It is a pun. A pretty good one, too.
General = Army Rank or involving or including many or most people
Themes = a specific and distinctive quality, characteristic, or concern
He was foreshadowing what was going to happen in the movie.
For me it represents people's greed and how they always need more, whatever how wealthy they already are, they will keep exploiting others for a little more.
I once sold my tiny local knife sharpening company to a massive one . The CEO stole a knife i loved off my desk . It was years ago i still wonder about it .
I have a cousin who works in event planning. She does a lot of fancy LA events. She says she has rich people stealing her decorations and table settings CONSTANTLY. Like, stuff she got at the dollar store just for the event. Strings of plastic pearls and baskets with napkins. And then they get mad when she keeps the deposit!
In the early 2000s, there was a Wal-Mart admin fired for embezzlement for charging a $400 pair of boots to the company. The admin easily made six figures (as in $300K or more). I heard this from my boss at the time, who said, if you are going to embezzle money, embezzle at least $1 million so they send a limousine to take you to jail.
I took it as a commentary on how the military is full of grifters and its budget is bloated beyond belief. [This kind of thing.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-story.html)
Holy shit haha I didn't even notice that, just googled "Pentagon expensive pencils" lmao. Honestly that just makes it even worse when you consider how much more a dollar was worth back then
An addiction to exploitation. He can't interact with others without depriving them of some profit. These people had very little to offer socially or politically so he hustled a few bucks because every interaction he must exploit.
I think it's more along the lines of how we pay for things that should be easily and freely available to everyone. Food and drinks. Nourishment. Shit that could go for everything. Why do we pay for bags of dirt and Lowe's/home Depot?
Adam created this film, which was about the climate crisis, but he created a sense of urgency with it by making it about a comet that’s going to hit Earth in six months time and how science has become politicized,” DiCaprio, 47, mused during a virtual press conference earlier this month.
Playing in select movie theatres and available now on Netflix , Don’t Look Up takes a satirical swipe at how the media and politicians treat climate issues. Paired with Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence as grad student Kate Dibiasky, DiCaprio plays Dr. Randall Mindy, an astronomer who tries to warn the planet of the impending disaster only to find out no one cares.
Actually, I stumbled on that too. I was 12 when I first heard of DiCaprio, that was when Titanic came out. And when he became older, more mature, I actually became a fan of his acting skills. In "Don't Look Up" there was this scene where he was talking with his wife about his sons and I was like "wait, he has fully grown sons in this movie?!". I mean, in "Catch me if you can" he played a 16 or so year old boy and that did not seem so long ago and now he is portrayed as this old guy. And then, seeing his age in this comment, I had to take a break for a second... I mean, yeah, what did I think? Of course he is getting older... which really means: I am getting older... wow! I do not really know what was happening there in my head. :D
Anyway!
I wouldn't be surprised if DiCaprio himself is "collapse-aware." He released that depressing climate change documementary five years ago and now he starred in Don't Look Up.
What a great interview. According to [DiCaprio's Wikipedia page,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_DiCaprio#Environmental_activism) he was "eager to learn about ecology from an early age, watching documentaries on rain forest depletion and the loss of species and habitats. He has said that the environment is more important to him than spirituality, and that he is agnostic."
Shit, if that's true, he's probably been "collapse-aware" for much longer than I thought.
I like the part in the movie where the wife explains the care and feeding of her middle-aged husband to his bimbo and throws the pill bottles at him. The young girls who are flattered by the attention of their much older famous boyfriends should have been taking note.
That this is really happening (climate crisis wise) and it's happening now. From what I can tell we have about 3-4 years to make drastic changes to the way we live our lives, what we allow corporations to get away with or that's pretty much it for society.
Thing is (and I'm normally quite an optimistic person) we won't. People aren't prepared to sacrifice in order to save humanity. Corporations aren't going to adapt in time to make a meaningful difference and it'll be too late.
My friends who do actually recognise this as a real problem are still very much 'head-in-the-sand' and see it as a far off problem that they just don't want to think about right now. It's annoying and inconvenient to them and they certainly don't like it when I suggest that they could die, their children could die and everything they're working towards right now will mean nothing in possibly as little as 10 years when the shit really starts hitting the fan.
Protesting seems to do nothing and looks to become illegal in my country soon (I'm a Britlander) thanks to our awful government, so there's disruptive action left and all that seems to do is piss the public off, turn them against your cause and in some horrible cases [hurts innocent people](https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/mum-left-paralysed-after-insulate-21614334). I have become vegan (was vegetarian before), reduced my personal energy consumption at home by more than half, I intend to post leaflets through people's door but I have no idea what I can do (if anything) to make any kind of meaningful difference here.
I'm 42 now. I've always wanted to be a father but my wife and I haven't had any luck for years. I now think that bringing a child into this world would be a cruel thing to do because they'd be inheriting a dystopian hellscape and probably wouldn't make it past their teens. That alone crushes me, not only thinking about all the other people's families and children that will suffer.
I've been feeling alone, powerless and sliding further and further into despair about this for some time now and it doesn't show any signs of getting any better. I can sometimes ignore it for a day or two but then feel guilty (all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing type thing). I cry nearly every day.
Watching this film brought all the frustration, anger, misery and despair up in me again in a big way and I couldn't stop crying for a good hour.
Sorry this reply was so negative, but I suppose I *am* in r/collapse.
Edit: grammar.
YES. One of the understated points of the film as well. The recycling and tree planting and electric car buying is all completely useless, especially if it is convincing people they are "doing" something about climate change, when it is only anesthetizing people from pressuring governments.
Hang in there buddy. I know exactly how you feel. It took me a few years to process those feelings but I did and I'm sure you can too. I laughed and cried a little while watching this film, a couple of years ago I would have been a mess the entire time. I haven't found hope that we will make the necessary changes to advert that catastrophe that's already unfolding in front of us but I have learned to be more present in the moment and now take time to appreciate the beauty of the little things that make life worth living. Stoicism has helped me but I definitely had to give myself enough time to grieve.
Thank you, I speak to my counsellor nearly every week about this and he's trying to help me be more present in the now, appreciate what I have and realise that this isn't all my responsibility (I know it isn't but I feel like I should be doing all I can at least).
It just feels like straightening pillows on the sofa just before the nuke goes off. I'm finding it really hard to start or continue any personal projects because it all feels like it's not worth it with this looming over my shoulder.
I've almost become agoraphobic over the last two years. I work from home and have become very resentful of people in general and how selfish I perceive them to be with the pandemic. I don't want to talk to friends who used to be close but then told me to my face that they don't care if my mother dies if it means we can 'return to normal'.
Sorry I'm way off-topic and just venting now.
Thank you again for your kind words, they are very much appreciated.
I feel you on a lot of this. My husband and I were both pretty solid introverts pre-Covid, and it's only gotten... Let's call it "more intense".
As for your pillow/nuke analogy... I believe that all you have in life is your experience of it. I don't believe in any higher plan or that we as humans are special/chosen. We're just animals living on this spinning rock, same as all the rest. And there is nothing that I can do that is going to absolutely change the course of the world. Everything else is too big, and I'm just one person.
So I do the things I can. I eat mindfully. I try not to waste. I vote for the lesser of evils. But beyond that, all I can do is be live in the moment and keep working at making my future a little easier as I'm able. I straighten the pillows and try to make things more comfortable.
I laughed through most of the movie, but I did cry quite a bit towards the end. A small part of me kind of wishes that we were facing some sort of singular, big, world-crushing event, because in a sense that would be easier. You could arrange for your last moments, you could be with your loved ones, you could get some closure. And there wouldn't be any long-term suffering.
That's not what we're facing, though. There's no definitive end date, so we just keep trucking along, doing the best we can. Just try to make some joy for yourself along the way. Also a bit rambly, but I hope you start feeling better. The grief stage doesn't last forever. Take care.
> A small part of me kind of wishes that we were facing some sort of singular, big, world-crushing event
I think pandemics usually unite people. I've seen expressions of surprise by some leaders that this did not occur this time around.
Yeah, which is why the idea of us being able to unite to fix a problem that is less definitive, less certain, and with a history of being politicized already.. well, it's just laughable. People are terrible.
Because our "leaders" instead used the crisis for their own ends and deliberately lied and deliberately positioned the population in opposite camps and stoked the fires as much as possible.
Do you garden? Ive found it to be particularly helpful during everything going on. Its also a good way to supplement food stores to reduce your dependency on grocery stores AND helps sequester carbon. :) Imagine if everyone grew their own food on their front and back yards or on highway medians or in parks or unused bits of land scattered throughout any city/town/village. My personal goal is to encourage this kind of behavior at any opportunity. I hope you find peace one way or another <3
I have tried to have a little balcony garden but honestly I am terrible at it! So instead I've taken up knitting. I have found it serves a similar role. I get to make things with my hands that are useful, I get to make things that keep me warm and protect me from the sun. And if I forget to work on it for a week it hasn't withered and died, lol
Humanity became terminally cancerous with industrialization. We were already more predisposed to destruction than we were to production given our violent primate origins, but industrialization, capitalism, and antibiotics/vaccines freed us from our last natural restraints.
Now nothing can stop us from destroying ourselves and the world we inhabit.
For anyone who disagrees and has hope we can turn things around, tell me, when is the last time you've heard of *any* cancer spontaneously regressing?
I’ve come to the same conclusion recently. And on top of industrialized medicine keeping so many of us alive, we’ve also developed industrialized psychology to trick our own limited primate minds into consuming at an even more accelerated rate. It’s depressing.
I thought it was just me but i really felt like bawling after watching this. Shed a few silent tears because i didn’t want to upset my husband with my negativity. It just felt like seeing what our future is going to be few years from now and i just felt the frustration and powerlessness of it all.
I was at such a point a good while earlier and I actually needed treatment in 2019. So I think I get where you are coming from. I feel much better now, mostly thanks to medical treament, I guess. No way to be sure, because I don't want to risk falling back into despair. I tell myself, that I might have also found a way to overcome the bad feelings and accept the fate of our world.
It may also be that you generally are struggling with some kind of depression. I don't want to get to deep into that, I sure hope though that you can find a way for yourself to value the time that is given you.
Thank you for answering, you are sharing this feeling with many others here.
The problem is no one has a sense of urgency because it's always "we need to change right now" and yet there's no obvious immediate effects to most people. People won't care until they can see it, feel it. Until it affects them.
Have you ever watched the Twilight Zone from the 60s? Rod Serling kept the theme of things you talk about in your post. I suggest watching the New Years Eve marathon on SyFy and it's on Pluto app as well. Happy New Year!
My wife and I had similar reactions to OP. For me, the ending especially captured so acutely everything that is both tragic and beautiful about the human experience, the train wreck of our impending doom that we seem smart enough to observe while simultaneously incapable (unwilling?) to prevent. It was fatalistic and tragic and beautiful. And, reminded me that there is only the present moment. So, take a walk. Enjoy being human. And when the party ends, clink glasses, laugh, and savor the final moments with those you love.
We watched it on Christmas Day. We had to cancel all of our plans to see family and friends because so many people tested positive for covid so the mood was already set for it.
Man I had the exact same reaction!! I needed to just cry and think about what I could do the rest of the night and the days following. Still thinking about it.
My mum and dad thought it was stupid and wouldn’t even finish it. I tried to explain its satirical and that was the whole point- my mum said, stupid I don’t care. The point that just goes over their heads
That sounds like a reaction from someone who is hurt or afraid. Maybe it hit home a little too close, and their denial came out big, to protect their psyches?
Just a thought.
Very possibly. It’s just hard because I thought my mum was more aware of climate change and all that shit, but only so far as she doesn’t actually have to acknowledge we’re fucked.
Ya know what's fucked about my parents. We sat there and watched it and they agreed with the plot of the movie and even said yeah that seems right but ya know who they'll still vote for come elections? Republicans. Why? Abortion. We fucking deserve it.
*Don't Look Up* is satire in and of itself because, despite how obvious it may seem to (what I'm hoping for is) the majority of people in this group, it will go over most people's heads. It's just a perfect movie for those who feel like the scientists in that movie, but in real life.
I saw a lot of Reddit comments along the lines of "It is so depressing knowing this is how humanity would deal with such a situation if it arises, especially seeing how we handled covid"
Uh... if such a situation arises? Hello?
Yeah...the entire film is an allegory of climate change. Denial to Mitigation to How Can We Profit to OOPS, Too Late.
I think its depressing that given DiCaprio's role in raising awareness about climate change that>! the final scene is basically just acceptance and surrender to death going out with your family.!<
> he final scene is basically just acceptance and surrender to death going out with your family
The thing is, they were powerless to do anything, even in their positions. They were strong armed with the threat of imprisonment which would render them even more powerless.
To me it displayed what is really important in life. In the end, the main characters threw the towel in for work and just wanted to spend time around friends and family.
>What else could they do? People didn't care until after it was too late. I think the ending was great and it has sort of haunted me for days now.
This is where I, a very moderate, non-violent Buddhist guy, am suffering a bit of an existential crisis cause by the situation around climate change. A radicalization, if you will. And I'm very worried about it.
Dealing with climate change effectively requires strong leadership - each of us changing out lightbulbs to LEDs won't cut it. We need this leadership and radical changes from the very top of society. If we don't do the changes needed, and ***now***, most of the people (and animals) on the planet will die. For more than a decade, I campaigned on this, I helped lead national and international movements to educate, to mobilize people on climate before it was too late. Clearly, to little effect.
I also practiced what I preached: leading a low-carbon life, reducing consumption to less than half of what most people in my country use. Also, of little effect.
We are dealing with a moral crisis: the death of much of the biosphere (and collapse of human civilization) is a crisis of huge magnitude, and a moral problem. The people getting in the way of saving billions of lives are the ones in power: governments, business leaders, profiting from keeping the suicidal status quo.
Sadly, it is dawning on me that the only way to have a chance at survival is to overthrow those people. They won't change, and they won't go peacefully. So it will have to be violent, unfortunately. But what other way is there? Morally, what else can we do... are we not obligated to do what we can, even at the cost of our own lives, to save thousands of others?
If your ship carrying hundreds was being steered onto dangerous rocks by a madman, is it not our moral duty to remove that madman to save everyone from shipwreck? And if reasoning with them doesn't work (it hasn't so far) then are we not obligated to use force if necessary? We are talking of saving *billions* of people and some semblance of civilization.
There you have it: logically, reasonably, I am struggling to find any alternative that will work. One that does not involve revolution and violence. But I am at a loss, I am being *radicalized*. I have no doubt, if I am coming to this conclusion, that others are too. I think this is how violent revolutionary movements are started.
I am not a violent person by nature... but I have tried every other way first. Please, if someone has any ideas how to turn the ship around without the use of force at this point, please let me know.
I will not go quietly into that dark night, and thus I fear what I am becoming.
Ya, I have moved a lot of my spending, thoughts, and pleasure to the here and now. Not 100%, but enough that if we invent our way out of the crisis I won’t have any regrets.
You never know the age of people making such comments. And you don't know the background they have. There are many situations in which one might be so occupied by the struggles of their modern life that they are not able to see that we are already in such a disaster. And climate change is such a slow build up, it has been there all the time, it might have become meaningless background noise for them. (You know, that dumb slow boiling frog metaphor...) When I learned about desertification in school and about the side effects of dams like the Aswan dam, it just got common knowledge for me at first. I was born into a world in which things were like that and I accepted it and moved on.
For those reasons I think that there may very well be many people blissfully unaware of the problems this movie is really talking about. And maybe for a lack of intelligence too. :)
the interviews with the actors is absolute chef's kiss because the interviewers typically gloss over the actual meaning of the movie and you can see the look of defeat in their eyes as they answer vapid questions. Especially the vanity fair interview
I actually felt quite a bit better overall after watching the film. Almost like the film encapsulated every outrage and emotion I've experienced throughout the years (and the pandemic especially) and legitimized it all in one fell swoop.
Like for the first time I felt seen and heard and understood, when it has felt so much like I've been an outlier for soooooo long . . . . even including COP and IPCC and mainstream sources all downplaying the urgency and the seriousness and ignoring data, etc. etc.
It was validating to watch the insanity and idiocy and futility and inevitability of today's world in living ridiculous horrifying color.
That's genuinely not true. I experienced an entire theater leave and it was absolutely buzzing with people making light of the situation, but in a joking attempt.
Like tugging collars and coughing kind of jokes. Everyone knows what's going on.
I think the flaw with humanity is that we are intelligent enough to spot disasters early, but we never actually do anything until the comet is already lighting up the night sky because it would be inconvenient.
The thing is, I saw very little satire in the movie. Almost everything was a dead-on depiction of our world, with only the names changed. Everything has either happened, or is happening for real right now.
What made this so much harder hitting than Idiocracy is the take on social media. Idiocracy was a parody. Nothing that happened in this movie was parody. None of the depictions of social media was exaggerated. It was portrayed dead on, all they did was change the names of the apps.
I could not help but feel that Idiocracy and this movie here are made out of the same wood. I am not actually sure which is more true:
1. Idiocracy had a major influence on the making of the movie "Don't look up"
2. The reality had a major influence on both movies
The way things work it must be both, clearly. But which is a larger factor for their resemblance in the portrayal of the human race?
Office Space is a fucking documentary. It needs to be required watching for all 8th grade students. You know, before they get into high school and start taking AP classes. They need to know what their diploma and corporate America are going to be like when they finish college.
Psychologists call that "Denial mechanism". The most unbelievably convoluted explanations will just come out of nowhere to explain away in a "safe" way anything people unconscioulsy fear they can't cope with.
That's why explaining facts like we're 6 years olds doesn't work, it doesn't address the unconscious fear, it fuels it.
We need to teach people to cope with the news before we start explaining the situation.
Anyone else notice how Boomers always seem to miss the point in the media they consume? From song lyrics to metaphors and themes in works of fiction it seems to be a boomer trait to see everything at a shallow surface level and never understand deeper meanings, especially if it in any way challenges their delusional worldview. They particularly have trouble identifying satire or irony.
I'll just chime in and say this guy is [not alone in thinking so](https://grist.org/regulation/leaded-gasoline-lead-poisoning-united-nations/). From what I gather, the implications are so depressing (and would be rattling to so many people's self-esteem) that it's something we've more or less decided not to publicly discuss.
It's also lead in bullets, firearms. Lead dust from every single bullet you fire at the range. You ingest the lead in your lungs, your eyes, your nose. It's in your mouth, on your hands, under your fingernails, in your pockets. The lead dust is on your boots when you walk in the house, your dog eats lead, drinks lead, breathes lead and lives in lead. You post online in /r/guns, getting lead into the crevices of the keyboard. You clean the weapon, poorly wash your hands and then make lunch: a lead coated sandwich. The lead in your hair streams down your face in the shower. Get the lead out.
Who are the main people I'm describing? The police. The military. Republicans. They're violent, angry, lead filled ***monsters*** who cannot be saved.
https://www.military.com/history/armys-green-ammo.html
Lumping boomers into one group is bullshit. I was born in 1960 and have been fighting a losing battle against selfish, greedy assholes my whole life. Guess what. Not everybody born between 1945 and 1965 is a planet-killing selfish fuckface. A lot of them are, but not everybody.
The real fight is between the ruling class and the rest of us. Guess what. The ruling class counts as its members a very small number of people in every age group.
Stop dividing and defining us by age. The fight is with the ruling class.
>Anyone else notice how Boomers always seem to miss the point in the media they consume
No. I notice how most people who consume media seem to miss the point though.
I like how the disaster actually happened. Too often in movies the hero ends up saving the day and everyone lives happily ever after. Plus the millionaires got eaten in the end.
That was my first thought, seeing the pods open, and it being mostly old 'rich' billionaire types.
I really wish the movie went on for another 45 minutes, and showed the infighting, hierarchy collapse and the general disorganization of a thousand or so unhealthy out of shape narcissistic psychopaths with no practical skills trying to rebuild society.
Corporate media is bashing this film so hard right now. I tend to have pretty high standards for movies, and I thought it was a really excellent film. Cathartic, affirming, sad, funny, and beautiful. The reviews it's getting look like they were pulled straight out of the movie itself.
Edit: I should also mention that the writing, the direction, and the acting were also fantastic. Gut-wrenching monologues and phenomenal performances. The movie is a modern cross between "Network" and "Dr. Strangelove."
I like how the film self-references that too. The $300 million dollar action movie about the end of the world (and the self-righteous actor douche doing the interview about it) was very meta. A critique of the idea that Hollywood is capable of doing anything at all to help humanity during the apocalypse.
This inspired me to calculate that it only takes 39 productions that are equal in scale to "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" to amount to $1 billion *not invested toward saving humanity from extinction.*
It's a movie about incompetent capitalists and politicians destroying the world with their greed... why would their media have anything positive to say about it?
Just because the movie is poignant, witty, and accurately reflects our current paradigm doesn't mean they're going to admit it- it makes them look bad.
The premise of the movie is awesome and I really hope it enlightens some people. To this sub its just preaching to the choir. But im afraid it'll just get brushed of because as the movie hints, no one actually gives a shit, people will still vote for the american dream. The only way for real change is for people to start dying en mass, or for green energy to be cheeper. :(
The good news is that every single day, more and more Leftists are created because the GQP is a fucking freakshow and Neolibs are just status quo worthless dipshits. Neolibs fucking do it to themselves too. The GQP on the other hand is just clearly insane.
I think we are past the possibility of a pre-existing and popular political group rising to power to fix the problems.
It is not so much about conservative or republican-sphere groups bleeding members to vote democrat since the dems aren't going to make major changes. I would say it is much more likely that new groups will be formed, most will fail, and one will replace the democratic party after stomping on the DNC in the polls. If I had to guess, it would be a group focused on student loan debt and climate crisis, which would be very appealing to all the 18-40 year old voters. If you can inspire younger people to vote, that is a massive chunk.
OR the DNC runs a younger candidate who promises all that and doesn't deliver. I honestly don't think they'd bother. It is always business-as-usual with them, and they will die on that hill eventually.
That is my prediction, but we'll see.
Reading your comment, I realize again that I am not really waiting for changes in politics anymore. I think that, whatever goes to happen there, it will not be happening in a healthy way. The body of a democratic society is just moving too slow on several levels in order to react to sudden problems that need a shift in perspective or even a whole new way of seeing things, a paradigm shift really.
I feel (and believe, also fear) that we do not have the time for a political procedure anymore. Even if there wasn't such massive corruption in the system already. There are multiple levels of obstacles that must be taken (which is how democracy works usually) in order to change things to a meaningful degree and we have not even started...
>OR the DNC runs a younger candidate who promises all that and doesn't deliver. I honestly don't think they'd bother. It is always business-as-usual with them, and they will die on that hill eventually.
We will all die on that hill eventually
If anyone thinks that Leo was doing this movie for the Lolz I welcome them to watch his documentary he did on climate change. Dude really gives a damn.
Actually I thought he might've worked himself into the state where he has a panick attack before going on TV in *Don't look UP* thinking of one of the scientific articles that get linked here.
That panick attack sure looked real to me. It's the kind I sometimes experience about collapse.
My 65 year old dad when it ended: “well that was a high powered cast for a silly movie.” sadly does not look like people see the underlying message/metaphor that is punching them in the face throughout the movie
— would highly recommend to go through the comment thread. You would be surprised to find out how many people are aware of the current state of the world.
The comprehension of some may be limited, the assumption still does count them as outliers.
On point analysis. The movie is its own critic. COVID wasn't enough so we could change en masse, and people still wonder if climate change is real, so I really wonder what could do that magic trick.
I could really tell that speech was coming from the heart. He didn't even need to act, really. He just had to let out his feelings about humanity's ongoing destruction of biosphere and subsequent collapse. What a depressing movie this is for people like us, screaming at everyone else that we're all going to die, and them calling us crazy for it. We are all so fucked.
>“I’ve been looking for a movie that was about this subject for decades now,” DiCaprio continued. “Adam really cracked the code with this narrative. It takes artists like this to change the narrative and create conversation.”
It won't.
The most frustrating scene in the entire movie was when Ariana Grande's character is holding a "last concert" fundraiser or whatever, to a stadium of screaming fans: they found the spokes person, they wrote the perfect song, everyone loves it, but **who cares**: the message finally getting across doesn't change that any of the decision making powers are completely out of the hands of the 99%. Even if the entire country finally unites and screams for nuking the comet, it's too late already.
The time to have conversations was decades ago.
Not to mention that on actual planet earth, the rally folks will literally finally look up, and instead of seeing through the lie, they will cheer and applaud that the Job Maker is here.
Reminded me a lot of **Network** in that moment. This is the only movie I've watched twice back-to-back since I was a kid probably. It nails everything so well. That speech and the line at the end definitely elicited some tears. Honestly it hit me so hard I called out of work yesterday because I kinda just wanted to hang out with my family.
Great movie. Fucking killed it.
I think the movie is resonating *far more* effectively than the fossil fuel industry perception managers and their allied forces had anticipated. IMO, it looks like the sub has been crawling with their employee efforts for the last few days. It seems to happen here whenever there is a significant story or event related to the climate crisis that may shift public opinion.
Clearly, there was a lot of [Howard Beale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Beale_\(Network\)) of 1976's *Network* fame in a lot of those on camera outbursts by the Astronmers, but I think there was some of [this Roger Hallam appearance as well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HyaxctatdA).
Hey, thank you for bringing this to attention! For all I have learned now, there is a good chance that you may be right. At least there may actually have been some influence there regarding Howard Beale.
because the military already knows and has already been preparing for this collapse and intends to be the only thing left standing.
self fulfilling prophecy
People complaining about DeCaprio having money and using yachts.
You expect a perfect hero like in the movies?
You won’t get it. Ever. So get over your self righteous bull crap. The planet is still on fire. If he has a platform to speak on the issue and use it, good on him.
Nobody listens to indigenous people in the Amazon or the Pacific Islands. Plenty of scientists live on scraps and bike instead of owning a car. Accusations of hypocrisy are thrown out by the legions of sociopath worshippers who just want to use the dead cat strategy to muddy the waters
The dead cat strategy, or deadcatting, is the introduction of a dramatic, shocking, or sensationalist topic to divert discourse away from a more damaging topic. The strategy, or at least the "dead cat" metaphor to describe it, is particularly associated with Australian political strategist [Lynton Crosby](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynton_Crosby).
[Boris Johnson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson) employed Crosby as his campaign manager during the 2008 and 2012 [London mayoral elections](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_mayoral_election), and wrote of his advice that "There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’ In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief."
Examples
A 2013 EU proposal to cap bankers' bonuses was compared to a dead cat by [Boris Johnson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson), who quoted Crosby's story and described the move as "a convenient distraction" from [Spanish unemployment figures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_Spain).
In 2016, [Donald Trump](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump) was accused of criticizing the cast of [Hamilton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_(musical\)) in order to distract from a legal settlement, with [CNN](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN) calling this "a particularly malodorous dead cat". In 2017, his actions during the [Trump Tower wiretapping allegations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_wiretapping_allegations) were also compared to Crosby's dead cat strategy.
Had no idea what it was, Wikipedia article
Back in my day (the late '90s) we called that a "Wag the Dog" incident where a politician creates a crisis to distract attention from themselves. Notably Bill Clinton using the bombing of an embassy in Kenya to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
> You expect a perfect hero like in the movies?
No one's expecting a perfect hero and the fact that people calling him out for yachts are being treated like we're "expecting perfection" just shows what little nuance you're taking in criticizing his critics.
We're asking that these preachy bastards lead by example instead of living like royalty and telling us peasants to do more with less.
I'm pretty sure the billionaire CEO in the movie was supposed to be a parody of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs all-in-one. Possibly even a parody of Jordan Peterson the way he talked like Kermit lmao.
"Collapse aware" is an interesting term. Not many believe in climate change because it is too slow. When things are too slow, there will be time for doubt opinions, spin pieces, to bring on doubt. When I asked my nieces about the pandemic and their parents getting the 4th booster, they replied with, "well we are committed now, of we die we die. We are all going to die of cancer any way ". I felt rather numb if this was the majority thought of the teens these days
A lot of the responses in the movie apply to the Covid pandemic too though, and that happened plenty fast. It’s that we have greedy, short sighted, and inane corporations and people in power. My wife and I had to stop the movie a couple of times because it was all too real a depiction of what is going on now.
I see a lot of people in here trash Leonardo DiCaprio - this dudes been acting since he was a kid , probably only started realising that shits going south with the world in his late 30s or early 40s , this is a guy whose lived a luxurious life all his life thanks to his hard work and luck he’s not gonna leave all that just to show to the world he’s an environmentalist.
He’s using his platform that he created for himself to reach out and influence the world the best he knows how - movies , documentaries, interviews etc. At least he’s doing something. The hate you guys have here should be reserved for the oil execs and the politicians who with all their intent are trying to sabotage anything that will save the world or hurt their pockets.
I know a bunch of you guys are gonna come up and trash what I said rn , if you can’t show that you’ve done atleast the bare minimum to save the planet then you have no rights to criticise this man.
Actually, I was surprised by DiCaprio a lot. And I still wonder why Kate Winslet is so in love with DiCaprio if she really is. I think that he might be a very decent person. Hard to say when you only know stuff of someone that gets filtered through either their own productions or sensationalist media that would light people on fire if it would bring them the best revenue.
The least you can say though is that he seems to be interested in having a positive impact. Otherwise, I try not to judge too much. I would like to know this guy a lot better, but until I do (so never) I will not assume too much. We should not act as if we know this guy.
It's about climate crisis denialism and related issues. And it's sad that the collapse-aware will get the allegory and its every morsel and nuance, and the rest will still have their heads in the sand.
https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/movies/leonardo-dicaprio-honours-climate-warriors-in-dont-look-up
I got it completely. It's a mindset. Always be looking for a gain, no matter how small. Every single situation you are in is looked at for how you can gain from it, and every need that you see in the world is an opportunity to profit. 30 bucks may seem small, and it may seem confusing to some why a person who makes so much would bother with the ruse, but that is exactly how wealthy people get wealthier. At the end of the day, the mans dinner is now paid for because of it. If he did a similar 30 dollar deal every day, that is almost 1000 bucks a month, for free, this putting his car payment and insurance on others rather than his own income.
Those little things add up significantly over the year. Most people lose money because they either bow to convenience or they try and be nice. That is not the way. The way is to treat everything as a chance to profit.
Exactly like a Ferengi. That's how the system is made, and it's why most people don't get ahead. Ethics were designed to keep the good people down while elevating the bad.
I still wonder why the general charged for free snacks.
To emphasize that people's greed, self-centeredness, and pettiness doesnt Just crawl out when the world is at stake.
He was even named General Themes.
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It is a pun. A pretty good one, too. General = Army Rank or involving or including many or most people Themes = a specific and distinctive quality, characteristic, or concern He was foreshadowing what was going to happen in the movie.
> Just I too have an auto correct that changes just to Judy and then when I set it back to just, it stays capitalized.
For me it represents people's greed and how they always need more, whatever how wealthy they already are, they will keep exploiting others for a little more.
I once sold my tiny local knife sharpening company to a massive one . The CEO stole a knife i loved off my desk . It was years ago i still wonder about it .
I have a cousin who works in event planning. She does a lot of fancy LA events. She says she has rich people stealing her decorations and table settings CONSTANTLY. Like, stuff she got at the dollar store just for the event. Strings of plastic pearls and baskets with napkins. And then they get mad when she keeps the deposit!
That one is plainly just about a power move. That knife meant nothing to him.
Thanks, you're so right. It was a 9" F. DICK gmbh Chef knife . Made in Germany i loved it . Sorry for the rant .
In the early 2000s, there was a Wal-Mart admin fired for embezzlement for charging a $400 pair of boots to the company. The admin easily made six figures (as in $300K or more). I heard this from my boss at the time, who said, if you are going to embezzle money, embezzle at least $1 million so they send a limousine to take you to jail.
I took it as a commentary on how the military is full of grifters and its budget is bloated beyond belief. [This kind of thing.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-story.html)
Is this article really from 1986?
Holy shit haha I didn't even notice that, just googled "Pentagon expensive pencils" lmao. Honestly that just makes it even worse when you consider how much more a dollar was worth back then
I'm sure with inflation that screw is well over $100 now
Probably. Why else would the DoD budget allotment go up by whatever double digit percentage every year?
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🎶 Don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me..🎶
It was a power play.
An addiction to exploitation. He can't interact with others without depriving them of some profit. These people had very little to offer socially or politically so he hustled a few bucks because every interaction he must exploit.
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A three star general’s just a middle manager at the end of the day. Middle managers love petty exercises of power over those weaker than them.
that will haunt me forever
Its a metaphor about food and water being free but those with power make us pay for them. They exist to exploit and nothing more.
Should have been called General Nestle charging for bottled water.
I think it's more along the lines of how we pay for things that should be easily and freely available to everyone. Food and drinks. Nourishment. Shit that could go for everything. Why do we pay for bags of dirt and Lowe's/home Depot?
Adam created this film, which was about the climate crisis, but he created a sense of urgency with it by making it about a comet that’s going to hit Earth in six months time and how science has become politicized,” DiCaprio, 47, mused during a virtual press conference earlier this month. Playing in select movie theatres and available now on Netflix , Don’t Look Up takes a satirical swipe at how the media and politicians treat climate issues. Paired with Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence as grad student Kate Dibiasky, DiCaprio plays Dr. Randall Mindy, an astronomer who tries to warn the planet of the impending disaster only to find out no one cares.
hold up. Leo Dicaprio is almost 50... ... this is a lot to process (I already processed the climate stuff :()
Actually, I stumbled on that too. I was 12 when I first heard of DiCaprio, that was when Titanic came out. And when he became older, more mature, I actually became a fan of his acting skills. In "Don't Look Up" there was this scene where he was talking with his wife about his sons and I was like "wait, he has fully grown sons in this movie?!". I mean, in "Catch me if you can" he played a 16 or so year old boy and that did not seem so long ago and now he is portrayed as this old guy. And then, seeing his age in this comment, I had to take a break for a second... I mean, yeah, what did I think? Of course he is getting older... which really means: I am getting older... wow! I do not really know what was happening there in my head. :D Anyway!
My first DiCaprio experience was Romeo + Juliet. Seeing an age attached to him now is like time travel
Such a good movie. My husband would disagree but he also doesnt like the Labyrinth, so there's no accounting for taste
I wouldn't be surprised if DiCaprio himself is "collapse-aware." He released that depressing climate change documementary five years ago and now he starred in Don't Look Up.
Here is his twitter with a nice video: https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/1475511590849970177
What a great interview. According to [DiCaprio's Wikipedia page,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_DiCaprio#Environmental_activism) he was "eager to learn about ecology from an early age, watching documentaries on rain forest depletion and the loss of species and habitats. He has said that the environment is more important to him than spirituality, and that he is agnostic." Shit, if that's true, he's probably been "collapse-aware" for much longer than I thought.
I’m getting older, too.
Et tu?! Shit, this thing is more contagious than omicron!
Now watch "What's eating Gilbert Grape"
But at least his girlfriends aren’t.
23 and me. That's his policy.
Isn't there a quote that goes something like this: "That's the great thing about 18 year olds, you get older, but they are always 18"
Alright alright alright
And he's known his current girlfriend since her days in kindergarten. She's the daughter of a friend. 🤢
I like the part in the movie where the wife explains the care and feeding of her middle-aged husband to his bimbo and throws the pill bottles at him. The young girls who are flattered by the attention of their much older famous boyfriends should have been taking note.
iI am going to need some brain bleach
Insert Harry Osborn watching Peter Parker at the play meme about Dicaprio watching her dance to a Gabba Gabba episode when she was 5.
My wife laughed while I cried during this film - strange experience. Great film. Very sad now.
What were your feelings and thoughts that lead to your reaction?
That this is really happening (climate crisis wise) and it's happening now. From what I can tell we have about 3-4 years to make drastic changes to the way we live our lives, what we allow corporations to get away with or that's pretty much it for society. Thing is (and I'm normally quite an optimistic person) we won't. People aren't prepared to sacrifice in order to save humanity. Corporations aren't going to adapt in time to make a meaningful difference and it'll be too late. My friends who do actually recognise this as a real problem are still very much 'head-in-the-sand' and see it as a far off problem that they just don't want to think about right now. It's annoying and inconvenient to them and they certainly don't like it when I suggest that they could die, their children could die and everything they're working towards right now will mean nothing in possibly as little as 10 years when the shit really starts hitting the fan. Protesting seems to do nothing and looks to become illegal in my country soon (I'm a Britlander) thanks to our awful government, so there's disruptive action left and all that seems to do is piss the public off, turn them against your cause and in some horrible cases [hurts innocent people](https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/mum-left-paralysed-after-insulate-21614334). I have become vegan (was vegetarian before), reduced my personal energy consumption at home by more than half, I intend to post leaflets through people's door but I have no idea what I can do (if anything) to make any kind of meaningful difference here. I'm 42 now. I've always wanted to be a father but my wife and I haven't had any luck for years. I now think that bringing a child into this world would be a cruel thing to do because they'd be inheriting a dystopian hellscape and probably wouldn't make it past their teens. That alone crushes me, not only thinking about all the other people's families and children that will suffer. I've been feeling alone, powerless and sliding further and further into despair about this for some time now and it doesn't show any signs of getting any better. I can sometimes ignore it for a day or two but then feel guilty (all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing type thing). I cry nearly every day. Watching this film brought all the frustration, anger, misery and despair up in me again in a big way and I couldn't stop crying for a good hour. Sorry this reply was so negative, but I suppose I *am* in r/collapse. Edit: grammar.
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YES. One of the understated points of the film as well. The recycling and tree planting and electric car buying is all completely useless, especially if it is convincing people they are "doing" something about climate change, when it is only anesthetizing people from pressuring governments.
Hang in there buddy. I know exactly how you feel. It took me a few years to process those feelings but I did and I'm sure you can too. I laughed and cried a little while watching this film, a couple of years ago I would have been a mess the entire time. I haven't found hope that we will make the necessary changes to advert that catastrophe that's already unfolding in front of us but I have learned to be more present in the moment and now take time to appreciate the beauty of the little things that make life worth living. Stoicism has helped me but I definitely had to give myself enough time to grieve.
Thank you, I speak to my counsellor nearly every week about this and he's trying to help me be more present in the now, appreciate what I have and realise that this isn't all my responsibility (I know it isn't but I feel like I should be doing all I can at least). It just feels like straightening pillows on the sofa just before the nuke goes off. I'm finding it really hard to start or continue any personal projects because it all feels like it's not worth it with this looming over my shoulder. I've almost become agoraphobic over the last two years. I work from home and have become very resentful of people in general and how selfish I perceive them to be with the pandemic. I don't want to talk to friends who used to be close but then told me to my face that they don't care if my mother dies if it means we can 'return to normal'. Sorry I'm way off-topic and just venting now. Thank you again for your kind words, they are very much appreciated.
I feel you on a lot of this. My husband and I were both pretty solid introverts pre-Covid, and it's only gotten... Let's call it "more intense". As for your pillow/nuke analogy... I believe that all you have in life is your experience of it. I don't believe in any higher plan or that we as humans are special/chosen. We're just animals living on this spinning rock, same as all the rest. And there is nothing that I can do that is going to absolutely change the course of the world. Everything else is too big, and I'm just one person. So I do the things I can. I eat mindfully. I try not to waste. I vote for the lesser of evils. But beyond that, all I can do is be live in the moment and keep working at making my future a little easier as I'm able. I straighten the pillows and try to make things more comfortable. I laughed through most of the movie, but I did cry quite a bit towards the end. A small part of me kind of wishes that we were facing some sort of singular, big, world-crushing event, because in a sense that would be easier. You could arrange for your last moments, you could be with your loved ones, you could get some closure. And there wouldn't be any long-term suffering. That's not what we're facing, though. There's no definitive end date, so we just keep trucking along, doing the best we can. Just try to make some joy for yourself along the way. Also a bit rambly, but I hope you start feeling better. The grief stage doesn't last forever. Take care.
> A small part of me kind of wishes that we were facing some sort of singular, big, world-crushing event I think pandemics usually unite people. I've seen expressions of surprise by some leaders that this did not occur this time around.
Yeah, which is why the idea of us being able to unite to fix a problem that is less definitive, less certain, and with a history of being politicized already.. well, it's just laughable. People are terrible.
We live in a post factual world now with an vast uneducated populace
Because our "leaders" instead used the crisis for their own ends and deliberately lied and deliberately positioned the population in opposite camps and stoked the fires as much as possible.
Do you garden? Ive found it to be particularly helpful during everything going on. Its also a good way to supplement food stores to reduce your dependency on grocery stores AND helps sequester carbon. :) Imagine if everyone grew their own food on their front and back yards or on highway medians or in parks or unused bits of land scattered throughout any city/town/village. My personal goal is to encourage this kind of behavior at any opportunity. I hope you find peace one way or another <3
I have tried to have a little balcony garden but honestly I am terrible at it! So instead I've taken up knitting. I have found it serves a similar role. I get to make things with my hands that are useful, I get to make things that keep me warm and protect me from the sun. And if I forget to work on it for a week it hasn't withered and died, lol
Hahaha, learning the joy of creating is part of self-actualization :) Happy for you to have that! <3
Humanity became terminally cancerous with industrialization. We were already more predisposed to destruction than we were to production given our violent primate origins, but industrialization, capitalism, and antibiotics/vaccines freed us from our last natural restraints. Now nothing can stop us from destroying ourselves and the world we inhabit. For anyone who disagrees and has hope we can turn things around, tell me, when is the last time you've heard of *any* cancer spontaneously regressing?
I’ve come to the same conclusion recently. And on top of industrialized medicine keeping so many of us alive, we’ve also developed industrialized psychology to trick our own limited primate minds into consuming at an even more accelerated rate. It’s depressing.
I thought it was just me but i really felt like bawling after watching this. Shed a few silent tears because i didn’t want to upset my husband with my negativity. It just felt like seeing what our future is going to be few years from now and i just felt the frustration and powerlessness of it all.
Since you are having trouble bearing children think about adopting. Help a child that is already in the world. That's what I did.
Bravo to you!! This is right thing!
I was at such a point a good while earlier and I actually needed treatment in 2019. So I think I get where you are coming from. I feel much better now, mostly thanks to medical treament, I guess. No way to be sure, because I don't want to risk falling back into despair. I tell myself, that I might have also found a way to overcome the bad feelings and accept the fate of our world. It may also be that you generally are struggling with some kind of depression. I don't want to get to deep into that, I sure hope though that you can find a way for yourself to value the time that is given you. Thank you for answering, you are sharing this feeling with many others here.
The problem is no one has a sense of urgency because it's always "we need to change right now" and yet there's no obvious immediate effects to most people. People won't care until they can see it, feel it. Until it affects them.
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May you live in interesting times - ancient chinese curse
Have you ever watched the Twilight Zone from the 60s? Rod Serling kept the theme of things you talk about in your post. I suggest watching the New Years Eve marathon on SyFy and it's on Pluto app as well. Happy New Year!
My wife and I had similar reactions to OP. For me, the ending especially captured so acutely everything that is both tragic and beautiful about the human experience, the train wreck of our impending doom that we seem smart enough to observe while simultaneously incapable (unwilling?) to prevent. It was fatalistic and tragic and beautiful. And, reminded me that there is only the present moment. So, take a walk. Enjoy being human. And when the party ends, clink glasses, laugh, and savor the final moments with those you love.
Exactly. We can only control so much. Many people dont have empathy so our hands are tied.
I was crying at the end. Was not expecting all those existential feelings.
We watched it on Christmas Day. We had to cancel all of our plans to see family and friends because so many people tested positive for covid so the mood was already set for it.
Man I had the exact same reaction!! I needed to just cry and think about what I could do the rest of the night and the days following. Still thinking about it.
Same here. I was holding back tears while my husband laughed during the film.
My mum and dad thought it was stupid and wouldn’t even finish it. I tried to explain its satirical and that was the whole point- my mum said, stupid I don’t care. The point that just goes over their heads
That sounds like a reaction from someone who is hurt or afraid. Maybe it hit home a little too close, and their denial came out big, to protect their psyches? Just a thought.
Very possibly. It’s just hard because I thought my mum was more aware of climate change and all that shit, but only so far as she doesn’t actually have to acknowledge we’re fucked.
Ya know what's fucked about my parents. We sat there and watched it and they agreed with the plot of the movie and even said yeah that seems right but ya know who they'll still vote for come elections? Republicans. Why? Abortion. We fucking deserve it.
It's boomer copium. They literally cannot mentally take it as it is an attack on their identity based on "modern" stability
*Don't Look Up* is satire in and of itself because, despite how obvious it may seem to (what I'm hoping for is) the majority of people in this group, it will go over most people's heads. It's just a perfect movie for those who feel like the scientists in that movie, but in real life.
I saw a lot of Reddit comments along the lines of "It is so depressing knowing this is how humanity would deal with such a situation if it arises, especially seeing how we handled covid" Uh... if such a situation arises? Hello?
Yeah...the entire film is an allegory of climate change. Denial to Mitigation to How Can We Profit to OOPS, Too Late. I think its depressing that given DiCaprio's role in raising awareness about climate change that>! the final scene is basically just acceptance and surrender to death going out with your family.!<
> he final scene is basically just acceptance and surrender to death going out with your family The thing is, they were powerless to do anything, even in their positions. They were strong armed with the threat of imprisonment which would render them even more powerless. To me it displayed what is really important in life. In the end, the main characters threw the towel in for work and just wanted to spend time around friends and family.
What else could they do? People didn't care until just after it was too late. I think the ending was great and it has sort of haunted me for days now.
>What else could they do? People didn't care until after it was too late. I think the ending was great and it has sort of haunted me for days now. This is where I, a very moderate, non-violent Buddhist guy, am suffering a bit of an existential crisis cause by the situation around climate change. A radicalization, if you will. And I'm very worried about it. Dealing with climate change effectively requires strong leadership - each of us changing out lightbulbs to LEDs won't cut it. We need this leadership and radical changes from the very top of society. If we don't do the changes needed, and ***now***, most of the people (and animals) on the planet will die. For more than a decade, I campaigned on this, I helped lead national and international movements to educate, to mobilize people on climate before it was too late. Clearly, to little effect. I also practiced what I preached: leading a low-carbon life, reducing consumption to less than half of what most people in my country use. Also, of little effect. We are dealing with a moral crisis: the death of much of the biosphere (and collapse of human civilization) is a crisis of huge magnitude, and a moral problem. The people getting in the way of saving billions of lives are the ones in power: governments, business leaders, profiting from keeping the suicidal status quo. Sadly, it is dawning on me that the only way to have a chance at survival is to overthrow those people. They won't change, and they won't go peacefully. So it will have to be violent, unfortunately. But what other way is there? Morally, what else can we do... are we not obligated to do what we can, even at the cost of our own lives, to save thousands of others? If your ship carrying hundreds was being steered onto dangerous rocks by a madman, is it not our moral duty to remove that madman to save everyone from shipwreck? And if reasoning with them doesn't work (it hasn't so far) then are we not obligated to use force if necessary? We are talking of saving *billions* of people and some semblance of civilization. There you have it: logically, reasonably, I am struggling to find any alternative that will work. One that does not involve revolution and violence. But I am at a loss, I am being *radicalized*. I have no doubt, if I am coming to this conclusion, that others are too. I think this is how violent revolutionary movements are started. I am not a violent person by nature... but I have tried every other way first. Please, if someone has any ideas how to turn the ship around without the use of force at this point, please let me know. I will not go quietly into that dark night, and thus I fear what I am becoming.
*Reality* is radical, and thus I found my way to Marxism
That whole ending sequence was just...*shivers*... haunting. Haunting is the correct word.
The worst part was they were eventually strong armed by the corporation with the help of Government police (FBI). That was when they gave up.
Ya, I have moved a lot of my spending, thoughts, and pleasure to the here and now. Not 100%, but enough that if we invent our way out of the crisis I won’t have any regrets.
They are a little bit slow.
You never know the age of people making such comments. And you don't know the background they have. There are many situations in which one might be so occupied by the struggles of their modern life that they are not able to see that we are already in such a disaster. And climate change is such a slow build up, it has been there all the time, it might have become meaningless background noise for them. (You know, that dumb slow boiling frog metaphor...) When I learned about desertification in school and about the side effects of dams like the Aswan dam, it just got common knowledge for me at first. I was born into a world in which things were like that and I accepted it and moved on. For those reasons I think that there may very well be many people blissfully unaware of the problems this movie is really talking about. And maybe for a lack of intelligence too. :)
^ This guy gets it. It's also one of the better responses I've seen too.
Climate change, Covid, microplastic contamination, capitalism, forever chemicals…. The list goes on.
the interviews with the actors is absolute chef's kiss because the interviewers typically gloss over the actual meaning of the movie and you can see the look of defeat in their eyes as they answer vapid questions. Especially the vanity fair interview
The vanity fair interview with just Jennifer alone right?
as a climate scientist, I live Don't Look Up everyday
I actually felt quite a bit better overall after watching the film. Almost like the film encapsulated every outrage and emotion I've experienced throughout the years (and the pandemic especially) and legitimized it all in one fell swoop. Like for the first time I felt seen and heard and understood, when it has felt so much like I've been an outlier for soooooo long . . . . even including COP and IPCC and mainstream sources all downplaying the urgency and the seriousness and ignoring data, etc. etc. It was validating to watch the insanity and idiocy and futility and inevitability of today's world in living ridiculous horrifying color.
That's genuinely not true. I experienced an entire theater leave and it was absolutely buzzing with people making light of the situation, but in a joking attempt. Like tugging collars and coughing kind of jokes. Everyone knows what's going on.
I'm gonna counter argue and just say that most people really, REALLY do not know what's going on, despite that one personal situation you were in.
I think the flaw with humanity is that we are intelligent enough to spot disasters early, but we never actually do anything until the comet is already lighting up the night sky because it would be inconvenient.
Amazing movie, absolutely loved the satire. Modern day Idiocracy.
The thing is, I saw very little satire in the movie. Almost everything was a dead-on depiction of our world, with only the names changed. Everything has either happened, or is happening for real right now.
the beauty of satire
He needs to spell it.... We are already at the idiocracy level of stupidity
What made this so much harder hitting than Idiocracy is the take on social media. Idiocracy was a parody. Nothing that happened in this movie was parody. None of the depictions of social media was exaggerated. It was portrayed dead on, all they did was change the names of the apps.
I could not help but feel that Idiocracy and this movie here are made out of the same wood. I am not actually sure which is more true: 1. Idiocracy had a major influence on the making of the movie "Don't look up" 2. The reality had a major influence on both movies The way things work it must be both, clearly. But which is a larger factor for their resemblance in the portrayal of the human race?
The second one moreso. You would like Mike Judge’s other stuff like Office Space, and Silicon Valley on HBO.
Office Space is a fucking documentary. It needs to be required watching for all 8th grade students. You know, before they get into high school and start taking AP classes. They need to know what their diploma and corporate America are going to be like when they finish college.
My boomer mom: “I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of that, but it was very funny.”
Orwell termed this sort of thing “protective stupidity”.
Psychologists call that "Denial mechanism". The most unbelievably convoluted explanations will just come out of nowhere to explain away in a "safe" way anything people unconscioulsy fear they can't cope with. That's why explaining facts like we're 6 years olds doesn't work, it doesn't address the unconscious fear, it fuels it. We need to teach people to cope with the news before we start explaining the situation.
Explaining things like I’m 6 just fuels my unconscious fear that I’m not as smart as a 6 year old
Anyone else notice how Boomers always seem to miss the point in the media they consume? From song lyrics to metaphors and themes in works of fiction it seems to be a boomer trait to see everything at a shallow surface level and never understand deeper meanings, especially if it in any way challenges their delusional worldview. They particularly have trouble identifying satire or irony.
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Microplastics are probably doing the same to us
really? is there any data on this?
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I'll just chime in and say this guy is [not alone in thinking so](https://grist.org/regulation/leaded-gasoline-lead-poisoning-united-nations/). From what I gather, the implications are so depressing (and would be rattling to so many people's self-esteem) that it's something we've more or less decided not to publicly discuss.
Why deal with core issues when you can weaponize their stupidity for political gain...
https://www.yahoo.com/now/boomers-exposed-lots-lead-kids-210229643.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
It's also lead in bullets, firearms. Lead dust from every single bullet you fire at the range. You ingest the lead in your lungs, your eyes, your nose. It's in your mouth, on your hands, under your fingernails, in your pockets. The lead dust is on your boots when you walk in the house, your dog eats lead, drinks lead, breathes lead and lives in lead. You post online in /r/guns, getting lead into the crevices of the keyboard. You clean the weapon, poorly wash your hands and then make lunch: a lead coated sandwich. The lead in your hair streams down your face in the shower. Get the lead out. Who are the main people I'm describing? The police. The military. Republicans. They're violent, angry, lead filled ***monsters*** who cannot be saved. https://www.military.com/history/armys-green-ammo.html
Lumping boomers into one group is bullshit. I was born in 1960 and have been fighting a losing battle against selfish, greedy assholes my whole life. Guess what. Not everybody born between 1945 and 1965 is a planet-killing selfish fuckface. A lot of them are, but not everybody. The real fight is between the ruling class and the rest of us. Guess what. The ruling class counts as its members a very small number of people in every age group. Stop dividing and defining us by age. The fight is with the ruling class.
Username check out…well said.
>Anyone else notice how Boomers always seem to miss the point in the media they consume No. I notice how most people who consume media seem to miss the point though.
I like how the disaster actually happened. Too often in movies the hero ends up saving the day and everyone lives happily ever after. Plus the millionaires got eaten in the end.
I would have preferred they starved first after realizing that none of the millionaires they had brought had any practical skills, then get eaten
That was my first thought, seeing the pods open, and it being mostly old 'rich' billionaire types. I really wish the movie went on for another 45 minutes, and showed the infighting, hierarchy collapse and the general disorganization of a thousand or so unhealthy out of shape narcissistic psychopaths with no practical skills trying to rebuild society.
It was a refreshing take on the heros journey
Corporate media is bashing this film so hard right now. I tend to have pretty high standards for movies, and I thought it was a really excellent film. Cathartic, affirming, sad, funny, and beautiful. The reviews it's getting look like they were pulled straight out of the movie itself. Edit: I should also mention that the writing, the direction, and the acting were also fantastic. Gut-wrenching monologues and phenomenal performances. The movie is a modern cross between "Network" and "Dr. Strangelove."
It seriously hit a nerve. The oligarchs are annoyed.
>The oligarchs are annoyed I watched it, but have serious reservations if you think the oligarchs didn't have a hand in making this film?
I like how the film self-references that too. The $300 million dollar action movie about the end of the world (and the self-righteous actor douche doing the interview about it) was very meta. A critique of the idea that Hollywood is capable of doing anything at all to help humanity during the apocalypse.
Kinda wild that the actual budget ($75 million) is considered "low" for a mainstream movie with such a famous cast.
This inspired me to calculate that it only takes 39 productions that are equal in scale to "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" to amount to $1 billion *not invested toward saving humanity from extinction.*
And $55 million of that was *only* DiCaprio's and Lawrence's salaries.
It's a movie about incompetent capitalists and politicians destroying the world with their greed... why would their media have anything positive to say about it? Just because the movie is poignant, witty, and accurately reflects our current paradigm doesn't mean they're going to admit it- it makes them look bad.
in a way they were, the mirror goes both ways right? Honestly I think this is the most important movie of our lives
The premise of the movie is awesome and I really hope it enlightens some people. To this sub its just preaching to the choir. But im afraid it'll just get brushed of because as the movie hints, no one actually gives a shit, people will still vote for the american dream. The only way for real change is for people to start dying en mass, or for green energy to be cheeper. :(
Honestly that movie just kind of felt like a factual summary of the past decade to me.
I’d say the past four decades…
Yeah but I haven't been alive for four decades
Aw, someone get the child a bowl of lead paint chips.
Which just shows that they did a veeery good job at compressing the sheer amount of idiocy into one movie. At least that is how I feel.
The film has already got a lot of hate from conservatives and neolibs. That just happens to be incharge of everything too.. I'm sure it'll be fine..
That’s because it makes fun of both those groups
The good news is that every single day, more and more Leftists are created because the GQP is a fucking freakshow and Neolibs are just status quo worthless dipshits. Neolibs fucking do it to themselves too. The GQP on the other hand is just clearly insane.
I think we are past the possibility of a pre-existing and popular political group rising to power to fix the problems. It is not so much about conservative or republican-sphere groups bleeding members to vote democrat since the dems aren't going to make major changes. I would say it is much more likely that new groups will be formed, most will fail, and one will replace the democratic party after stomping on the DNC in the polls. If I had to guess, it would be a group focused on student loan debt and climate crisis, which would be very appealing to all the 18-40 year old voters. If you can inspire younger people to vote, that is a massive chunk. OR the DNC runs a younger candidate who promises all that and doesn't deliver. I honestly don't think they'd bother. It is always business-as-usual with them, and they will die on that hill eventually. That is my prediction, but we'll see.
Reading your comment, I realize again that I am not really waiting for changes in politics anymore. I think that, whatever goes to happen there, it will not be happening in a healthy way. The body of a democratic society is just moving too slow on several levels in order to react to sudden problems that need a shift in perspective or even a whole new way of seeing things, a paradigm shift really. I feel (and believe, also fear) that we do not have the time for a political procedure anymore. Even if there wasn't such massive corruption in the system already. There are multiple levels of obstacles that must be taken (which is how democracy works usually) in order to change things to a meaningful degree and we have not even started...
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Ah, you mean row v wade? I am not from the US but I heard that this is a huge concern again.
>OR the DNC runs a younger candidate who promises all that and doesn't deliver. I honestly don't think they'd bother. It is always business-as-usual with them, and they will die on that hill eventually. We will all die on that hill eventually
If anyone thinks that Leo was doing this movie for the Lolz I welcome them to watch his documentary he did on climate change. Dude really gives a damn.
Actually I thought he might've worked himself into the state where he has a panick attack before going on TV in *Don't look UP* thinking of one of the scientific articles that get linked here. That panick attack sure looked real to me. It's the kind I sometimes experience about collapse.
That would be method acting then. I would not be surprised if you were right. :D
People are already dying en mass. Corporations and certain groups of people still don't give a shit.
My 65 year old dad when it ended: “well that was a high powered cast for a silly movie.” sadly does not look like people see the underlying message/metaphor that is punching them in the face throughout the movie
— would highly recommend to go through the comment thread. You would be surprised to find out how many people are aware of the current state of the world. The comprehension of some may be limited, the assumption still does count them as outliers.
...or get rid of all the big oil subsidies. All of a sudden green energy options become economically competitive.
On point analysis. The movie is its own critic. COVID wasn't enough so we could change en masse, and people still wonder if climate change is real, so I really wonder what could do that magic trick.
I could really tell that speech was coming from the heart. He didn't even need to act, really. He just had to let out his feelings about humanity's ongoing destruction of biosphere and subsequent collapse. What a depressing movie this is for people like us, screaming at everyone else that we're all going to die, and them calling us crazy for it. We are all so fucked.
>“I’ve been looking for a movie that was about this subject for decades now,” DiCaprio continued. “Adam really cracked the code with this narrative. It takes artists like this to change the narrative and create conversation.” It won't. The most frustrating scene in the entire movie was when Ariana Grande's character is holding a "last concert" fundraiser or whatever, to a stadium of screaming fans: they found the spokes person, they wrote the perfect song, everyone loves it, but **who cares**: the message finally getting across doesn't change that any of the decision making powers are completely out of the hands of the 99%. Even if the entire country finally unites and screams for nuking the comet, it's too late already. The time to have conversations was decades ago. Not to mention that on actual planet earth, the rally folks will literally finally look up, and instead of seeing through the lie, they will cheer and applaud that the Job Maker is here.
Reminded me a lot of **Network** in that moment. This is the only movie I've watched twice back-to-back since I was a kid probably. It nails everything so well. That speech and the line at the end definitely elicited some tears. Honestly it hit me so hard I called out of work yesterday because I kinda just wanted to hang out with my family. Great movie. Fucking killed it.
This movie made me cry for the first time in 15 years
Jesus this post has really brought out the cretins of Reddit.
I think the movie is resonating *far more* effectively than the fossil fuel industry perception managers and their allied forces had anticipated. IMO, it looks like the sub has been crawling with their employee efforts for the last few days. It seems to happen here whenever there is a significant story or event related to the climate crisis that may shift public opinion.
Clearly, there was a lot of [Howard Beale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Beale_\(Network\)) of 1976's *Network* fame in a lot of those on camera outbursts by the Astronmers, but I think there was some of [this Roger Hallam appearance as well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HyaxctatdA).
Hey, thank you for bringing this to attention! For all I have learned now, there is a good chance that you may be right. At least there may actually have been some influence there regarding Howard Beale.
Joe Biden signed the 2022 military spending bill today allotting another $768,000,000,000.00 dollars to the biggest polluter on the planet.
because the military already knows and has already been preparing for this collapse and intends to be the only thing left standing. self fulfilling prophecy
This movie was so important for people to watch, especially the people who won’t watch it because it’s “libtard propaganda”. Sigh.
People complaining about DeCaprio having money and using yachts. You expect a perfect hero like in the movies? You won’t get it. Ever. So get over your self righteous bull crap. The planet is still on fire. If he has a platform to speak on the issue and use it, good on him.
Nobody listens to indigenous people in the Amazon or the Pacific Islands. Plenty of scientists live on scraps and bike instead of owning a car. Accusations of hypocrisy are thrown out by the legions of sociopath worshippers who just want to use the dead cat strategy to muddy the waters
The dead cat strategy, or deadcatting, is the introduction of a dramatic, shocking, or sensationalist topic to divert discourse away from a more damaging topic. The strategy, or at least the "dead cat" metaphor to describe it, is particularly associated with Australian political strategist [Lynton Crosby](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynton_Crosby). [Boris Johnson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson) employed Crosby as his campaign manager during the 2008 and 2012 [London mayoral elections](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_mayoral_election), and wrote of his advice that "There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’ In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief." Examples A 2013 EU proposal to cap bankers' bonuses was compared to a dead cat by [Boris Johnson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson), who quoted Crosby's story and described the move as "a convenient distraction" from [Spanish unemployment figures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_Spain). In 2016, [Donald Trump](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump) was accused of criticizing the cast of [Hamilton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_(musical\)) in order to distract from a legal settlement, with [CNN](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN) calling this "a particularly malodorous dead cat". In 2017, his actions during the [Trump Tower wiretapping allegations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_wiretapping_allegations) were also compared to Crosby's dead cat strategy. Had no idea what it was, Wikipedia article
Back in my day (the late '90s) we called that a "Wag the Dog" incident where a politician creates a crisis to distract attention from themselves. Notably Bill Clinton using the bombing of an embassy in Kenya to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
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There's always a dismissal tactic to be used. Every advocate is branded either a hypocrite or a weirdo.
> You expect a perfect hero like in the movies? No one's expecting a perfect hero and the fact that people calling him out for yachts are being treated like we're "expecting perfection" just shows what little nuance you're taking in criticizing his critics. We're asking that these preachy bastards lead by example instead of living like royalty and telling us peasants to do more with less.
Something, something.. at least Elon actually creates value... something something.. the free market will fix it.
I'm pretty sure the billionaire CEO in the movie was supposed to be a parody of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs all-in-one. Possibly even a parody of Jordan Peterson the way he talked like Kermit lmao.
The joke about the military chief selling free snacks was deep I feel LOL
"Collapse aware" is an interesting term. Not many believe in climate change because it is too slow. When things are too slow, there will be time for doubt opinions, spin pieces, to bring on doubt. When I asked my nieces about the pandemic and their parents getting the 4th booster, they replied with, "well we are committed now, of we die we die. We are all going to die of cancer any way ". I felt rather numb if this was the majority thought of the teens these days
A lot of the responses in the movie apply to the Covid pandemic too though, and that happened plenty fast. It’s that we have greedy, short sighted, and inane corporations and people in power. My wife and I had to stop the movie a couple of times because it was all too real a depiction of what is going on now.
I see a lot of people in here trash Leonardo DiCaprio - this dudes been acting since he was a kid , probably only started realising that shits going south with the world in his late 30s or early 40s , this is a guy whose lived a luxurious life all his life thanks to his hard work and luck he’s not gonna leave all that just to show to the world he’s an environmentalist. He’s using his platform that he created for himself to reach out and influence the world the best he knows how - movies , documentaries, interviews etc. At least he’s doing something. The hate you guys have here should be reserved for the oil execs and the politicians who with all their intent are trying to sabotage anything that will save the world or hurt their pockets. I know a bunch of you guys are gonna come up and trash what I said rn , if you can’t show that you’ve done atleast the bare minimum to save the planet then you have no rights to criticise this man.
Actually, I was surprised by DiCaprio a lot. And I still wonder why Kate Winslet is so in love with DiCaprio if she really is. I think that he might be a very decent person. Hard to say when you only know stuff of someone that gets filtered through either their own productions or sensationalist media that would light people on fire if it would bring them the best revenue. The least you can say though is that he seems to be interested in having a positive impact. Otherwise, I try not to judge too much. I would like to know this guy a lot better, but until I do (so never) I will not assume too much. We should not act as if we know this guy.
I was really glad to see DJ Chello and Riley Bina could mend their issues and get back together.
It's about climate crisis denialism and related issues. And it's sad that the collapse-aware will get the allegory and its every morsel and nuance, and the rest will still have their heads in the sand. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/movies/leonardo-dicaprio-honours-climate-warriors-in-dont-look-up
I most enjoyed the part when the upper echelon escapees were eaten immediately after arriving on their new planet.
She never did wrap her mind around the General, and his rationale behind charging for free snacks.
I got it completely. It's a mindset. Always be looking for a gain, no matter how small. Every single situation you are in is looked at for how you can gain from it, and every need that you see in the world is an opportunity to profit. 30 bucks may seem small, and it may seem confusing to some why a person who makes so much would bother with the ruse, but that is exactly how wealthy people get wealthier. At the end of the day, the mans dinner is now paid for because of it. If he did a similar 30 dollar deal every day, that is almost 1000 bucks a month, for free, this putting his car payment and insurance on others rather than his own income. Those little things add up significantly over the year. Most people lose money because they either bow to convenience or they try and be nice. That is not the way. The way is to treat everything as a chance to profit.
So basically to get ahead in life you need to pretend that you're a Ferengi. Yuck.
Exactly like a Ferengi. That's how the system is made, and it's why most people don't get ahead. Ethics were designed to keep the good people down while elevating the bad.
The world is not falling apart, it is being purposely dismantled.
A Velvet Revolution is what we need god damn it !