“The pandemic is like a tv show you thought was canceled, but then it got picked up by Netflix.”
—Jim Gaffigan
Based on the trailer alone, Don’t Look Up (2021) seems like a movie I’m either gonna love or absolutely hate.
But all I could think was
Don’t look at Jennifer Lawrence’s terrible haircut.
So,
if you’ve watched and liked Netflix’ Don’t Look Up (DLU), maybe discontinue reading this because I don’t want to yuck your yum.
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I’ll add several more ellipses to give you a chance to exit this post.
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Oh dear. I have made the mistake of noticing that Adam McKay made DLU. Must keep an open mind, must keep an open mind … At least it’s not directed by David O. Russell … I tell myself.
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There’s still 45 minutes to go in this movie and all I can think about is how Netflix cancelled GLOW and MST3K.
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Alright, be prepared for some prime Emily commentary here.
This movie is terrible.
Which is frustrating to say because, for fuck’s sake, there’s a lot of potential in this movie but it’s so ridiculously heavy handed.
This isn’t even low hanging fruit. The fruit fell off the tree, rolled down the hill, and fell into a lake below sea level.
DLU is as subtle as playing a Bösendorfer with a sledgehammer.
It’s like the combination of a Funny or Die sketch that lands squarely on the “die” end of the spectrum, an SNL sketch that was cut – not for time but because it wasn’t funny – and a Black Mirror episode. (No qualifier there since Black Mirror is in love with the smell of its own shit and is also, for the most part, absolutely terrible.)
It’s also super hilarious to me that (spoiler alert, but trust me, it really doesn’t matter that you know this) the solution presented in Armageddon (1998) is suggested in earnest here in this film as a way to prevent total annihilation.
I’m no scientist (please laugh at me) but something instinctively tells me that blasting a comet with a nuke just simply wouldn’t work for a whole myriad of reasons.
Not that the United States wouldn’t try it (and you KNOW the United States WOULD) but (and any real scientists out there, please feel free to prove me wrong) there’s no way that would do anything except fuck us worse.
I have no idea how McKay managed to sell so many A‑list, Academy Award-winning, well-respected actors and actresses on making this film, but I can only assume they went along with it because either he has major dirt on them that would completely destroy their careers and personal lives, or, they all owe a LOT of money to the IRS.
Or both.
For example, the entire segment with Ariana Grande as Riley Bina singing “Just Look Up” should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Like, Ariana Grande IS making fun of herself in this movie and I honestly don’t think she’s smart enough to realize it.
Adam McKay perfectly encapsulates the aging, proudly jaded Gen-Xer who is right on the cusp of practically being a boomer: He wants to blame cell phones and social media for all of our collective ills while at the same time paying unending homage to technological advancements and the scientific process.
The movie L I T E R A L L Y mentions how important the scientific process is and name drops computers as being crucial to our development as a species and our understanding of the world, while at the same time failing to acknowledge that cell phones are simply just the next stage in the evolution of computers.
Cell phones are nothing more than computers that fit in our pockets. And every new technology, from fire to the wheel to the printing press to electricity to the automobile to “talkies” to television to the internet and beyond, has had positive and negative impacts on humanity.
To lay all of the blame for where we are at right low squarely on social media and cell phones is lazy old hat that amounts to little more than a ⚪️ dude yelling about how great things were when we all talked to each other and read newspapers and drank from the garden hose.
The end of the world is told entirely through the perspective of color-of-paper people. There are some very tiny gems hidden here or there to be found but they are buried under an Everest (and comet) sized pile of total garbage.
McKay started his film career with a movie that both informed us, and hilariously, brilliantly satirized the sensationalism and sexism of 1970s local news broadcasts.
In contrast, DLU is an almost 150 minute exposition about three things and three things only: How badly he wants us to know that he feels Hillary and Trump were one in the same person, how he thinks social media and cell phone usage are largely to blame for most of society’s ills, and how the media prohibits us from knowing what’s really going on.
It verges on conspiratorial and would actually be laughable if it weren’t so ham-fisted and pathetic.
A lot of people sink themselves into their phones not because they’re ignoring reality, but because they know exactly what is going on and despite doing everything they were told would make a difference, it hasn’t, and they’re incredibly depressed and just trying to connect with others who feel the same way as they do and don’t know what to do about it.
That Adam McKay hired a bunch of extremely wealthy celebrities to lecture us about ignoring climate change while we stare at our phones is just downright insulting.
I grew up attending assemblies where young adults born around McKay’s time rapped at us about the importance of turning off the water when we brushed our teeth and clipping the rings that held soda cans together because it was OUR responsibility (all us seven and eight year old kids) to save the planet.
Just like how only I could prevent forest fires – an ironic statement in hindsight because forest fires are inextricably linked to climate change.
Turns out that at the exact same time, all the adults in charge were voting in politicians who were tearing down environmental regulations and enacting laws that would let corporations get away with murder.
So while DLU is very obviously an allegory for the past ten years, but it’s also at least ten years too late.
There is nothing original or subversive about this film.
There is a character in this film who is a painfully obvious amalgamation of Jobs, Fauci, Bezos, Musk, ZUCK, and Biden, and it’s so goddamn clumsy that if it had a slap-off with giant-hand Dave Grohl from the Everlong video, it would win harder than the Chicago Bulls in their ’95–96 season.
I don’t care for Jennifer Lawrence as a person, but it’s only fair for me to acknowledge that she is easily the best part of this film and her character, along with DiCaprio’s wife (below), are the only two likable characters in the whole two hours and eighteen minutes.
I can honestly say this is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.
And I’ve seen Cats (2019), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Isle of Dogs (2018), and Bella (2006).
Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been drinking but I’m also conflating scenes from DLU with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), and even though I keep reminding myself that they are completely separate movies, I’m still laughing about that scenario.
“I used to think that wanting to save the planet made me gay. But now I don’t see color, ’cause we’re all one race …”
—Connor4Real
TO SUM UP
I liked DLU much better the first three times I saw it:
When it was called Dr. Strangelove (1964), then when it was called On the Beach (1959), and finally, when it was called Melancholia (2011).
—emily duchaine
Flommist Emily Duchaine lives in the Pacific Northwest. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and listen to the Talking Heads. She pretends to be a professional businesswoman most days. Copyright © 2021 Emily Duchaine.
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