Asteroid City (2023), directed by Wes Craven

A movie within a play within a TV show, it tells the story of a playwright, his play and some of the players. A crater where an asteroid hit the earth millennia ago is a minor tourist attraction for a tiny desert town. In 1955 it is hosting a junior space camp for young science achievers, which is interrupted by a strange visitation that traps all visitors in a military quarantine. The story within a story contains teen romance, troubled parent-child relationships and alien visitation within its typically Anderson absurdism. Mildly amusing, dialogue-heavy, with rapid and sometimes clever wordplay, the film is completely bonkers but quite entertaining. Tom Hanks, Scarlet Johansen, Steve Carell, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton and Adrien Brody are just a few of the stellar ensemble cast, with Margot Robbie and Jeff Goldblum featuring in cameos. The film references both Roswell and Nevada nuclear testing in a manner that sends up the public – and Hollywood - obsession with them. Chuckleworthy rather than laugh out loud, the wordiness wears and the quirky is in overdrive in a movie that is visually sumptuous but pretty forgettable.