Don't Look Up

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ProfX
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Don't Look Up

Post by ProfX »

... is a comedy film on Netflix. But there is a reason I am posting this in Politics, not Entertainment.

'Don't Look Up' delivers a scathing satire that occasionally veers off course
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/25/entertai ... index.html

In a grand science fiction tradition, "Don't Look Up" uses a disaster-movie framework as a metaphor for a reality-based crisis, with a huge comet hurtling toward Earth as a surrogate for indifference to addressing climate change. Yet this star-studded, extremely provocative satire at times veers off course itself, partially undermining its admirable qualities with the broadness of its tone.

At its core, writer-director Adam McKay (who wrote the script with journalist/activist David Sirota) delivers a very pointed treatise on the dysfunctional state of current politics and media, in which everyone is so myopic as to be unable to focus on an existential threat. The title reflects the inevitable endpoint of that, with a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach to impending doom.

The window into that absurdity comes when astronomy professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his PhD. student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover the comet, whose trajectory will lead to a direct collision with Earth in a little over six months.

Understandably alarmed, their findings quickly reach the White House, where the president (Meryl Streep, poorly served by the ridiculousness of her character) is too preoccupied with her endangered Supreme Court pick to focus on what Randall describes as an extinction-level event. After fruitless back and forth, she concludes that they'll "sit tight and assess" the situation.

From there, "Don't Look Up" is off to the races with a scathing indictment of everything about our media and political ecosystem, from the happy-talk news show (anchored by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett, standing out as especially self-absorbed TV anchors) to websites preoccupied with traffic and social-media memes.

McKay and Sirota deliver a spot-on attack on how easily distracted people (especially in media) are, fixating on Kate's hair and clothes and ignoring the substance of her message.

The attempts to make that point, however, careen wildly in different directions, from a tech billionaire (Mark Rylance, adopting a not-of-this-world accent) who sees opportunities to cash in on the comet's natural resources to the president's chief of staff (Jonah Hill), who can only see the threat in terms of how it might impact the midterm elections.

[snip]

As was clearly its intention, "Don't Look Up" uses satire to spur a conversation about potentially ignoring a crisis until it's too late. It's a sobering message, but one that comes barreling toward us through the lens of an uneven movie.

[snip][end]

I watched it. I personally think it's a commentary on another crisis that was ignored -- that of the COVID pandemic.

But in general, it's a satire of the way a crisis gets ignored in our society because of its short-sightedness and people interested in bullshit rather than listening to what scientific experts say. The astronomers who found the comet headed to earth are invited to go on a talk show, and right before their interview begins, the hosts say "make sure to keep it light". :roll:
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
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Libertas
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by Libertas »

ProfX wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:06 pm ... is a comedy film on Netflix. But there is a reason I am posting this in Politics, not Entertainment.

'Don't Look Up' delivers a scathing satire that occasionally veers off course
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/25/entertai ... index.html

In a grand science fiction tradition, "Don't Look Up" uses a disaster-movie framework as a metaphor for a reality-based crisis, with a huge comet hurtling toward Earth as a surrogate for indifference to addressing climate change. Yet this star-studded, extremely provocative satire at times veers off course itself, partially undermining its admirable qualities with the broadness of its tone.

At its core, writer-director Adam McKay (who wrote the script with journalist/activist David Sirota) delivers a very pointed treatise on the dysfunctional state of current politics and media, in which everyone is so myopic as to be unable to focus on an existential threat. The title reflects the inevitable endpoint of that, with a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach to impending doom.

The window into that absurdity comes when astronomy professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his PhD. student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover the comet, whose trajectory will lead to a direct collision with Earth in a little over six months.

Understandably alarmed, their findings quickly reach the White House, where the president (Meryl Streep, poorly served by the ridiculousness of her character) is too preoccupied with her endangered Supreme Court pick to focus on what Randall describes as an extinction-level event. After fruitless back and forth, she concludes that they'll "sit tight and assess" the situation.

From there, "Don't Look Up" is off to the races with a scathing indictment of everything about our media and political ecosystem, from the happy-talk news show (anchored by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett, standing out as especially self-absorbed TV anchors) to websites preoccupied with traffic and social-media memes.

McKay and Sirota deliver a spot-on attack on how easily distracted people (especially in media) are, fixating on Kate's hair and clothes and ignoring the substance of her message.

The attempts to make that point, however, careen wildly in different directions, from a tech billionaire (Mark Rylance, adopting a not-of-this-world accent) who sees opportunities to cash in on the comet's natural resources to the president's chief of staff (Jonah Hill), who can only see the threat in terms of how it might impact the midterm elections.

[snip]

As was clearly its intention, "Don't Look Up" uses satire to spur a conversation about potentially ignoring a crisis until it's too late. It's a sobering message, but one that comes barreling toward us through the lens of an uneven movie.

[snip][end]

I watched it. I personally think it's a commentary on another crisis that was ignored -- that of the COVID pandemic.

But in general, it's a satire of the way a crisis gets ignored in our society because of its short-sightedness and people interested in bullshit rather than listening to what scientific experts say. The astronomers who found the comet headed to earth are invited to go on a talk show, and right before their interview begins, the hosts say "make sure to keep it light". :roll:
That dropped today?

My joke to my son is this is about a comet hitting the earth, a true story, I guess that means we know how it ends :lol:
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Libertas
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by Libertas »

Also if this did happen in real life Republicans Trumper‘s would say it’s not real they wouldn’t believe the science

SPOILER

I said the above before I watched movie and now I’ve watched the movie and of course that’s what it’s about.
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rainwater
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by rainwater »

i saw it.

id call it sci fi but...except...its too modern day humanly real.
Who are these..flag-sucking halfwits fleeced fooled by stupid little rich kids They speak for all that is cruel stupid They are racists hate mongers I piss down the throats of these Nazis Im too old to worry whether they like it. Fuck them.
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by ZoWie »

Comets are not extinction level events. We have giant asteroids and stupid humans fucking around with nuclear bombs for those.

Comets are basically dirty snowballs with a few little rocks in them. They melt and break up in the atmosphere, creating meteor storms that will cause a lot of big bangs and fires but not end entire species.

The premise of the movie has something to it, though, if done right, which it sounds like this one didn't do. The human capacity for self-delusion in political situations is currently proving itself to be asymptotic at infinity.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Libertas
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by Libertas »

ZoWie wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 1:34 pm Comets are not extinction level events. We have giant asteroids and stupid humans fucking around with nuclear bombs for those.

Comets are basically dirty snowballs with a few little rocks in them. They melt and break up in the atmosphere, creating meteor storms that will cause a lot of big bangs and fires but not end entire species.

The premise of the movie has something to it, though, if done right, which it sounds like this one didn't do. The human capacity for self-delusion in political situations is currently proving itself to be asymptotic at infinity.
The comet was the virus, it was using the comet to show people would not even believe that until they saw it with their own eyes

and even then some didnt. It was not the great movie you would expect from the people making it and the cast, but it was fun.
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ProfX
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by ProfX »

ZoWie wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 1:34 pm Comets are not extinction level events.
It looks like one slammed into Tunguska in 1908. (I know this is still being debated. Most of the eyewitnesses were reindeer.)

Extinction level event? Nah. But if something like that slammed into Manhattan ... millions and millions dead.

I kinda would worry, at least for a lot of human lives, if not the human race. But ultimately, the thing is really being used as a metaphor, and I agree with that point.

As is mentioned several times in the film, people keep questioning the existence of this comet hurtling toward Earth, when all they have to do is "look up" and see it even with the naked eye (as it approaches, you no longer need a telescope). It's more metaphor than anything else ...

"Denial is not just a river in Egypt"
"COVID is just the flu" :D "It'll disappear like magic in the spring" :roll:
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
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ZoWie
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by ZoWie »

I understand the metaphor perfectly, and I like it. As I noted, the behavior seen in this country and to a lesser extent in some others is very similar, on a smaller scale. The capacity for denial seems infinite right now, and that is going to change the way an awful lot of people think about the consequences of ignorance. I can see an ultimate mainstreaming of this view. The green lighting of this script indicates that one of the most timid businesses in existence found something marketable here. That, alone, is noteworthy, and provides evidence that the idea WILL mainstream and probably sooner, not later.

I am reminded of the fake war in Wag the Dog. That was a very subversive movie, and it was the star power and the sheer genius of the story's cinematic adaptation that made that one a hit, and put the idea of presidential use of media deception into the public consciousness. It was a very funny movie, and a potent weapon later on in screenings by groups opposed to bush's lies about Iraq supporting 9/11 style attacks and building covert WMD.

The point is that a subversive story has a better chance when it's done with full cinematic skill and with star power. It will happen. I suspect that the hit movie about this period in our country's decline is still in the thinking phase though.

---

One theory for Tunguska is indeed that a comet nucleus detonated in the atmosphere. The damage was similar to the air burst of a very large fusion device, larger I think than the record 50 MT tested in the 1960s, but still comprehensible. Indeed it would kill tens of millions in a populated area. Still, not an extinction level event.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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Libertas
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by Libertas »

ZoWie wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:03 pm I understand the metaphor perfectly, and I like it. As I noted, the behavior seen in this country and to a lesser extent in some others is very similar, on a smaller scale. The capacity for denial seems infinite right now, and that is going to change the way an awful lot of people think about the consequences of ignorance. I can see an ultimate mainstreaming of this view. The green lighting of this script indicates that one of the most timid businesses in existence found something marketable here. That, alone, is noteworthy, and provides evidence that the idea WILL mainstream and probably sooner, not later.

I am reminded of the fake war in Wag the Dog. That was a very subversive movie, and it was the star power and the sheer genius of the story's cinematic adaptation that made that one a hit, and put the idea of presidential use of media deception into the public consciousness. It was a very funny movie, and a potent weapon later on in screenings by groups opposed to bush's lies about Iraq supporting 9/11 style attacks and building covert WMD.

The point is that a subversive story has a better chance when it's done with full cinematic skill and with star power. It will happen. I suspect that the hit movie about this period in our country's decline is still in the thinking phase though.

---

One theory for Tunguska is indeed that a comet nucleus detonated in the atmosphere. The damage was similar to the air burst of a very large fusion device, larger I think than the record 50 MT tested in the 1960s, but still comprehensible. Indeed it would kill tens of millions in a populated area. Still, not an extinction level event.
I knew you understood it, I was just adding my two cents. I was proud of myself that even before I watched I assumed that would be the message.
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Re: Don't Look Up

Post by Glennfs »

My daughter's loved it my wife didn't.
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