2021 Media Roundup: Film
Dec. 29th, 2021 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby Late addendum to my film roundup post.
Don't Look Up was absolutely my favourite film of 2021 and one of the best films I've seen in ages. I will be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.
Don't Look Up was absolutely my favourite film of 2021 and one of the best films I've seen in ages. I will be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.
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Date: 2022-01-03 05:28 pm (UTC)It's not even accurate. The only paper they can talk to is the NY Herald, and that THROWS THEM OUT when the NASA person throws them under the bus. But gee, someone apparently feels a little stung!
If anything, the movie kind of fell down at portraying how scientists now try to get out a lot of information on Twitter and sharing knowledge that way -- I'm thinking of Trevor Bedford at the very start of the pandemic -- but that actually would have been hard to film, and taken away from the comedy.
"one, we just had a massive climate summit in Glasgow. Like, this is a collective action problem. That's what climate change is."
THE ONE ALL THE HUNDREDS OF GIANT OIL AND GAS LOBBYISTS ATTENDED? THAT ONE?
People also seem to be ignoring that the other countries do try a launch at one point which results in a terrible disaster, and the actual NASA launch is CANCELLED when Not!Elon Musk finds out there's potential profit, and the launch at the end is of his unproven private mining missile which doesn't work either.
"I mean, there's that little performance by Timothee Chalamet as, like, a Christian skateboarder. That's pretty funny."
Yeah no. IDEFK. -- And his character isn't comic, he is very clearly a Holy Fool type, and at the end he recites the blessing over their literal last supper and is told "you got church game!" It's a small part, but it's not just a goof. In fact I would argue almost nothing in that movie was a throwaway goof.
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Date: 2022-01-03 05:52 pm (UTC)They showed that, but yeah, it's just not very visual.
People also seem to be ignoring that the other countries do try a launch at one point which results in a terrible disaster, and the actual NASA launch is CANCELLED when Not!Elon Musk finds out there's potential profit, and the launch at the end is of his unproven private mining missile which doesn't work either.
Yes and it's strongly implied to be sabotage. Like one of my friends posted that the only thing unrealistic is that in this specific instance, China would have built something to blow it up in 4 hours, which is true. But...it's a movie, specifically intended to get Americans to do things.
Yeah no. IDEFK. -- And his character isn't comic, he is very clearly a Holy Fool type, and at the end he recites the blessing over their literal last supper and is told "you got church game!" It's a small part, but it's not just a goof. In fact I would argue almost nothing in that movie was a throwaway goof.
It's very intentional, and he took the part because of it, apparently (they'd initially offered him a bit role and he was like...maybe? and then after some talk about what was missing in the film, he agreed). Utterly brilliant character imo.
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Date: 2022-01-03 06:04 pm (UTC)the only thing unrealistic is that in this specific instance, China would have built something to blow it up in 4 hours
HAH, absolutely true!
Aww, I didn't know that about the part. I was first kind of ehh about it because I thought Oh no, they might do the "there are no atheist scientists in foxholes" thing, but the movie was actually too smart for that. He's also the one person other than Mindy and Oglethorpe who treats Kate like she has value. (I was pleasantly surprised Oglethorpe didn't die before everyone else did, too.)
-- Oh yeah I also found it weird the critics are like "It's America's job to solve! All the other countries are ignored!" when there were actually a bunch of shots of OTHER PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD throughout the movie, and also, COLONIALISM! Yes, probably this one giant superpower has the only chance to fix the problem, because it STOLE ALL THE RESOURCES. I remember scientists around the world freaking out when Trump gutted the CDC years before corona showed up. Only a lot of them were worried about a flu pandemic. Hi ho.
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Date: 2022-01-03 08:39 pm (UTC)It's up to interpretation, of course, but I thought it was implied pretty heavily.
Aww, I didn't know that about the part. I was first kind of ehh about it because I thought Oh no, they might do the "there are no atheist scientists in foxholes" thing, but the movie was actually too smart for that. He's also the one person other than Mindy and Oglethorpe who treats Kate like she has value.
I thought they were going there too, but they were so deliberate about it. Like the way they framed him as explicitly lumpen proletariat, someone for whom the dominant culture has no regard, and he's very much a white, working class, religious man who would be very much looked down upon by the sort of liberal elite that people keep accusing the filmmakers of being. But no, he and Oglethorpe are the consistently ethical people in the movie.
(I was pleasantly surprised Oglethorpe didn't die before everyone else did, too.)
Right? I thought that too. I also suspect the framing was meant to highlight that he was specifically dying at the exact same time.
-- Oh yeah I also found it weird the critics are like "It's America's job to solve! All the other countries are ignored!" when there were actually a bunch of shots of OTHER PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD throughout the movie, and also, COLONIALISM! Yes, probably this one giant superpower has the only chance to fix the problem, because it STOLE ALL THE RESOURCES. I remember scientists around the world freaking out when Trump gutted the CDC years before corona showed up. Only a lot of them were worried about a flu pandemic. Hi ho.
YES THIS.