Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Don't Look Up

Have you ever looked around at the rest of humanity and thought, "What a bunch of assholes?" That kind of misanthropic worldview used to be reserved for hermits on top of mountains, trolls under bridges, and lone crazies sending letter bombs from their cabin hidden deep in the woods. Now, thanks to the Interwebs (I'm looking at you Facebook) and a ruling class that has made a fucking art form out of getting half of the 99% to despise the other half of the 99% over fake, bullshit "issues," hating everyone who doesn't goose step exactly like you do is a growth industry, and if we don't wake the fuck up it's going to kill us.

Notice that I said "us," meaning the humans. George Carlin nailed it decades ago when he said that everyone crying about "saving the planet" was either stupid or hopelessly narcissistic, because the planet will be just fine with or without us. It's the people who are fucked. Whether it's nuclear war, another fun virus, global warming, or any of a dozen other people-enders, humanity has reached the point that it can commit racial suicide super easily. The planet will spin along without batting an eyelash, but humans won't be there to see it.

But Cinemavenger, you say, doesn't every generation think that the the world is finally, really going to end, and this time it's for real, yo? Yes, dear reader, they do, so it's not like there isn't hope. But we've got a lot more kill-all-humans clubs in our bag than we did even 50 years ago, and from big politics to big business the fact that we've crossed a Rubicon from, "A is A." to, "A is whatever some shitwit says it is today, and it can mufuckin' change tomorrow." means objective reality is on the endangered species list, and that's what's different from all "the sky is falling" talk of the past.

If you want all that spoon fed to you, check out Don't Look Up​ on Netflix. Adam "The Big Short" McKay wrote and directed this story about a planet-killing comet heading right for Earth. Because the politicians only care about whether the comet will help them stay in power, and the big corporation standing in for Apple only cares about how much money it can make off the comet, the very existence of the comet . . . that anyone can see simply by looking up at the sky . . . becomes a matter of opinion. Which makes this comedy the scariest horror movie I've seen in a long fucking time.

February 11, 2022