If we peel back all of the layers of Asteroid City we discover the paradox of the director – specifically, how one can truthfully portray the chaos of the world while still working within film, a medium that itself calls for tight control and planning at every step.

Wonderlands and odysseys come in so many forms. Despite how different these three movies are and how different the motives of each character, we can see overlap in how the stories play out: a goal out of reach and a maze with no clear answer.

Practically all of the jokes in The French Dispatch exist on a sort of intellectually tickling plane that are amusing when you think about them after the fact but not exactly hilarious to behold. It’s Wes Anderson’s at his most irreverent without ever being laugh-out-loud funny. You know, just like a New Yorker cartoon.

What do Shia LaBeouf, Joanna Hogg and Pedro Almodovar all have in common? Their latest films prove they are all students of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Psychomagic–a shamanic psychotherapy that helps to heal the soul through poetic expression.

Jim Jarmusch seems downright mad about our collective complacency and emotional compartmentalization towards the world. He’s hoping that if he dresses it up real nice in a fun, mainstream package, maybe you’ll get mad too.

This week on the podcast: Dan, Jenna and Veronica take a compare-and-contrast look at the original Suspiria, as well as the 2018 companion piece.

With the character of Dr Klemperer, Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich make an assumption of guilt that should be unpacked. In weighing the insinuations of this storyline, Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi comes to mind.