Don't Look Up (Adam McKay) [Netflix]

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118371742#Comment_118371742

That was an old Tommy Cooper joke. Who robbed it from who?

Ardent

Edit: stupid website error.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382930#Comment_118382930

There is something to that alright, but the irony is part of the satire in this was that we don’t have an attention span anymore, and the news casters were just scattergun as is the modern mind because of the endless bombardment of catastrophes around the world in the news feed.

My feeling is that society had been dumbed down a lot in the last decade or so solely from social media, and we are collectively behaving in a dumber way then the Network era, and so perhaps this is why the satire was hitting like a tank to a knife fight, as this is todays world. Nuance is almost unacceptable!

Ardent

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118377086#Comment_118377086

Agree completely. Thought he was horribly miscast.

I can sum up the movie in one word; Meh.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382633#Comment_118382633

Honestly a lot of my problems with the film are the same I had with Vice and The Big Short: I don’t like McKay’s writing or directing :) I think he mistakes bombarding the viewer with rapidly edited images and gimmicky graphical flourishes as a coherent style. I also don’t find his writing funny or insightful - I saw this and Licorice Pizza in the same 24 hour stretch, and the latter’s the one that had me laughing out loud regularly. He’s certainly not up to the standards of the other filmmakers you mention in your post. But film aesthetics are such a subjective thing, so I certainly have no problem with anyone who does like it!

If I have an extra level of irritation about this film is that at least some of the filmmakers clearly think they’ve made a big, important environmental film and anyone who doesn’t like it or ‘doesn’t get it’ is an idiot or a ‘character in the film’ - it was a niggling sense I had watching the film, and alas it has very much been borne out by some of the comments they’ve made. I think the film punches down as much as it punches up, which I think is a bit of a fatal mistake. For me, the urgency of climate action is so deep that pointing and laughing at the normal people who aren’t on board seems like a counterproductive exercise. We should be trying desperately to win them over, not using some of the biggest movie stars in the world to mock them. I can’t quite shake the feeling the film is guilty of some of the very same crimes it purports to satirise.

Climate inaction is a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Shallow liberal platitudes, inaction and complacency deserve to be called out just as much as active conservative sabotage of the climate agenda. So I have no problem with some of the targets targeted here being targeted (that’s a lot of ‘target’ in one sentence :p), and I certainly have no problem with ‘state of the nation’ style cinematic statements when done well. But aside from some of the satire here being often misjudged and unfunny (Streep, Rylance and Blanchett all playing lazy or half-realised amalgams of recognisable real-world figures), I ultimately just think it’s kind of a badly made movie. And the sneering public dismissal by the filmmakers of anyone who doesn’t like it leaves a particularly sour taste on top of the issues I had with the movie itself. It’s very possible to make a bad movie about an important, worthy issue.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118383782#Comment_118383782

Fair points on the climate change - I was unaware of the agenda in this case. I went in blind and honestly didnt think about climate change once during the film, so if thats the agenda i would agree it failed.

As a social commentary though it was as good as Rob Crosses 170 check out tonight!

kerplun k

Not a great film. Unfortunately it’s exactly what the trailer showed. It’s too far detached from reality to enjoy. I’m 100% sure if we found out we were 6 months away from a commit collision this is not how we would react. It’s poorly edited, over indulgent, unrealistic, preachy, biased nonsense. But the worst thing is that while McKay is so intent on lecturing the audience, he offers absolutely no substance to it. It’s hollow, it’s shallow and I didn’t like it.

on a more positive note, it’s well acted, but even here Mark Rylance drops the ball with his poor Elon Musk impersonation.

El Gato De Negocios

As a social commentary exercise of the world we now live in it was absolutely spot on but other than that, it just didn't do it for me.

trashcan

Haven’t read this thread fully, in case of spoilers, but I’ve only heard of this the other night, saw the trailer when watching Narcos Mexico. I’m planning to check this out, probably tomorrow night.

fritzelly

Jaysus - when did people stop watching films except to nit pick every element of it instead of just enjoying the ride and having a laugh or scream

We all get it - there was a message, but who cares if you laughed at it no matter what camp you are in. Pretty much sums up the film!

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384971#Comment_118384971

A fine statement…. Sadly did not apply to this movie. Hardly Team America which both camps laughed at, and laughed a lot at. And if wanted to nitpick, I would say something like the “where do we sit” scene on the transport was manufactured. C-5s have a ladder upstairs to 75 or so airliner seats. That wasn’t my issue with the movie,though.

Wife decided to cue it up for one of our extremely rare movie watching nights, and I figured good cast, seems popular, why not? Serves me right for not reading reviews. It’s a 90minute film that they managed to squeeze into nearly two and a half hours. After watching, I looked up reviews to see what the big deal was, and one review put it perfectly when it said you have to force yourself to watch it to the end.

Were there some good bits? Yes. Mainly at the beginning. Few and far between after that. The movie was as subtle in its allegories as a blow with a twelve pound fine adjusting tool, and I’m sorry, I have more intelligence than that. So does the wife. It is possible to be hilariously satirical about politics or government without being dumb. Yes Minister would be a great example of that. It made some points (which likely are only going to either sway nobody or confirm pre-held beliefs), but belabored them immensely. It’s not that you can’t have “dumb” sociological commentary, Idiocracy was great, but that also didn’t try to take itself anywhere near as seriously as “don’t look up” does, DLU is neither fish nor fowl.

Jason needed to be deleted, he served no point at all. The character was so over the top as to be entirely unfunny, insofar as he played any point at all to move scenes along it could have been done just as well by a “straight” character. Again, he insulted our intelligence. I have a similar problem with “Space Force”, in a series where we are supposed to relate to intelligent, reasonable people, farcical plot points or characterizations kill it.

My recommendation, don’t waste your evening on this movie. If you fly intercontinental a lot (I do) and there’s nothing more appealing on the in flight entertainment to pass the time while you are stuck there, it’s worth the watch.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382851#Comment_118382851

The only way to get Conservative trump voters to watch this movie would be to make it so subtle that they would completely miss the point of the movie thereby defeating its entire purpose

Fysh

I got half an hour into this and decided to bail on it there. It's not that it's bad, necessarily, but it's not what I was hoping for - what I saw was very much broad parody in the Scary Movie vein rather than the sharper satire I was hoping for, with a baggy, unrefined feel like a series of SNL sketches strung together. A lot of that is down to my taste in comedies, though.

The couple of jokes that had promise got over-explained in a way that, for me, neutered them - e.g. the bit with the General collecting money for the snacks, or the thing about Jonah Hill's character being a nepotism appointment. In both cases I thought they would have worked better by letting the audience make the connection, rather than spelling it out.

I'm a bit disappointed that it landed poorly enough for me to bail on it - the setup has a lot of potential. Johnny_ultimate mentioned Shin-Godzilla upthread which is a useful comparison for the kind of comedy-of-bureaucracies DLU could have been. Eye In The Sky also comes to mind. I don't think that's the kind of film McKay was trying to make, though.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118377288#Comment_118377288

I'll leave aside your statement that Dr Strangelove was pretty crap. I'm not sure that's the common consensus, but it's an opinion. Much as I didn't think DLU was great and others seem to.

However, I would think that the reason it is still talked about 50 years later isn't because it's a great movie in itself but because (and I realise it is a bit tautological) it is such a memorable movie, both in dialogue and visuals. Kong riding the bomb waving his cowboy hat. The War Room and the Big Board (Note you can't fight in there, it's the war room). Kong's inspection checklist was well enough regarded that Spielberg had Pickens re-enact it 15 years later in one of his own movies. What are the lines in DLU which people will be quoting at each other thirty years from now? What is an iconic image as unique as DrS can provide? Even the lighting of Dr S was used to good memorable effect. Even today people with access to missiles and bombs will climb up on them and take photos reenacting Kong. Is anyone going to ever reenact anything from DLU?

As for mistakes that DLU made but DrS didn't, DrS was consistent. With the one exception of Ripper, who was insane and thus can be excused, everyone in the movie is acting within some bounds of believability and rationality. The situation they are in is farcical, the characters less so thus keeping an equal tone in the movie.

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384360#Comment_118384360

Yeah...we would hope the world would unite before it was too late. I think that's one of the main points of the film.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118386586#Comment_118386586

Given the failure of COP26 to agree sufficient measures to keep warming below 2c pretty much proves that the current state of global politics would not be capable of agreeing, financing and implementing the necessary action to save us from disaster.

We are not doing enough to combat climate change, and even with the pandemic, world leaders are playing Russian roulette, making self serving decisions and politicising the pandemic

patnor1011

I do not think it is healthy to bring or see climate change everywhere. Climate activists needs to take a break and stop trying to insert their views or points in everything.

Asteroid that size coming to hit us is hardly "climate change" and despite our advances in various fields there is not much we can do about it anyway.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118391160#Comment_118391160

Lolllllll

Not at all surprised to see a regular "conspiracy theory" poster post the above crap.

Who are we blaming today? Satan? The commies? The rothchilds?? Schwab??

It's a movie with a ridiculously blunt message.... Congrats on it going straight over your head

johnny_ultimate

The creators of the film have explicitly stated it’s about climate change, not that the film itself leaves any room for doubt or ambiguity.

https://twitter.com/ghostpanther/status/1476269416123830280?s=21

speedboatchase

I remember seeing a great remark recently that Adam McKay makes movies that "make dumb people feel smart". I'll leave it at that.

silverharp

ha ha

https://twitter.com/ahardtospell/status/1476392008239484931

TheValeyard

I tried to like it but gave up 3/4 way through. I'll finish off at some stage but just disappointed by such a sterling cast and interesting concept, it just didnt work. Maybe because the night before I watched 'The Big Short' and that was brilliant and I am unfairly comparing the two.

mary 2021

Loved Meryl Streeps ultimate fate thats what she gets for supporting Weinstein a nice bit of justice even though its fake !!

|As with most movies today it was a load of lefty bollox probably made up from a joke in a Xmas cracker at a dinner with lots of dobies & chablis and lefty hollyweird types. They do love themselves and their causes as long as the causes dont live near them or touch them in reality . Virtue signallers the lot of them and a very crap movie, whats good about netflix is you can see a movie in 10 minutes and move on the shite bits !!

DavyD_83

Everything I have read about this, without seeing any spoilers or detailed plot, keeps reminding me of hearing people talk about American Hustle. Amazing ensemble cast, hilarious, so insightful, yada yada...; or just not funny, boring, waste of talent, depending who you listen to.

But, I hated American Hustle, although it now just seems unmemorable, for me all the jokes and performance were entirely forced and just felt like everybody was so aware of how great the cast including themselves were, so it must be amazing. I think I'm still in the minority on that one, but suspect I will feel the same about this if I ever get around to seeing it (ie. if my wife puts it on; she has already heard it is amazing from somebody she trusts).

Also, I never found Anchor Man or a lot of Will Ferrell's "My voice is funny, so this is funny" films/schtick, I always thought that was down to Ferrell, but have discovered what I feel are his worst cases of this were all co-written with McKay, so suspect McKay is not for me either.

kyote00

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373001#Comment_118373001

You need to watch it past the credits as one of the cockroaches survives

banie01

Really enjoyed it, it's exactly what it says on the tin.

Whilst it's satire, it's certainly not subtle. I think even at that, it's telling that much of the core message of the movie seems to be flying over the head of many stateside and MAGA's in particular.

Table Top Joe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118395216#Comment_118395216

Someone made an interesting point (cant remember where or who) about how "The Big Short" worked and "Don't Look Up" didn't (for some of us anyway). "The big Short" talks down to its audience, treats us like we're a bit thick, but the thing is it was entirely justified since most people (myself included I might add) haven't a clue about the stock market, short selling, sub prime loans etc.....

"Don't look Up" has this same approach, but the problem is it's preaching, and lecturing and very heavy handily explaining stuff that anyone with half a brain already knows. On top of that, it isn't anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is (or funny)

The smugness around this movie from the producers and some of the fans of this movie have been nauseating, "if you don't like it, you don't get it".....they don't seem to understand that people do get it, we just didn't think it was very good.

I find the fawning over the writers and actors of this piece of crap a far more damning indictment of modern society than anything in the movie tbh.

mailforkev

Watched it the other night, was grand but not great.

Don’t care about the left vs right nonsense that is going along with it, I don’t live in the US, I just wanted to be more entertained.

It’s a pretty good idea for a movie, just not executed brilliantly.

RandomViewer

For some reason bits reminded me of Iron Sky but lacked that film's fun

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384360#Comment_118384360

In spite of social media people generally are not as thick as movies like this make them out.

A lot of people voted for Trump because they were blue in the face with the never changing establishment politicians like Hilary "it's my turn" Clinton.

They put Trump in for a term to give them a bloody nose.

That's exactly what they got. You don't need to be a red neck Trump supporter, more sophisticated voters intentionally gave the political establishment a hiding as well.

Hollywood hated that of course.

There are comedic moments here but not a great movie overall and it was too long as well.