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DO NOT DETONATE: In the Orbit of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City

Jun 2 — Jun 16, 2023

When organizing a new anthology of writing connected to Wes Anderson’s latest film, Asteroid City, book editor Jake Perlin and Anderson took a different approach than in the volumes for his previous films The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch. While those collections were built around specific references for those films, the new book DO NOT DETONATE Without Presidential Approval, A Portfolio on the Subjects of Mid-century Cinema, the Broadway Stage and the American West (published by Pushkin Press) is, in Anderson’s words, “more about the atmosphere” of the film. Set in a small western town in the 1950s, Asteroid City was inspired, directly or indirectly, by a variety of films, many of which are touched upon in either new essays or classic writing. This series, organized by Perlin, brings together a selection of titles featured in the book, which evoke the historical or social or fantastical milieu of Asteroid City. 

Pictured above: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

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Past Films in Series

A group of people shot from behind stand on a runway as a bright orange light casts their long shadows on the ground

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A brunette woman with short hair looks out a window

Asteroid City
A man in a sharp suit and spectacles holds his lapel as two men behind him film him with a camera

Three Classics by the Maysles Brothers: Showman, Meet Marlon Brando, A Visit with Truman Capote
A man in a hat since in the desert by the side of a rocky mountain wall, holding his injured leg.

Inferno (3-D)
A group of people shot from behind stand on a runway as a bright orange light casts their long shadows on the ground

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A one-armed man in a black suit and fedora stands on a railroad track in the middle of nowhere against a blue sky

Bad Day at Black Rock
A man in shadow in a motel room wearing a stetson in profile

Fool for Love
A man on a staircase grabs a woman by the arm as she tries to descend in front of him

A Streetcar Named Desire
A waitress in a diner and pink shirt bends over to talk to a customer in a denim shirt

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
A man and woman hold each other's heads uncomfortably tightly as they look off into the distance in a black and white image

Ace in the Hole
Black and white shot of a man and woman looking at each other in close up. He wears a cowboy hat

The Misfits
A man and woman in a diner at a table with a bottle of ketchup between them. He looks at her, she looks away.

Some Came Running