Asteroid City & No Hard Feelings

Wes Anderson makes visually striking, whimsical movies with large ensemble casts, and in that respect "Asteroid City" is very much a Wes Anderson movie. HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano have a friendly jousting match in this podcast episode, because she likes Anderson's movies more than Mike does. Set in 1955, "Asteroid City" takes place in a Southwestern town in which a TV drama is being filmed. It is sort of about that TV taping, and also sort of about atomic bombs, a Hollywood bombshell played by Scarlett Johansson, outer space aliens and who knows what all else. Mike agrees that it's great eye candy but otherwise finds it hollow and lacking narrative momentum. Even though she loves Wes Anderson's movies, even Marie has some quibbles about his latest. Marie and Mike also discuss the raunchy comedy "No Hard Feelings," in which Jennifer Lawrence plays a financially struggling, working-class woman who is hired by helicopter parents to "date" their innocent 19-year-old son (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he goes off to college. This highly uneven movie glosses over the ethical considerations of its prostitution premise, but the lead actors are solid and there are a few insightful and funny scenes.