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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

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

—John Kenneth Galbraith