22 January 2022

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Leonardo DiCaprio as Professor Randall Mindy in "Don't Look Up"

I didn't read any reviews before watching "Don't Look Up" on Netflix last night. It was written and directed by Adam McKay with starring roles from Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. Significant supporting roles were played by Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett and Mark Rylance. The running time was 2hrs 25mins.

It seemed to me that the film didn't take itself too seriously. Central to it is the idea that a large comet is about to strike Earth with a power akin to the Chicxulub event on the Yucatan Peninsula sixty six million years ago. That was the collision that wiped out the dinosaurs and utterly changed  this planet's evolution. Not a light-hearted topic I am sure you would agree but in the hands of Adam McKay and his troupe, the horrific vision is sheathed in a lot of dark humour. There's a kind of balance going on.

I liked the modernity of the film which pictures the world we inhabit as a place where social media and popularity matter more than impending doom or truth. Random Instagram images flash by at times - especially as humanity careers to the inevitable ending.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence's characters have a message that they need to give to the world but nobody wants to listen - not even The President of the USA who appears like a female version of Trump, self-obsessed and divorced from reality.

I enjoyed "Don't Look Up". It was fun but with some serious questions buried in there too. I hope that I haven't given too much away here...

Kate Dibaisky: Are we really about to tell the President of the United States 
that we have just over six months until humankind, basically every species 
is completely extinct?

29 comments:

  1. My sister-in-law spent her working life at 20th Century Fox after graduating from UCLA in the 1960s.
    When she arrived the Studio was still bankrupt following the box-office disaster of the Taylor-Burton movie Cleopatra.
    They sold off vast acres of their back-lot, priceless real estate, which became Century City.

    Cut now to Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet.
    There was a warehouse at Fox filled to the ceiling with love letters and proposals of marriage, all addressed to little Leonardo, rumoured to be gay.

    Thousands of letters rolled in from Japanese schoolgirls who mailed their perfumed nether garments alongside their erotic fantasies.
    A forklift lorry called regularly, guzzled up all the letters, dumped them in a landfill, as thousands more arrived. Many letters were stuffed with money.

    Nathanael West who wrote the best Hollywood novel, The Day of the Locust, could not have invented this insanity. He was killed in a car crash.

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  2. I've been wavering on whether to watch this. I think I'll give it a try.

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    1. I doubt that it will disturb you... and such a stellar cast. Quite quirky at times.

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  3. Nice combination of humor and getting a message across.

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    1. Well I am not sure what that message is.

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  4. I'm still not sure how I feel about the movie. It was too close to the truth to feel like true satire, or maybe all satire is like that. I liked one of the last scenes when they all were sitting around the dinner table and Leo's character says, "We had so much." That struck home.

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    1. Yes. I noted that remark too. There are spots of seriousness.

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  5. I thought it was more about globing warming than anything else. But then I am probably wrong. But I did enjoy it.

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    1. I know some have said that it is a kind of metaphor but I didn't really see that.

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  6. We thought it was an uncomfortable bit of brilliant satire.

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    1. Adam McKay would be pleased with your response.

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  7. It sounds like the sort of movie that I'd wait for the tv screening in case I didn't like it so then I could change the channel.

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    1. It has been incredibly popular on Netflix... love it or hate it.

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  8. Anonymous6:41 am

    'basically every species is completely extinct' doesn't sound like quite every thing is extinct, leaving room for a sequel with lots of microbes fighting for survival.

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    1. The ending mocks those who seek new beginnings on different planets.

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  9. I have heard about it but not yet felt it is a film for me. Maybe I should give it a try some time.

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    1. To me it was pure entertainment. Not disturbing at all.

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  10. You've said just enough for me to be interested.

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    1. I think I would have enjoyed it more on a big screen.

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  11. Same here, I am interested and will give it a go.

    I suspect it will annoy me. When did reliance on experts and those who have spent their lives studying something give way to “thinking for yourself and doing your own research” - with that research limited to reading articles on various bits of the internet.

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    1. Thanks for calling by and commenting UK Musings. I hope you do take time out to watch this film. See what you think.

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  12. According to the interview of the producer, the comet is a metaphor for global warming. I haven’t seen it yet but is in my que on Netflix.

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    1. I had not seen that remark and took the film at face value.

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  13. We watched it, too. It was depressingly close to how people act about Covid, climate change, our threatened democracy....so while I laughed in parts, I was also a little horrified.

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    1. Because I had not stumbled upon any talk around the film, I did not read much into it. I just thought it was a good way of spending 2hrs 25mins of my life on a Friday night when I didn't have much else to do.

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  14. We liked it too! Quite funny, in a dark way.

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  15. I will watch it. Thanks!

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  16. I enjoyed it too. I didn't think it was as good as some people did but that's what makes the world go around. (snark intended)

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  17. Many have recommended it although I'm not ready to watch it. I'm already on the verge of depression!

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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