Tag: Don't Look Up

A ‘Don’t Look Up’ Best Picture Win Would Be The Ultimate Triumph of ‘Woke Hollywood’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be clear — I’m very much willing to bend over backwards to give Don’t Look Up good press. It’s message is dear to my heart. The problem is, the movie itself sucks.

And, yet, here I am, listening to Vanity Fair’s Oscar podcast and they’re saying that Don’t Look Up could very well be in the running to win Best Picture. I get it. It makes sense. But, God, on a storytelling basis did that move suck. And, no, I haven’t gotten around to watching is all the way through yet.

I think some of that comes from how out of synch my expectations for the movie was. I went into it blind and I had some vague notion that it might be a modern day Network dealing with global climate change. But it just seemed way too busy sucking its own cock to be a Network-level movie. It was just annoying and irritating and I totally agree with its message.

What I saw of it was just too over the top. It seems to be trying too hard. It was too eager to make A Statement that it lost sight of telling a cogent, great story. If Don’t Look Up was a modern day Blue State Network, then I would love it and defend it against the slings and arrows of MAGA dipshits.

But, sadly, Don’t Look Up was just A Bad Movie on a storytelling level. It’s just irritating on a storytelling basis. It was all over the place, to the point that I didn’t care about the characters and didn’t want to watch it to the end despite being very receptive to its message. If it gets Best Picture despite that, then Woke Culture will really have flexed its power to the point that it will make me roll my eyes.

The thing about Network is it’s timeless. It’s such a great story that you could release it today and it would still be popular. Anyway, as I keep saying, I’m going to at least try to watch the movie all the way through and then re-reevaluate it.

Let’s Fix ‘Don’t Look Up’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m embarrassed to say that I was not able — so far — to finish “Don’t Look Up.” So, you have every reason not to listen to me if I can’t even finish the movie I’m writing about. But this post isn’t really about the movie itself but rather how it could have been made so I was able to finish it.

First, I have to praise the movie for some subtle touches. What I saw was interesting in how it was able to indict both Blue and Red for not giving the crisis enough weight. And, yet, at the same time, it was just around that moment when the movie started to lose me. Don’t Look Up was really, really good up until about the moment they met POTUS.

It was all down hill from there.

How would I fix the movie, though? I think I would have not been so “wet” in my humor. The movie grows more and more hysterical to the point of it being both depressing, preachy and excretable. All it did was remind me of how global climate change is real and we’re doing jack shit to stop it.

I think if the writers had studied Network a little bit more closely, I could have finished watching it. I really liked Being The Ricardos and I think that vibe is closer to how I would have produced the movie. I would have laid off on the preachy, heavy handed social commentary and maybe found humor in how everyday life was being changed as it grew more and more clear the end of the world was coming.

Now, I did not finish the movie so, lulz, I don’t know how it ended. So maybe the movie turned out a lot better than it was at about the midpoint. I cared a lot for the characters in the first 15 minutes and then all that good will was promptly squandered by everyone screeching at each other.

I may try again to watch Don’t Look Up, but I’m going to have to think about it some before going into it this time.