Adam McKay, one of the great modern comedy feature writers (Step Brothers, The Big Short, Anchorman), has stirred up controversy with his latest Oscar nominated feature, Don’t Look Up. In a world that appears to be going more and more insane with each passing day, the premise of Don’t Look Up should be the type of concept that resonates with the majority of the population. And looking at its success with the Oscar nomination and its popularity on Netflix, clearly it did. It narrowly missed the streaming service’s record for the highest watch time of a film in its opening 28 days, at 360 million hours.
So then, how does a film this so well-perceived by the Academy and popular with the masses manage just 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, 49% on Metacritic, and a relatively underwhelming 7.2 IMDb? The feature isn’t perfect, and perhaps the star-studded cast and wealth of talent behind the scenes had some expecting the impossible. But gripes over story and weren’t what prompted such an adverse response from reviewers. Something else that’s rubbed a portion of viewers the wrong way. In creating this satire, Adam McKay poked the bear and pissed off the very people he’s trying to appeal to: climate change deniers. Negative reviews of this film almost always circle back to the same critique, which is the perception that McKay is attempting to preach true knowledge to his (it’s not exclusive to them, but for simplicity’s sake) conservative audience that they are laughably naïve and easily swayed by politicians that would sacrifice them in a heartbeat to turn a profit.
To come to a conclusive judgement on whether Don’t Look Up hits or misses the mark of a great satire, we must do an objective deep dive into its character. Does it hit too close to home for people to accept, or is it simply so absurd that we can’t help but laugh at it, and not in the way McKay intended?
I would love to read a piece on this, actually. I think it's a conversation worth having, especially in this current climate. No, the film isn't perfect, but it shows a lot of how imperfect we are as humans and how much we depend on each other to survive.
Also, let's talk about the elephant in the room - the disgustingly rich, who I'm sure will be on the first spaceship out of here if sh*t hits the fan. So, yeah, it hits too close to home. – Dani CouCou2 years ago
This is good. An article can address issues such scientific methods and how TV addresses them-usually poorly with an audience really not understanding or appreciating the rigor that goes into any scientific process. Certainly, the movie had me thinking of Covid and the denialism surrounding it for, unfortunately, many. – Joseph Cernik2 years ago
NO IT DOES NOT. It's a virtue signaling piece of media to make Hollywood elites feel better about their moral degeneracy and their lack of action to do anything about the decline of the quality of life for most of America (and the rest of the world). I wonder how much money they spent on this that could have gone to any other cause, and I wonder how much damage they did to the environment with whatever transportation/labor/provisional requirements it took to create the movie. On top of being hypocritical, it's just bad. – lilikleinberg2 years ago
Satire is at its best when it confronts us with our complicity in a broken system. The context of Don't Look Up amidst the Climate Wars and Trump's America means that it is all too easy to blame problems on the other side of the partisan divide. It is possible that any partisan could view the film as a stinging critique of 'the other side' and emerge unchanged themselves. The irony of this film is that it reproduces the conditions it seeks to critique. – acwright2 years ago
In “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003), the apple that Captain Sparrow bites in front of Barbosa does not serve alimentary purposes. This is done to humiliate the pirate because he is not able to taste any food due to his curse. This apple is, in a way, wasted food after one bite because Barbosa throws it away. However, Barbosa carries an apple with him to eat once the malediction is over. The movie ends with the uneaten (wasted) apple falling from his dying hand, but it appears again in the next movie, “Dead Man’s Chest” (2006), when he finally chomps on it with arrogance. An apple is a cinematic device to show the audience that the eater in question is an overconfident villain, a maverick badass or an arrogant person. Examples of this are Draco Malfoy in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), Jerry Dandrige in “Fright Night” (2011), or Ajax in “Deadpool” (2016). The trope of the bad guy eating an apple has been pointed out in movie analyses, but it would be more interesting to explore the idea of wasted food, apples being the favorite food characters bite only once and then throw them away. Lex Luthor does it in “Smallville” (S01E02), and also Professor Colan in “Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen” (2009). Is there a consequential reason for this beyond the mere trope?
Hi T. Palomino--I think this is a super interesting topic that I had never considered before, thank you for bringing it up! The first two stories that come to mind for me with characters biting apples in stories are actually of the victim (supposedly) biting the apple rather than the villain: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Snow White in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." In both of these cases, rather than the villain or the arrogant character biting into an apple, the story has the "innocent character" doing so. Also in these two stories, the apple itself is the poison, although both are delivered by a villain as well (the Evil Queen and Satan in the form of a snake). For Snow White, the apple literally poisons her, as offered by the Evil Queen in disguise and for Adam and Eve, biting the apple from the tree of All Knowledge of Good and Evil, gives them knowledge that causes a rift between them and God, and ultimately leads to their exile from the Garden of Eden. I wonder if moving beyond these stories where the apple itself was a device for evil led to the apple-biting phenomenon you brought up, where the apple is no longer evil but instead the person biting it. I hope this helps with your writing! – jamiiiiiiierose2 years ago
It could be intriguing to inquire as to why an apple was chosen above anything else, any other fruit... Is there any historical, philosophical, moral, or other justification for this? Or is it only a practical issue in relation to other fruits, such as bananas?
Also, it may be a good idea to think about the stories behind the "Apple Inc." Logo (An apple with one bite taken out of it.) Is there anything in the designer or film directors' imagination background that they have in common? – Samer Darwich2 years ago
Morbius is the superhero film released by Sony as part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. It grossed 73.4m in the US and Canada and 90m worldwide. At release it finished first at the box office, which is not unusually for any superhero film, but then experienced a drop of 74% to be the second-worst superhero movie behind only an obscure tentpole superhero movie from 1997 called Steel. The critical response to the movie has been overwhelmingly negative with 3.8/10 from Rotten Tomatoes and comments such as "critically bad" from Variety. The negative reception spread quickly across the internet creating an ironic meme, which somehow led to Sony deciding to re-release it to 1,000 theatres on June 3rd, during which it made $310,665.
What is most confusing is the manner in which both the fans and Sony have responded to the release. The sour critical reception seems to have bolstered a collective "hate watch" that is generating revenue for Sony. The company, which seems unconcerned by the negative response appears to have taken the influx of internet attention as a positive and decided to re-release the film to cinema. So what happened? Is the Sony team so out of touch with its audience that it truly believed that the reception was positive, even though box office numbers clearly indicated otherwise? Was it an act of cashing in on internet popularity? Was it the belief that enough people would pay to "hate watch" it again? Was the movie that bad? The critics are critical, but aren’t they always? Is this so terrible that it deserves the derision it is receiving, or is this an example of the toxicity of the internet where everyone loves to do nothing more than hate together? Should this level of response be lauded or declaimed? An interesting case study to social responses to film.
This topic is very interesting. Maybe you can look into different posts from fans about reasons why they didn't like the movie, and then dive more into specific flaws from Morbius? – taliadmit2 years ago
Top Gun: Maverick finally hit theaters after a pandemic-induced delay. The film is filled with nostalgia for fans of the original, and also carries some new material with a distinct 21st-century feel for its newest generation of fans. One such instance of this material is female pilot Phoenix, played by Monica Barbaro.
In an interview, Barbaro stated that she enjoys Phoenix’s character, particularly that she is not a love interest for anyone, and that she is one of Maverick’s top co-pilots during the central mission. However, she is still the lone female pilot with any significant dialogue or character development in the film. Is this realistic considering the type of films the Top Gun franchise contains? Is Phoenix still a good representation of females in male-dominated fields, particularly the military? How would the movie have been different had she had more screen time? Discuss.
It could compare Phoenix's role in the film with Penny's. In my opinion, the first one adds to the female representation while the second sticks to the romantic partner of the protagonist. – Nathalie Moreira2 years ago
In contemporary Athens, the protagonist, Yorgos, is a tormented young man on the verge of famine. He’s ostensibly educated and cultured yet separated from family and friends. What sets this topic noteworthy is that it is symbolic of times of crisis, which put many individuals in tough situations. Lyzigos, the film’s director, refers to his work as a psychological case study of the crisis. Though the film’s plot is around a personal story, it has societal implications. Yorgos’ personal history is kept hidden for the duration of the film; we can only see his behavior in unpleasant situations along with his ambiguous motivations. As a result, the film serves as a useful illustration of how situational factors shape people’s behavior regardless of their personal identities, backgrounds, or histories. After addressing the film in general and numerous key sequences in particular, all in the context of a situation in which humans’ basic needs are being mistreated, the author may mention and discuss some psychological experiments, one of the well-known of which is the Stanford Prison Experiment. It was created to see how situational circumstances affected participants’ reactions and behaviors throughout a prison simulation. Another example is the Milgram Experiment, which deals with a setting in which volunteers are directed to obey authority. Although psychological studies are not essential, they may provide factual evidence for the idea that situational conditions can influence people’s behavior regardless of their identities! Finally, the contributor can ask a serious question about the interplay of personal and situational factors: at what point does the impact of situational factors become dominant? Aren’t there reasons linked to a person’s own characteristics, such as how reasonable or impulsive he is?
An interesting psychological analysis of the film. It would be helpful to have a little summary of the film at the start for context, but it would be a great discussion. – Sarai Mannolini-Winwood2 years ago
It's worth noting that the two experiments listed above have films dedicated to them, specifically Kyle Patrick Alvarez's The Stanford Prison Experiment from 2015 and Michael Almereydaq's Experimenter from 2015. – Samer Darwich2 years ago
If I recall, the Stanford Prison Experiment has had some negative criticism in its methodology. Just something that may be worth keeping in the back of the mind. – J.D. Jankowski2 years ago
The recent Disney / Pixar film Turning Red has been widely celebrated not only for being enjoyable, but for showcasing a touching and realistic portrayal of teenage girlhood, with all its joys and sorrows. However, it also sparked an immediate negative response from a wide variety of critics saying they felt the intended audience was "too narrow" or "not relatable enough."
Women and racialized people have had to watch films intended for white men for as long as the medium has existed, and still enjoy movies without being the exact target audience. What is it about movies intended for other audiences that make otherwise enjoyable movies, such as the delightful Turning Red, so uncomfortable for the white male audience?
Could also add queer / LGBTQ+ folks to the list of people who rarely have targeted media for them, though queer media has become much more popular in the past few years. – SBee2 years ago
Great topic. Basically, the answer is, "If a film is not intended for a 'majority' audience, it makes them uncomfortable." As SBee said, you could broaden this to include LGBTQ+ audiences, as well as others. I'd also suggest talking about the ways in which majority actors and directors try to make these "uncomfortable" films "acceptable" to the majority. Examples include, not discussing or showing female-centric issues such as periods, defining LGBTQ+ people by sexuality only, using inspiration porn to make disability palatable, etc. – Stephanie M.2 years ago
I spent some time recently on this topic, the oppositional gaze was coined and created by the lack of representation experienced by black women in movies as main characters. Perhaps it is something similar in regards to white men being left out of a movie, although it would be drastically different given the centuries of privilege's and expectancies that have developed. – Mhanley10222 years ago
I wish I still had the article that summed up this experience a lot more eloquently than I can, but essentially it talked about how a viewer from a minority group is conditioned to empathetically putting themselves in the role of the white male protagonist since the straight white man is the centralized experience of our society so we're all knowledgeable of that story. Whereas a straight white man watching Turning Red or anything else has had far less experience thinking beyond the scope of himself, so he can only assume that films like that aren't very good at all because the media he consumes has never asked him to step into the shoes of a young Asian girl, etc. It's pretty obvious stuff, but it's all exposure effect, y'know? – clemenkind2 years ago
Can authors and auteurs play with the past without perpetuating ignorance and false narratives within our history. Take the lack of political stance in Marie Antoinette (2005) for example and the films dismissal of Marie’s involvement in the French Revolution.
This is pretty much already done with the Nasu verse/Type Moon series. Characters in this anime series have their gender changed from what it was historically. This is usually done for entertainment purposes. So, being inaccurate in a retelling does not matter unless you are presenting your information as accurate. If you are trying to be accurate then one should do their research and try and get to as close to the truth as possible. Ultimately it really just comes down the authors intentions. (Which we may not always privy to.) – Blackcat1302 years ago
I found this topic interesting from the viewpoint of invulnerability and ethical closure of the reader. Although authors and auteurs use a certain amount of truth and fiction when writing history, history should be written from the standpoint of knowledge and responsibility. For example, the author's lack of political stance in Marie Antoinette (2005) doesn't clarify Marie's role in the French Revolution; this leaves the audience vulnerable and perpetuates ignorance by interpreting history inaccurately. I find this extremely important from an epistemic perspective; writers need to work towards truthful narratives. – Richard2 years ago
Or, to think about it the other way, is a story ever retold that is an accurate portrayal? Nostalgia overtakes fact and memory very quickly. It's why we see memes that talk about how great the 80's was compared to today and 20 years from now, we will say how great things were in the '20's (2020's) because as things change, we view change as a loss and that perceived loss leads us to reflecting on that past through rose colored glasses. – Amie7092 years ago
A musica-ficta? “Immersive Sound” is presenting an artistic creation, an out-of-body and strongly emotional experience, but far from our "sense of place" within reality. How do you feel about this move to “immersive” musical experiences and how does it navigate successfully within traditional 2-channel, and even, surround sound?
