journal features

movie review - Don't Look Up

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Nichinan, Miyazaki, 2021.12.29

This is a satire of the handling (or lack there-of) for a dire situation in which two American scientists discover a killer asteroid that's on a collision course with Earth. It's a send-up of the current political situation in the US, where science is ignored in favor of easier answers, and where moronic, self-serving families are in charge. This culminates in a "Don't Look Up" campaign by "one party", meaning they're urging people to literally not look up at the impending bad news.

I enjoyed the various levels - scientific, personal, and political, and the overall message of listening to the goddamn experts. The entire first part of this, where the scientists figure it out, is great. It's once they begin interacting with Washington that it starts to feel pretty inauthentic and like they're trying to score points against the obviously moronic Trump regime. While it gets much better again once it returns to a human story, the damage is done. Because of the dated content, I have no intention of seeing it again.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges