All evening we were trading funny lines from the movie. If star-studded satirical comedy can accomplish what straightforward warnings could not, I’m totally OK with that.
In Don’t Look Up, a pair of astronomers discover a planet-killer comet headed right toward Earth. But despite the science being globally verified, no one in authority takes it seriously. Denialists and conspiracy theorists take to the airwaves, the President thinks only about an upcoming election, and a tech billionaire comes up with a plan to get even richer from it.
It’s all too real, as we have watched precious climate opportunity slip out of our grasp the last few decades.
In this Mehdi Hasan interview, Climatologist Michael Mann and Journalist David Sirota discuss the film. It’s pretty funny watching Mann squirm a little at the prospect of being portrayed by Leonardo Decaprio…
NOTES:
- I actually gave in and subscribed to Netflix just to watch this film, with full intention to suspend the account afterward. Well, after I also binge-watch Violet Evergarden, and Diane watches The Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell. Definitely. Unless we find other stuff. Then, for sure.
- Leonardo DeCaprio fully owned the role of a nerdy scientist who finds himself in the intoxicating whirlwind of global fame and controversy. Right from the first moment when he holds up his Carl Sagan action figure…
- I am now convinced Meryl Streep is some sort of emotive alien shape-shifter; there is literally no character she cannot play.
- Jennifer Lawrence did a fine job as Kate Dibiaski, the comet-discovering grad student. But I would like to have seen Warehouse 13’s Allison Scagliotti in the role.
- Mark Rylance was the billionaire self-described tech visionary; believable and so, so wrong. His character is based on an amalgam of real-life tech billionaires who are also believable and so, so wrong.
- Just to be clear, the tech billionaire’s idea of splitting up the comet into “manageable pieces” but still letting it hit… would not work. The same amount of mass hitting at the same speed means the same amount of energy delivered, and the same catastrophe.
- As usual Wikipedia has full details on the film Don’t Look Up
- The straightforward warning I’m referring to is Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The film was derided and scorned, but has turned out to be substantially correct.
- If you like satirical comedies about the end of the world, be sure to watch Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. Or face the wrath of the Pepsi-Cola corporation!
georgewiman 