Don’t Look Up, the latest celluloid offering from the writer-director Adam McKay, has become Netflix’s top film globally despite dividing critics and viewers.
The film, a satire in which two scientists played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence attempt to warn an indifferent world about a comet that threatens to destroy the planet, is an intentional allegory of the climate crisis.
Despite a stellar cast also featuring Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill and Timothee Chalamet, the movie has received a frosty reception from many film critics.
Photo: AP
But the lukewarm critical reception contrasts sharply with the response from the film’s allegorical heroes: climate scientists and activists.
David Ritter, chief executive of Greenpeace Asia Pacific, says he was struck by the sense of desperation portrayed by the film’s scientists, finding the parallel with the climate crisis “very, very powerful.”
“There are tens or hundreds of thousands of people across the world who are scientists, activists, campaigners … giving their lives to this work,” Ritter said. “The sheer number of people who have asked me ... what is wrong with our political leaders that they do not understand?”
Photo: AP
Prof Matthew England, co-founder of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said Don’t Look Up was a “brilliant film.”
“It parodies our inaction to tackle climate change beautifully well, especially in relation to conservative government and the mainstream media,” England says. “I loved it and I understand a lot of climate scientists have the same reaction, whereas the mainstream media perhaps is feeling defensive because it is part of what is attacked in the film.”
Daniel Bleakley, a Melbourne-based climate activist, agreed, saying he hoped the “fantastic film” would draw attention to media reporting of the climate crisis.
“If we really want the broad public to start understanding the seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis, we need our media to be communicating it effectively.”
Bleakley said the film articulated a sense among climate activists of having their messages fall on deaf ears over many years.
“I have heard from a number of activists that after watching the film, they’ve felt heard, they’ve felt recognized.
“As activists and as climate scientists who truly understand the gravity and the seriousness and the urgency of the climate crisis — and the fact that every day counts — it’s almost surreal when you walk around in the world and see people going about their daily lives like everything’s completely normal.”
Ritter disagrees with criticism that the film lacks nuance.
“When someone says it was really heavy-handed, what were they talking about?” he asks.
“Were they talking about the subtle depiction of the way in which vested interests can institutionally corrupt the public good? Were they talking about the threat of unconstrained techno-optimistic capitalism?”
“The use of the scenes of chaos and drama interspersed with the interaction of characters in a more quiet, reflective mode … I thought it was particularly striking and evocative of how one experiences a world that is grappling with the climate crisis.”
“Don’t listen to the reviews,” Ritter added. “Watch the film — make your own mind up.”
The Guardian’s critics have described the film as a “ labored, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire,” and a “toothless comedy” that comes from a “position of lofty superiority that would drive away any partisans who still need to be won over.”
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
It looks like a restaurant — but it’s food for the mind. Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center is currently hosting Comic Bento (漫畫便當店), an immersive and quirky exhibition that spotlights Taiwanese comic and animation artists. The entire show is designed like a playful bento shop, where books, plushies and installations are laid out like food offerings — with a much deeper cultural bite. Visitors first enter what looks like a self-service restaurant. Comics, toys and merchandise are displayed buffet-style in trays typically used for lunch servings. Posters on the walls present each comic as a nutritional label for the stories and an ingredient
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,
RSS