‘Asteroid City’ has a spectacular Easter egg for Tim Burton fans
Wes Anderson uses his latest film, Asteroid City, to explore good, ol’ fashioned questions about life, death, and the very nature of existence — on our planet and beyond. And in one perfectly picked song, the director pays homage to one hell of a cult classic alien movie.
In the second act of Anderson’s desert-bound adventure, the eponymous city is abuzz from an extraterrestrial encounter, with the U.S. president deploying “Scrimmage Plan X” and enforcing a full quarantine on the town while investigations and interrogations are under way.
It’s in this scene that Anderson drops a reference to Tim Burton’s wildly strange and star-studded 1996 sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks! Remember Mars Attacks!? Think Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker smooching while functioning as decapitated alien experiments. Think Martin Short being brutally whacked by a big-haired alien seductress. Think Pam Grier as an overprotective mom slash bus driver, Danny DeVito as an obnoxious tourist, and Tom Jones piloting a plane after his performance of “It’s Not Unusual” is interrupted by aliens.
In Burton’s film, the invading Martians seem unstoppable; they’re blasting away with their ray guns, creating general chaos Gremlins-style — heck, they even assassinate the president (played by Jack Nicholson, natch). The key to their demise is discovered by accident when a Las Vegas teen named Richie (Lukas Haas, in an incredible Alien Sex Fiend T-shirt) goes to rescue his grandmother Florence (Sylvia Sidney, aka Juno from Beetlejuice) from her retirement home, which is also under Martian attack.
It just so happens that the song Florence is listening to, Slim Whitman’s 1952 “Indian Love Call,” is a particularly yodel-heavy tune that causes the aliens’ brains to explode inside their helmets. Richie thinks fast, playing the song on his car speakers as he drives through Vegas to a radio station, where the song is played around the world and ultimately saves humanity.
In Asteroid City, Anderson uses “Indian Love Call” as a song cue after the interrogation sequence, while primary teacher June Douglas (Maya Hawke) is attempting to reassure her inquisitive young class after the alien encounter. “America remains at peace!” she insists, offering an interesting echo of the Mars Attacks! aliens, whose human language was limited to “We come in peace!”
Though Asteroid City does move into a slightly more militaristic-slash-touristy frenzy around the alien’s fleeting visit, it never goes anywhere near the chaos of Mars Attacks! In fact, “Indian Love Call” appears right before a scene with cowboy Montana (Rupert Friend) joining the legendary Seu Jorge and Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker for a surefire hootenanny.
“I reckon that alien didn’t mean no harm,” says Montana. “No, he ain’t American. No, he ain’t a creature of God’s Earth, but he’s a creature of somewhere.”
It’s light years away from the brain-exploding pandemonium of Mars Attacks! but it’s still a spectacular detail for fans of B-movie, sci-fi weirdness.
Asteroid City opens in select theaters June 16, expanding nationwide on June 23.