion. Books he wrote were crucial forerunners of Isaac Newton’s theories about gravitation. But here’s an unexpected twist: Kepler was also a practicing astrologer who interpreted the charts of many people, including three emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. In the spirit of Kepler’s ability to bridge seemingly opposing perspectives, Capricorn, I invite you to be a paragon of mediation and conciliation in the coming weeks. Always be looking for ways to heal splits and forge connections. Assume you have an extraordinary power to blend elements that no one can else can.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Dear Restless Runaway: During the next 10 months, life will offer you these invitations:

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1. Identify the land that excites you and stabilizes you.

2. Spend lots of relaxing time on that land.

3. Define the exact nature of the niche or situation where your talents and desires will be most gracefully expressed.

4. Take steps to create or gather the family you want. 5. Take steps to create or gather the community you want.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’d love you to be a deepfeeling, free-thinker in the coming weeks. I will cheer you on if you nurture your emotional intelligence as you liberate yourself from outmoded beliefs and opinions. Celebrate your precious sensitivity, dear Pisces, even as you use your fine mind to reevaluate your vision of what the future holds. It’s a perfect time to glory in rich sentiments and exult in creative ideas.

Homework: Find a way to sing as loudly and passionately as possible sometime soon.

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Chimney Sweeping

STATE OF NEW MEXICO

COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

Case No. D-101PB-2022-00183

IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF LEONARD GARDUNO, Deceased.

NOTICE OF HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT a hearing in this case has been set before the Honorable Bryan Biedscheid as follows: Date of Hearing: July 27, 2023

Time of Hearing: 3:30 p.m.

Place of Hearing: In-Person First Judicial District Court 225 Montezuma Ave., Santa Fe, NM 87501 Matter(s) to be Heard: Amended Petition for Adjudication of Intestacy and Formal Appointment of Personal Representative Length of Hearing: 30 Minutes Judicial Officer: Honorable Bryan Biedscheid

The District Court complies with the American with Disabilities Act. Counsel or selfrepresented litigants may notify the Clerk of the Court of the nature of the disability at least five (5) days before ANY hearing so appropriate accommodations may be made. Please contact us if an interpreter will be needed.

Terri S. Sossman, TCAA

STATE OF NEW MEXICO

COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT IN THE MATTER OF A PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME OF CHELSEA LEEANN BIGELOW

Case No.: D-101CV-2023-01331

NOTICE FOR CHANGE OF NAME

TAKE NOTICE that in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 40-8-1 through Sec. 40-8-3 NMSA 1978, et seq. The Petitioner Chelsea Leeann Bigelow will apply to the Honorable Matthew J. Wilson, District Judge of the First Judicial District at the Santa Fe Judicial Complex, 225 Montezuma Ave., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 11:30 a.m. on the 29th day of August, 2023 for an ORDER FOR CHANGE OF NAME from Chelsea Leeann Bigelow to Liam Russell.

KATHLEEN VIGIL, District Court Clerk By: Veronica Romero Padilla Deputy Court Clerk

Submitted by: Chelsea Bigelow Petitioner, Pro Se