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In Reply to: RE: "Don't Look Up:" absolute best satire in years! Scorching posted by tinear on December 26, 2021 at 09:38:00
"The biggest mistake that the new film, "Don't Look Up", makes is to bill itself as a comedy. It isn't really funny at all. Instead it is deadly serious and chilling as it accurately depicts how American society would react to a real, existential crisis.
First, such a crisis would be ignored in favor of celebrity news, then it would be scorned, science would be belittled, millions of people on social media would not believe it even when the establishment accepted it was true and then the corporate-controlled government would find a way to prevent mankind from being saved in favor of making a profit."
More. . .
(Comments are good too, such as "The movie critic for the Wall Street Journal complains that "Don't Look Up" portrays everyone as "nincompoops." I would say that that would make "Don't Look Up" a documentary.") LOL!
Follow Ups:
makes you laugh and ball your fist at the same time. It's brilliance is that it is so spot on
nt
I didn't realize you were British. Makes sense now, old chap.
Edits: 01/01/22 01/01/22
haw-haws, nor need they be so. That said, we found plenty of opportunities for laughter. It's a brilliant allegory told through acerbic satire. Criticism of its artistic merits ring false to me because of the many excellent actors, scorching performances, clever writing, and the vital importance of the targets.
I wonder how many who see it as "half-empty" really have a hard time seeing their own views and actions exposed and eviscerated so cleverly?
No, not Aristophanes, but a wonderful film in that great comedy writer's tradition.
I was amused by SOME of it.
I was amused by some of it as well. It's sort of like those skit shows like Monty Python - in a given show - there are some good skits and some that are duds. All in all worth watching but 1/2 the time you sit waiting for the good bit to arrive.I liked the General trying to get $10 from everyone even though the nuts and water were free. I liked the Ariana Grande bits basically poking fun at the entire pop industry and good on her for making fun of herself along with it and also her song was rather funny as well.
Perlman as the loudmouth Rush Limbaugh/Alex Jones/Sean Hannity rolled into a military lout.
I understand the low rotten tomatoes ratings from the major critics - I liked it enough to marginally recommend it **1/2/*****
It needed perhaps to be more Mars Attacks! or Blazing Saddles or it needed to go the other direction and play it more realistic in terms of drama where even a competent administration was bogged down in all the congress/senate lobbying red tape to be ineffectual with stopping the comet. That would have had more resonance than the cartoon administration haplessly flailing in an emergency. It resonates more with an audience when even a competent administration is a slave to all these external pressures/lobby groups and can't get to the work of solving the problem.
David Fear's review seems apt though he is harder on it.
Edits: 12/30/21
David seems a bit on the harsh side.
My own reaction lies (possibly somewhat like yours) somewhere between the sourness of David's Rolling Stone review, and tinear's and oldmkvi's more unrestrained enthusiasm here on AA.
If that's a Word!
Everything in Life is a Seinfeld Quote!
. . . but, my name is Chris and I've never watched Seinfeld. ;-)
Seinfeld is a sitcom based on "observational" comedy. Seinfeld is usually compared to George Carlin in this regard. I prefer Carlin as a stand up - by a lot.
Regarding the TV series 'Seinfeld' - I found Seinfeld to be the weakest of the four cast members. Like a lot of TV series, it all depends on which one you see. Some are quite funny, some are quite crappy. Different writers write different episodes.
It is rare to have any TV series where one writer writes all the episodes.
Seinfeld did manage to avoid politics - but all four characters were smarmy and largely unlikeable shallow individuals. Part of the fun though was that they never really won. Bad stuff happening to bad people. Since you don't like any of them they deserved what they got.
This is different from a show like Taxi where even Louis De Palma had a heart buried deep.
I was never a big fan of Seinfeld (I got a few chuckles out of it) but some folks really love that kind of stuff. But then people loved Gilligan's Island (eesh) so who knows.
Comedy is one of those things that are highly personal. My favourite sitcom was Frasier. Yet Cheers was only so so for me.
Actually, I should say my favourites were Fawlty Towers and The Black Adder (after season 1).
You're over intellectualizing it. I bet you're a Friends fan.
Friends was enjoyable - I think the humour in Seinfeld is generally smarter. Friends was more the "every-person" kind of thing. I liked Friends more a decade or so after it ended. I laughed considerably more at Seinfeld however. Friends to me is a sort of comedic soap opera. I have seen Friends more recently so I may have to go back and rewatch some Seinfeld.
I am not up on most shows since about 2004. I have mostly lived in Asia without a lot of TV for the past 15 years.
I did enjoy a show called Mom with Anna Faris and Allison Janney. Considerably more realistically written women than some shows. But the language and themes most definitely wouldn't be for the Christian Right I suspect.
I was kidding, I always felt Friends was a dumbed down copycat of Seinfeld. That doesn't stop me from watching, however. :-)
Allison is one of the more accomplished comedians of the last few decades
excellent timing, body language, command of dialogue, the whole package!
she rocks!
it would be a shame if she never gets to work with Katy Sagal
those two in a dramady would be gold!
The only reason I bothered to watch Mom was because she was superb in The West Wing - a more serious role with some comedy - I believe she won 5 best actress awards (or more) for her work on that show.
This is an impressive scene of acting compared to most of the tripe on television.
agreed ... I'm familiar with her body of work
she deserves the acclaim afforded to her
It's overrated AND a bore....
It was long and repetitive and missed opportunities. The repetition then becomes heavy-handed rather than quick-witted satire.The problem is that the institutions the film parodies are already parodies of themselves - the TV morning shows, the Faux News pundits, the anti-science of the administration, the population fixated on pop stars love affairs over things that matter, the people who wear hats to not look up to see the comet coming because their hero president tells them not to look. The scientists trying to placate the viewers by downplaying the end of the world.
I liked parts of it, but I doubt any right-winger has the ability to laugh at themselves (or the ability to take a joke) so in the end, the film isn't going to work on the people it needs to work on.
To be fair to the director - I don't know how you can make a "subtle" satire when the people you are skewering are anything but subtle.
The other problem a lot of films have is the lack of identifiable characters - instead we get cartoon quality characters. The only character, arguably, in the entire movie that had any heart and soul was the skater boy finding his way with his religion. And he was barely in the film. Cate Blanchett playing Laura Ingraham wasn't mean-spirited or racist or evil enough. In other words, Cate was MORE human than the real person! Which is a bit amusing in itself I suppose.
Edits: 12/28/21
d
.
Nt
They could have cut 20 minutes and still had enough for an average length release.
As I've already mentioned (and like you) I did like parts of it though.
I cut an hour and 20 minutes from this movie; when I got tired of waiting for good jokes, I turned it off.
For LOL humor these days, I go to Stath Lets Flats and Southside, both on HBO Max.
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