Don't Look Up (Adam McKay, 2021)

[therewillbeblus]

Adam McKay's new film Don't Look Up boasts insane cast, including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett

[domino harvey]

Wasn’t it originally Seth Rogen? Thank god for DiCaprio, the anti-Rogen

[therewillbeblus]

Adam McKay's new film Don't Look Up boasts insane cast, including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett

This was shooting at South Station in Boston today

[flyonthewall2983]

DiCaprio looking like Russell Crowe's stunt double

[therewillbeblus]

There's a CAM copy of the 30-second teaser trailer for McKay's Don't Look Up circulating online

Edit: the comedy is also boasting an intimidating runtime of 145 minutes... let's hope McKay hasn't bit off more than he can chew, we don't need another Apatow

[Never Cursed]

Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, with Meryl Streep as non-Clinton-infringing generic Girlboss President

Edit: Now with actual link, which I somehow forgot

[PfR73]

Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, with Meryl Streep as non-Clinton-infringing generic Girlboss President

Here's a link to the teaser.

[Jack Kubrick]

Adam McKay's new film Don't Look Up boasts insane cast, including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett

Trailer.

[therewillbeblus]

Don't Look Up

So I actually… liked this?! While McKay’s previous two ‘half-serious’ efforts repelled me with egregious doses of tryingtoohardidus, Don’t Look Back pares back its delivery of Higher content into fleeting segments of zeitgeist exposure, where the focus is deterred from grandstanding claims and onto awkward mannerisms and anti-jokes that work. Don’t get me wrong, this film is certainly a bomb exploding with didactic shrapnel that is understandably triggering both liberal and conservative audiences to distance themselves from its flat panhandling- though there's a lot less of what it's being accused of, and a lot more of what it's not being credited with, that deserves space for analysis. My biggest problems with McKay’s earlier films were that they seemed unaware of their unpleasantness, and attempted to fuse grave subjects with both comedy and drama by operating on a smug ignorance that is at odds with the alert and careful attitude necessary to make that work. Here, McKay inserts his winking commentaries ad nauseam, but self-reflexively so, in portraying a world doing the exact same with narcissistic prioritization, myopic attention, or mass-generated avoidance techniques (gotta love the “sadness = bad” phone-tracking fixer, which hits the stigma on a ubiquitous and healthy daily experience of Americans head-on). I didn’t find those Big Ideas divulged in the setpieces funny, but the subtler reactions and behaviors worked for me.

Something as tenuous as DiCaprio’s tone of voice as he meekly cheers for Lawrence's find in his introductory scene elicited genuine laughs; as did the gag about the irreverent, inexplicably dishonesty charging for free snacks, which highlighting broadly-defined antisocial behavior found in everyday life across demographics and milieus; or the inappropriately-timed deadpan “it’s too bad” solemnity about a celebrity breakup, which indicates the pathetic dopamine triggers from clickbait that form inorganic empathy-equators between intimate involvement with those we care about and passive interest with the subject of media attention. None of these comic bits are overplayed- the deconstructions of those last two examples occurring entirely in the elisions- while the “Yes This Government Agency Is A Real Thing” insert early on is something condescendingly stuffed throughout Vice, and as unfunny there as it is here. Thankfully these glimpses of 'intellectual superiority over its audience' from the filmmaker are restrained for much of the runtime. The interpersonal dissonance speaks for itself, and while the film certainly has its annoying qualities, the fine details are what earn laughter- though it's only really 'funny' in the first act. Maybe none of that was McKay’s intention, but I’ll take it.

The political satire is still confrontational, but the film grammar and performances aren’t as intrusive. McKay seems more interested in these aforementioned qualities we've "advanced" into possessing and that we cling to with fatalistic desperation: aversion to dysphoria, dismissals of truth, pejoratively diagnosing people who trigger our fears or comfortable ignorances, the phenomenon of the death of expertise, the indiscriminate allure of attention leading to coveted psychological empowerment. The larger commentary is on the reinforcement of antisocial individualism rather than the specificity of environmentalism and capitalist evils the film pretends to eviscerate with urgency, at least until the inevitable finale. For all the claims that this film is comprised of liberal ostentation, perhaps the clearest charge of party-identifying behavior is ironically on the progressive's perceived need to vocalize their political leanings. Lawrence halts the momentum of the answer she's sought (for half the film's narrative) in Streep taking action on her scientific evidence, just to stress the importance of her own sacrifice of compromising with someone she didn't vote for to the person in charge. It's a liberal's wet dream, and to flamboyantly declare one's 'sacrifice' as humble, hypocritically violating the meaning of humility in its own form of grandstanding on the level of the enemy she hates, is one of the better liberal digs I've seen in a while. McKay is pulling no punches on both sides, even if he's squarely coming from an angle of progressive immediacy.

I suppose satire is most offensive to me when beaten over the head with a “Get it? GET IT?!” one-note fashion, so it was relieving to see this film at least find an eclectic rhythm, dipping its toes in drive-by attacks on every ‘thing’ about our society that sucks (and it’s not wrong). It's not disingenuous or loudly preachy because it never takes its time to stew in one place, casting a wide net across all perceivable targets and sociopolitical issues so that none get the opportunity to be overcooked. Maybe that’s a failure to some, but for me it’s where McKay has always succeeded- rapid absurdist jabs, pivoting and moving onto something completely different, even when the central character’s attitude is in the same elated key for its runtime. This is satire the way I like it, cruising around with halfhearted scrutiny on all micro behaviors and macro platforms we exhibit and absorb. They're all accurate observations and fair blitzes. The runtime is as exhausting as the comprehensive scope this film aims for and executes with its outrageous ambitions, but that seems to be the point.

There are plenty of attempts at comedy that don't land, but even embedded within those failures are passive darkly comic truths about how we've devolved as people. One such example finds DiCaprio responding to Blanchett's humblebragging disclosures of experiential participation in high society with boyish glee at having his Star Wars poster signed. It's not funny, but it does exploit the trajectory of change in our self-consciousness, from adhering to ideological markers that devalue our self-esteem, past the sweet-spot of self-acceptance divorced from social comparison, and landing on the other side of the pendulum in solipsistic valuation of our superficial accomplishments in static complacency. DiCaprio isn't challenged to re-evaluate himself through this contrast in a healthy way that prompts introspection and motivation to set or achieve existential objectives. He instead reacts with an isolated contentment, as if on-par with hers (that's the 'joke') but on a deeper and more troubling level it's a pronouncement of our inertia, a blindness to sobriety and progress, a self-congratulatory admission of finding comfort in anti-growth. There's nothing wrong with having pride in having your Star Wars poster signed, but the process of engaging with no cognizance or willingness to actually converse or react with healthy anxiety in a relationship is itself anti-engagement. We watch DiCaprio move from a family man to responding with aggressive superiority on an online platform just earlier, derogatorily getting high on his own intelligence, and these scenes all serve the function of the film: a macro-examination of how selfish we are, not for the sake of achieving success, but to simply evade fear or productive contemplation to the end of wasting time.

The Big Short tried so hard to be tidy, and fell flat on its face. This is an unapologetically overstuffed soup throwing every impression at the wall, and regardless of how much of what's intended to sticks, I admired the messy attempt because it allows itself to be messy, and what could be more appropriate? The ideas fluidly glide into and out of the frame, and while they may be on-the-nose or hostile in that moment, never does one of them leave an imprint as of the utmost importance. It's by design- just like two characters in a scene talk past one another without ever hearing the other, yet pretend like they are having a moment of connection. The film may be a bomb, but its detonation is gradual, with transient posturing that seethes through concepts without repeating itself or circling back to shake the viewer- at least not with a faux-announcement of 'courageous lucidity'.

In the rare occasion this happens, such as with DiCaprio's third-act monologue on TV, McKay doesn't choose to idolize this action but instead lends his camera's attention to the repulsion and awkwardness of the bystanders, and the anxiety and insecurity DiCaprio is experiencing. He perversely deflates the utility of direct, impassioned communication, subverting his own past directorial voice with self-awareness, humility, and despondency, allowing the viewer to identify with the spectators who are averse to this 'negative' news. It's a bold move, but not nearly as audacious as the unwieldy oscillation of anti-flow McKay regurgitates in the third act where the good guys fumble over themselves to advocate for truth. That showcase of sloppy combustive self-actualization extends its deglamorized collapse of agency further and further into a floundering wasteland. This film does not need to be two and a half hours- it could have been a lean ninety minutes and still retained a loose structure covering extensive ground, which is basically what it does for its first hour and a half anyways. However, the reckless untangling of narrative destroys hope for tangible solution through the destruction of traditional, false narratives. McKay blows up his own movie, testing the limits of how chaotic, anticlimactic, and banal he can thwart investment with stagnancy.

I can't recommend this film with confidence. It's not "good"- but the effects are shamelessly conveying that the cast and crew are grasping at straws, like so much of the world, to get out of our own way to do anything at all, and there's something to be appreciated for that admission when it's not sermonized but smudged into cinematic language of structural suicide. The first post-credits sequence finds McKay coming back to get his revenge with revitalized power of artistry- he can't restrain himself, but he still doesn't have a plan, and knows it's all-for-naught. The second post-credits sequence grounds us back to our illusory prisons of superficial meaning and nescience to external issues of importance, reaffirming that tragic admission and the depleted ethos of the film. It's not an even-handed or perhaps even a 'successful' satire, but a half-measure of a film about the inevitability of half-measures.

[domino harvey]

For those blissfully unaware, this film is ironically at the heart of a bizarre anti-intellectual attack from many corners on critics (real reviewers, not Film Twitter, which predictably hated this but they hate everything) as a whole because they don’t like it, with many many people trying to argue that they don’t “get” its message versus, you know, thinking it’s too obvious and not a good movie regardless of its intents. That said, put your money down now, this is 200% winning Best Picture

[tenia]

We had a case that seems similar, some years ago, when La rafle's director Rose Bloch said basically that anyone not liking the movie (which is about Vel D'hiv's roundup in 1942) had a heart of stone.
It couldn't be because it's an awful tear-jerking movie.

[therewillbeblus]

I'll put money down. I liked this more than anyone I've talked to here or elsewhere, but it's a complete mess and, more importantly, has no strong emotional/character points of access for audiences to clasp to- it's actively working against the kind of engagement that Best Picture winners forge

[Toland's Mitchell]

The whole time I was watching this film, I swore McKay wrote the script during quarantine, using the comet as a metaphor for Coronavirus. It turns out that was not the case: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/arc ... FAGMo5S1U4

Apparently the script was written beforehand, then the real-life political reactions to the pandemic were crazier than the fiction McKay had written, forcing him to go back and adjust the script to "make it 20% crazier" as the realities of the pandemic unfolded. I think that's one reason this film is too on-the-nose for some viewers. This movie likely wasn't going to be subtle had it been made pre-Corona with its original script, but in its finished form, it has nothing to hide. And I wonder if McKay's rewrites was where the humor was lost (if there was much to begin with), transitioning the script from a satire to a bleak commentary. For me anyway, the humor wasn't there. I chuckled once or twice and that's about it. However, as a piece of cultural and political criticism, it worked. I neither loved nor hated the film as a whole. (And I doubt it will win Best Picture.)

[Magic Hate Ball]

The bleak commentary aspects were the parts I liked the most, because it's so accurate in its depiction of how painfully helpless we all are. The various scenes in which a character rants and raves and (much like the ending of La Dolce Vita) is percieved as an akward lunatic whose main crime is breaking decorum were particularly good - the closer it got to Aronofksy's mother!, the better. Where it fell apart for me was the awkward imbalance - some scenes felt like SNL skits, others felt like riffs on Charlie Kaufman, and I kinda wish it had either been shorter and punchier, or more spread out and less overtly satirical (as a miniseries, even).

Maybe the main problem is that the apocalypse in the film is much quicker and more painless than the one we're experiencing, which will likely be agonizingly drawn out, but hopefully most of us will have died relatively peacefully before it gets too ugly.

[aox]

For those blissfully unaware, this film is ironically at the heart of a bizarre anti-intellectual attack from many corners on critics (real reviewers, not Film Twitter, which predictably hated this but they hate everything) as a whole because they don’t like it, with many many people trying to argue that they don’t “get” its message versus, you know, thinking it’s too obvious and not a good movie regardless of its intents. That said, put your money down now, this is 200% winning Best Picture

Yeah, I've noticed this too. Dear Academy voters: if you hate this film, you hate the environment, deny Climate Change, and support fossil fuel industries killing our planet.

It is potentially a weird guilt trip but strikingly (or not; Oh, Sheheqazaramesh, will you ever learn?) adept in the post-2016 world.

The film is almost 20 minutes too long, IMO.

[RIP Film]

I actually felt there was a lot of restraint here, so much so that it struggles to find the right tone. It wants to be a unrelenting screed in the style of Bill Hicks, but its determined to communicate in the manner of a Hollywood star vehicle; it gets burdened with all the narrative details, and there’s servile attempts at humor that seem tailored for general audiences. All of its anger gets funneled into the real conduits of Leo and J Law, but the rest is largely passive aggressive. It has teeth, but its concern with towing some kind of line feels at odds with its message.

For those blissfully unaware, this film is ironically at the heart of a bizarre anti-intellectual attack from many corners on critics (real reviewers, not Film Twitter, which predictably hated this but they hate everything) as a whole because they don’t like it, with many many people trying to argue that they don’t “get” its message versus, you know, thinking it’s too obvious and not a good movie regardless of its intents. That said, put your money down now, this is 200% winning Best Picture

I do find these kind of discussions interesting, in so far as they call into question the whole role of film/movies to begin with. On the most basic level it’s to communicate something, not even entertain. And arguing about a movie depicting the world ending, which most actually agree with, but may or may not find entertaining, is pretty rich on a macro level.

[knives]

I liked parts of this, but I think this bon mot describes well the problems present: this is a farce which thinks it’s a satire. The out and out Mel Brooksian fits of stupidity such as everything with Streep worked very well for me. In general I think if McKay kept up the first act of normal people stuck in an absurd version of The West Wing I’d be as enthusiastic as Blus above. I would say the first act even manages to dramatically work causing me a lot of stress. Yet from there it tries to bite off more than it can true taking every target as a target rather than a source of silliness and absurdity. Grande’s short scene was the first fishy thing, but the film quickly proved too much with too little.

Also some of the construct is just poor. Rylance’s entry to the war room is a great and funny premise to the scene and had it been his introduction I’d probably have laughed my head off. Instead he’s introduced a scene earlier in an exemplary moment of failure which in an overlong way tells bad SNL jokes about Elon Musk that will be communicated more efficiently and with better humor later on. In general you could cut the film down dramatically with redundant scenes and running jokes that are repeated ad nauseam.

Perhaps not surprising the film does succeed in its dramatic moments as well with Chalamet’s character being a nice late addition and a conclusion that is the most heartwarming of its kind since von Trier (with some nice farce thrown in from an oblivious Streep and lonely Hill). I really want to like this film more as it does have a lot of good going for it and McKay’s early films are some of my absolute favorites.

[therewillbeblus]

It's an objectively terrible movie, to be clear, but my enthusiasm is geared around a couple key subjective points: a) McKay's constant mobility across ideas stunts his default to pandering, and b) intentionally or not (likely not), he self-reflexively repurposes the structural mess of his film into the tone of exhausted surrender behind the camera. The film's construction is poor, but it kinda works on its own bizarre wavelength because of the ties to our futility to adequately tackle the thematic content, and this fatigued state trickles into anything that we might otherwise critique seriously in the back half. It helps to go into this expecting something terrible, but in doing so it's an interesting failure, though my bar with McKay's recent agenda is as low as it can be (I too like his early comedies a whole lot though), so when he moves around to every topical zeitgeist like scrolling through a social media page on a bathroom break vs. sustaining a note of political-intellectual superiority and comic condescension for two hours, I'm down