Content Consumed: Asteroid City, Scott Pilgrim, White Lotus, and more

Helloooo! I’m on top of the world today. I’m finally NOT sick and I got to see Celebrity Memoir Book Club live in Portland last night. They read a Gwyneth Paltrow essay and it was perfect and they nailed the standup part of the show and all the games and I’m so happy! (Also, Claire and Ashley of CMBC said they’ve read Content Consumed! Huge win.)

In today’s edition of Content Consumed…
🌵 Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City trailer dropped
🌺 White Lotus S3 location speculation and confirmation
🎥 Scott Pilgrim anime announced with the original cast
📚 Book review: Your Driver Is Waiting

Wes Anderson‘s dream team

He’s done it again: made an extremely aesthetically-pleasing movie with an absurdly famous cast and a very gentle plot.

Here’s the trailer for Asteroid City, Anderson’s first film since 2021’s French Dispatch (which I watched yesterday).

The cast (and this is only half the list): Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, and Jeff Goldblum.

And think about this: reports says the cast and crew “were all bubbled together in a hotel, which was an old monastery” in the Spanish desert while filming. Can you imagine spending weeks with this group of people?

I’d toss away my life savings (to be fair, not an exorbitant amount of money) to experience that. Not because I love all of these actors, but for the culture. Fly-on-the-wall type of thing: put a dozen of the most talented people in Hollywood in one place for a month and what kinds of conversations do you get?

Anyways!!! Another point I must make: I love a director who has favorite actors. Anderson, Schwartzman, and Brody will always be a dream team. Much like Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz.

Looking forward to this. It comes out in June. It’s gonna be a great summer for movies. Barbie still ranks at the top of my 2023 summer movie list, btw.

White Lotus Season 3: Thailand

So, showrunner Mike White had previously hinted that Season 3 may take place in Asia and focus on “death and Eastern religion and spirituality.”

Now, it’s been confirmed to be Thailand! Which feels great. Hawaii to Sicily to Thailand: great stuff.

Each season has been set at a Four Seasons property, and there are four of those in Thailand.

But rumor has it to be a different hotel’s Phuket property, as made famous by a Lindsay Lohan Instagram post. Apparently, the Amanpura hotel just randomly shut down for two months—for what other reason besides making the whole place a film/TV set?

Supposedly it’s just a coincidence that both season 1 and season 2 were at Four Seasons properties.

Cheers to season 3, baby!

Scott Pilgrim, anime style

Well, Jason Schwartzman is having quite a week between Asteroid City and this.

An anime series based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels (and, of course, the movie) is coming to Netflix, with voice casting that reunites the original Scott Pilgrim vs. the World cast. Yup, even Marvel superstars Chris Evans and Brie Larson will be joining Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin, Alison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, and more to voice the new Netflix anime series.

Two possible outcomes:

• This anime version becomes a cult classic just as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World did.
• This is released and barely anyone watches it and we forget it soon.

Book review: Your Driver Is Waiting

I came into this novel with next-to-no expectations. The premise of Your Driver Is Waiting:

In this electrifyingly fierce and funny social satire — inspired by the iconic 1970s film Taxi Driver — a ride-share driver is barely holding it together on the hunt for love, dignity, and financial security…until she decides she’s done waiting.

It’s true, Damani is barely holding it together. Her father died over the fryer at his job just 6 months ago, her mother is so depressed that she can’t care for herself, they’re about to be evicted, Damani’s job doesn’t pay her fairly, the city is aflame with protests of all kinds… and then this white girl named Jolene comes along. Damani falls head-over-heels, obsessively in love with Jolene within 24 hours. She thinks she knows Jolene so well, so she brings Jolene to the activist HQ that Damani frequents with her activist friends (though Damani isn’t much of an activist herself). Of course, Jolene—despite her obtuse white girl style of activism—immediately calls the police when she hears Damani’s Black male friend talk about upcoming violent protests. For some reason, Damani is still obsessed and in love and won’t relax until she finds out why Jolene did this (hint: we never actually find out, but it doesn’t matter apparently, because it’s just summed up as performative allyship). Damani won’t let it go, and eventually gets violent herself.

This could’ve been amazing.

It could’ve been the biting social satire as it was advertised.

But it wasn’t.

The pacing was nonexistent. The plot was so drawn out—filler chapters about Damani’s workouts (?!) were exhausting. We get it: she’s a hot, tattooed Indian-American lesbian with great muscles! This same self-descriptor is endlessly repeated.

Also, Jolene is a terrible person and kind of an idiot and we, as the reader, never fully understand why Damani is even interested in her—let alone obsessed with her. Spoiler: the closing paragraph is Damani trying to confront Jolene again.

The good: the indignities of being an underpaid ride-share driver are well-written and interesting. Plenty of character diversity, especially LGBTQ+ and immigrant representation. The bits about how all the protests (Police brutality! Climate change! Immigration! Fair wages!) blend into one were timely.

But yeah… not worth the read for me. Two stars.

And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading. Love you guys. Be sure to subscribe to this column for more Content Consumed!

Cheers,
Casey

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