Can Works Like ‘Don’t Look Up’ Get Us Out of Our Heads?

Jan 23, 2022
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Subsequent month, Hulu will premiere the mini-series “Pam & Tommy,” a fictionalized account of the discharge of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s private intercourse tape, which was stolen from their dwelling in 1995 and offered on what was then referred to as the “World Broad Net.” The present presents the tape as serving to the online turn out to be extra mainstream by interesting to base human compulsions — an on-ramp to what would lie forward.

The pandemic has despatched us additional down this rabbit gap in pursuit of distraction, data, connection, all of the whereas we attempt to shake that sense of impending doom.

At one level in “Inside,” whereas curled up within the fetal place on the ground underneath a blanket surrounded by jumbles of cords — a picture worthy of a pandemic-era time capsule — Burnham, his eyes closed, ruminates on the mess we’re in.

I don’t find out about you guys, however, you recognize, I’ve been pondering not too long ago that, you recognize, perhaps permitting large digital media companies to take advantage of the neurochemical drama of our youngsters for revenue — you recognize, perhaps that was a nasty name by us. Perhaps the flattening of your complete subjective human expertise into a dull trade of worth that advantages no person, aside from, you recognize, a handful of bug-eyed salamanders in Silicon Valley — perhaps that as a lifestyle perpetually, perhaps that’s not good.

In “Don’t Look Up,” the chief “bug-eyed salamander,” a Steve Jobs-like character and the third richest man on the planet, is nearly fully liable for permitting the comet to collide with Earth; his Eleventh-hour try to plumb the rock for trillions of {dollars} value of supplies fails. Ultimately, he and a handful of haves escape on a spaceship, leaving the remaining billions of have-nots to die.

Juxtaposed with Jeff Bezos, one of many richest males on Earth, launching into area on his personal rocket final yr, a visit back-dropped by pandemic devastation (and a passing blip on the cultural radar) — is past parody … nearly.

Close to the tip of “Don’t Look Up,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, a clumsy astronomer turned media darling, delivers an emotional monologue. Staring into the digital camera, he implores: “What have we carried out to ourselves? How will we repair it?” Humorous. We had been simply asking ourselves the identical factor.

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