by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I did not finish watching the movie “Don’t Look Up.” But that has caused me to have strong opinions about it what I did see. The thing that bothers me so much about the movie is it could have been a modern day Network, but it totally blew its chance.
At the core of that failure was it’s social commentary was way too heavy handed and preachy. It was like a very long SNL skit, only the writers were hysterical about global climate change. Sometimes, less is more. Or, put another way, I would have made the movie more of a drama that was funny at times than a heavy handed, ham fisted extended SNL skit that swerved between comedy and dramas as it served the purposes of the plot.
There came a point, at least for me, when I didn’t care if anyone lived or died. After a great beginning, it just seemed like the movie became Mars Attacks, only about a comet-which-was-really-global-climate-change. I just didn’t care about the characters when they started screaming at each other. So, I stopped watching.
But there was a much better movie crying to come out of what was there. Like I said, I would have really tried to make the movie a modern day Network. In fact, I might even have started the movie much later than it was. Why not start the movie about where we are right now with global climate change — we all know it’s real and we’re not doing anything about it?
So, instead of going through the rote process of meeting POTUS, you start with a Network-like freak out by our Hero on TV. But, and this is the key issue, you play it for drama, not forced laughs. Then the rest of the movie would be about how everyone simply refuses to take the coming end of the world seriously. What I saw of Don’t Look Up had the air of liberal-progressive wish fulfillment, in the sense that I felt the producer really wants to scream his frustration live on TV (specifically Morning Joe.)
Anyway, no one listens to me.
