It's a podcast — audio and transcript at the link — with various Atlantic staff people (Kevin Townsend, Sophie Gilbert, David Sims, and Spencer Kornhaber). I have seen the movie, by the way.
I think the quote I put in the post title is trite and foolish. The difference between the present and the past is the present is where you're living now. It's self-involved to believe that in the past, you could do parody and satire, but now — now! — things are already so absurd that there's nothing to add, no way to exaggerate, and we're suffering in some extreme new way that makes comedy impossible.
But let's see what these people have to say:
Sims: You could make a more straight-ahead blockbuster movie.... But... this flirts with being... more like a Dr. Strangelove kind of movie. A pure anarchic satire that is set in the real world, but every character is cartoonish, and there’s no sense of humanity whatsoever. But Don’t Look Up tries to retain this core of humanity...
Gilbert: [T]here was the idea that Trump defied satire, because he was bigger than it could ever manage to be in its wildest imagination. I also think it’s really hard to satirize things when you’re in the middle of them.....
Kornhaber: I think this quest for movies to deliver a message that changes people’s minds is maybe quixotic. There aren’t a ton of works in history like that.... True, you can’t really satirize Trump. He’s kind of beyond parody. But you can call attention to the dynamics of the way that people relate to him and the effect he has on the world around him—and on the viewers themselves.
Comedy is hard! It's not enough to sign up a lot of stars and spend a ton of money and pick an important topic. Why would you expect it to be good in the first place? Dr. Strangelove is great, but you have to make some choices and exercise discipline. Sims reveals, based on an interview with the director....
DiCaprio was obviously interested in the project and the message but was not going to commit until they’d figured out his character. He clearly did not want to be in a cartoony pastiche movie.
That precluded the Strangelove approach. I'd like to see a comedy about making "Dr. Strangelove" in which all the actors are divas insisting on their character's humanity.
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99 comments:
"I'd like to see a comedy about making "Dr. Strangelove" in which all the actors are divas insisting on their character's humanity."
*That* would be excellent.
I also wouldn't mind a comedy that included highly satirizable characters lamenting that nothing can be satirized anymore.
I didn't think Leo was that good looking even in his glory days, so it was pretty weird to me that so many women were calling the fat and bearded version of him hot in this movie.
That movie will lose a fortune and the producers don’t care. It was all virtue signaling. They will get Leo or Meryl for a good money-making film down the road. Quid pro quo.
Regular people don’t care about CAGW. CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world. When electricity prices start going through the roof (like in GRE) then people will wake up. Solar produces ZERO power in the North in the winter. And wind power - in NE - is 40% productive.
And, of course, the poor are hurt the most. Fuck these Hollywood elites.
it always amazes me, that people think Dr Strangelove works as a satire
It's one of my Favorite Movies; but the parts i like, are all about the B-52s
i don't think of those parts as satire (and, apparently, neither did Slim Pickens)
'Twas ever thus. In the mid-1950s, when he was editor of Punch, Malcolm Muggeridge declared, "We live in an age in which it is no longer possible to be funny. There is nothing you can imagine, no matter how ludicrous, that will not promptly be enacted before your very eyes, probably by someone well known."
Political satire is very much alive, and well - on the right. The Atlantic doesn’t see it because it, it’s writers, and it’s readers, don’t see the humor, because they are leftist scolds. Try reading the Babylon Bee, for example. They keep getting fact checked by leftist organizations, and their response is invariably “what don’t you understand about satire?” The site is clearly marked as satire. Their problem is that they don’t see the humor when it is aimed at them, because they are power hungry humorless scolds, without an ounce of self reflection.
Gunner said...
I didn't think Leo was that good looking even in his glory days, so it was pretty weird to me that so many women were calling the fat and bearded version of him hot in this movie.
1/15/22, 8:21 AM
I so agree!! I could never understand the fascination with him.
"*That* would be excellent. I also wouldn't mind a comedy that included highly satirizable characters lamenting that nothing can be satirized anymore."
Yes. That would be hard to do, but we could fit that into my movie about the making of "Dr. Strangelove." Who could play Peter Sellers? Who could play Sterling Hayden? Who could play George C. Scott?
Speaking of Peter Sellers and movies that satirize making movies, have you ever seen "After the Fox"?
"I didn't think Leo was that good looking even in his glory days, so it was pretty weird to me that so many women were calling the fat and bearded version of him hot in this movie."
Ha ha. Yeah. I'd like to make a list of movies where everybody acts like a character is devastatingly good looking but they're not. The movie I've always put on this list is "Mrs. Skeffington."
Isn't The Atlantic mostly satire?
"I didn't think Leo was that good looking even in his glory days, so it was pretty weird to me that so many women were calling the fat and bearded version of him hot in this movie."
He's taking the Marlon Brando route to seriosity.
So raved over in his youth that it somehow causes him to get fat and slovenly.
Happened to Elvis also.
"Political satire is very much alive, and well - on the right."
Oh, please. Talk about vanity. Ugh.
In 1988 while doing postdoctoral work at Georgia Tech, my lab group attended what was advertised as a presentation on nuclear weapons and nuclear war, perfectly fitting subjects matter for Chemists and Engineers as the Cold War continued. We went, expecting from the serious tone of the posters promoting the event, a discussion suited to STEM folk. We got 5 minutes of Dr. Strangelove presented on the classroom screen and a 40 minute anti-nuke propaganda presentation.
The questions after the presentation started with a professor asking, "This is an engineering school. Why didn't you present any information on the design, manufacture, function, capabilities and history of nuclear weapons? That's what we all came to hear." Audience applause, catcalling to the speaker. It went downhill from there. The presenter looked poleaxed. I love it when reality bites idiots in the ass.
Don't Look Up made me wonder why they bothered. It was written at the level of a SNL skit, and for laughs the audience could (1) feel superior to complete idiots and (2) identify with two characters so ineffectual as to be painful to watch.
Idiocracy did dumb people better, and had a better catchphrase: It's what plants crave.
Little did we know at the time that Monty Python was "right wing satire" puncturing future left wing shibboleths.
Link is bad. It Goes to a page to set up a blogger account
If the link is to the article, does it include a link to the podcast?
If not could you link that too please?
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is said to be the founding document of black comedy. I've read about the siege of Leningrad and the famines in the Ukraine. Cannibalism was widespread in those places. Cannibalism is how people get by in times of famine.... Malnutrition was endemic in Ireland, and there were frequent flare ups of famine and outright starvation. I wonder if Swift's modest proposal was such a leap into the bizarre but rather a stylized way of describing how the Irish coped with famine....I'm of Irish descent. I had an Irish grandmother who was born in a stone cottage without electricity, running water, or much in the way of heat. Her own grandparents were alive during the Potato Famine. I sometimes wonder how they got by during those years. It would explain so much about my family dynamics if I were the descendant of flesh eating zombies.....In any event, Swift's modest proposal played with the nasty truth of famine in much the way that Kubrick's film skirted around the reality of nuclear annihilation. The comedy in "Don't Look Up" is more about Hollywood's exaggerated response to global warming than to the actual threat of global warming. I'm sure global warming is a bad thing, but I'm not so sure that it can be defined as an apocalyptic event. They say irrational fears are sometimes subconscious wishes. For several thousand years, the righteous bards and prophets have been telling us the end is at hand. It's an occupational failing.
"Link is bad. It Goes to a page to set up a blogger account"
I am having a big problem with links that are done correctly getting lost when I republish. Thanks for the heads up, but that's why this keeps happening.
"If the link is to the article, does it include a link to the podcast?"
As I say in the post "audio and transcript at the link." That's true when the link works.
When the link gets corrupted it changes into a link to Blogger. I can't think of why!
‘"Political satire is very much alive, and well - on the right."
Oh, please. Talk about vanity. Ugh.’
Wait! It’s vain to think the Babylon Bee is satire, alive and well? Who knew?
"Wait! It’s vain to think the Babylon Bee is satire, alive and well?"
It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.
Dave Begley said...
And wind power - in NE - is 40% productive.
If you are talking about what is called "capacity factor" that 40% sounds very high.
It is usually closer to 20-25%.but maybe Nebraska is a special case.
Capacity factor means how much power on average a power plant generates.
A 1MW (nameplate) windmill with 25% capacity will provide 0.25mw on average.
Typical capacity factor for a gas/coal/nuke is 90%. But 100% for longish (months) periods of time.
It's also dispatchable
“ It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.”
But not NEARLY as vain as thinking you are somehow cruelly neutral enough to ascertain mediocrity.
It’s not satire when you only look at one side of the spectrum.
That’s just propaganda.
Who could play Peter Sellers [Sasha Cohen Baron]? Who could play Sterling Hayden [Robert Burke]? Who could play George C. Scott [Daniel Day Lewis]?
It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.
Titania McGrath would like a word.
I'm thinking the target audience doesn't like the film because it portrays a failure of the government. It shows the inherent problems of turning to politicians and the bureaucracy in a crisis very well, but it's not Trump specific enough for them. They could see their own politicians behaving the same way. Indeed, they have seen it in the pandemic. It makes them very uncomfortable.
It's like making a movie aimed at a Christian audience where Jesus can't quite get his act together, never quite heals anyone, makes excuses instead of miracles, takes advantage of his followers and makes a deal with the Romans to avoid the cross.
Sorry, Sacha Baron Cohen...
And in other news, 137 scientific papers detail the minuscule effect CO2 has on Earth’s temperature. Watts Up With That—January 13, 2022.
Satire should be recognizable as satire as well as, simultaneously, cleverly connected to the real world.
The problem with the Bee is that if you read their headlines without knowing the source, you might be alarmed at first. "Jeez, I hope it's the Bee."
So is it good satire if you have to do some research to find out it's not straight news?
WRT wind: I'm in west Michigan. Temp is 16 and the wind is zero. Sun is shining, and will for the morning, I'm told.
My wife and I like to drive on our travels rather than fly and so we learn various items not in the Chamber of Commerce brochures.
For grins, go to Google Earth and look down at farms in southern Ohio. You'll see trees on the north and west as wind breaks. Try, say, Montana and some of those places look as if built inside a forest. They have real wind out west, and it's rarely still. You learn not to open both doors in the car at once if you have any papers you want to keep.
At one point westbound, my gas mileage was so bad I pulled over to see if my tires were near flat. Couldn't open the door, the head wind was so strong.
Coming east out of Evanston, WY, I had a 65mph tail wind. Illuminated expressway signs said light trailers were forbidden--too unstable. This was before the signs would have been urging masking.
Selling wind power with the planted--but not actually mentioned--axiom that we have wind like North Dakota in, say, downstate Indiana is deeply dishonest.
Regarding satire, take a good, hard look at Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It isn’t Christianity that they were satirizing. And who can forget This is Spinal Tap? England’s loudest band—their amps go up to eleven.
Both films stand up today.
Look at that Biden clip if you don't think the government true believers are essentially a religious faith. Biden promises to perform miracles and heal the sick.
Ann Althouse said...
Ha ha. Yeah. I'd like to make a list of movies where everybody acts like a character is devastatingly good looking but they're not. The movie I've always put on this list is "Mrs. Skeffington."
One thing I noticed about Prime and Netflix movies is that the actors and actresses tend to look like normal people.
Admitted I don't watch very many.
But I did watch the first season of Wheel of Time based on The Eye of the World. They did OK for condensing a 1000 page book into 8 45 minute episodes.
But they either had trouble casting or they didn't try all that hard or they did it on purpose.
I wonder if we take for granted just how out of the norm hollywood actors are.
“I’m sure global warming is a bad thing...”
Are you sure about that? Humanity has thrived when the Earth was warmest. The last 1,000 years was the coolest millennium in the past 10,000 years. It seems that we might hope that the weather stays warm. We are going to like it a lot less when it turns cold.
"Satire is dead" doesn't mean that nobody can do it anymore. It means that the usual and expected sources of satire don't want to do it anymore. In other words, it's like journalism.
“ That movie will lose a fortune and the producers don’t care. It was all virtue signaling. They will get Leo or Meryl for a good money-making film down the road. Quid pro quo.
“Regular people don’t care about CAGW. CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world. When electricity prices start going through the roof (like in GRE) then people will wake up. Solar produces ZERO power in the North in the winter. And wind power - in NE - is 40% productive.”
How do you make a movie, when the punch line is “We’re all going to die!!!”, esp when we aren’t. That isn’t satirical. It is brain dead. They don’t have the facts behind them with Climate Change (the change from Global Warming being an admission that that theory had been repeatedly falsified). If the climate isn’t warming so quickly that we face catastrophic results (it isn’t, which is why CAGW was falsified), then what’s the urgency to destroy our economy? Not even the poor polar bears are dying. That means that what we are talking about is religion, in this case some sort of weird Gaia worship, and adherents of a religion usually can’t satirize their own religion. Climate Change is routinely satirized - but by its opponents, not its true believers.
It would be very easy to convince a lot of people that the earth was going to be hit by a planet killing comet. All you need to do is crowd source your data. You get enough people looking over your data, and ultimately it will either prove credible, or not. This is one reason why we know that a lot of Climate Change is nonsense - because so much of the underlying data is locked up.
They mention Fauci and COVID-19. Of course, no reasonable person believes the experts. They have lied from day one about the pandemic. They pivot from being at war with Eurasia to Eastasia, without pausing for a breath. One week it is masks, the next not. Turns out that it looks like St. Fauci helped fund the research that resulted in COVID-19 at the WIV, after the project was turned down by DARPA as being too dangerous. Yes, the guy who was the public face of the fight against COVID-19, helped create it, and continues to lie about it. And, now, we are somehow supposed to trust the experts who want to destroy our economy out of religious fervor?
They should have had the Steve Jobs Tech Guy mention how the President would die in the first act and turned the movie into a giant shaggy dog joke.
The tech guru plot line was the only thing enjoyable about the movie.
a comet or an asteroid is a real threat, global warming isn't, I think they ripped off benfords shiva descending,
Struck me as funny that the first person in the excerpt you chose brings up Dr. Strangelove and the next guy says "I also think it’s really hard to satirize things when you’re in the middle of them.....' even though Dr. Strangelove was made in the middle of the cold war .
It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.
The standard that needed to be met is ‘very much alive and well’ not ‘really good’.
If you’re going to make an attempt at criticism try getting over yourself and pay attention…
'DiCaprio was obviously interested in the project...'
He looked like he had a great time recently on his eco-friendly mega-yacht...
SNL did one really funny satire early on of how invested the left was in the Russian collusion hoax, as Muller tries to break it easily to a female true believer that there was no really evidence for Trump colluding with the Russians. When she asks in tears what she should do in that case, the Muller character suggests she buy some stock in American steel, which Trump was then backing.
Unfortunately, only Trump supporters on this particular issue would think it was hilarious, so making fun of deranged Democrats was never repeated.
"Why Are People So Mad About Don't Look Up?"
I'm not in the least mad about it. I just think an event as precise and calculable as a comet strike is a perfectly terrible metaphor for global warming.
Now, if the scientists calculated an absurdly precise time and point of impact and several years later the comet was still on its way, and some people started to think that maybe it's not going to hit at all, and then it devolved into an ongoing shouting match, with people who've read a few hours on the internet thinking they can calculate a more precise trajectory than NASA, or insisting that a comet is too small to cause the predicted damage; while scientists respond by demanding How dare you question me, and advocating largely irrelevant political solutions they mostly supported anyway – ah, then we could have some fun. Some cruelly neutral fun, even.
mikee, 8:39:
Thank you for your heartwarming post.
“It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.”
Didn’t say that. Just said that there was a lot of it. A lot more than on the left, because they mostly no longer have a decent sense of humor. No self reflection. Just a bunch of scolds. That mostly isn’t the least bit funny. Why is Gutfeld crushing his late night opposition these days? Then observation is often made that much of what he says and does is not funny. But much more of it is than by his late night opponents. Same thing with Carson and Leno - not all their jokes were funny, just a lot more than their late night opponents.
Points of view are like ... okay, everybody has one. Satire always has a point of view. If it doesn't, it's parody or pastiche or just comedy. So give credit where it's due. The Babylon Bee is good. The Week in Pictures at the Powerline blog is good. That doesn't mean that a left-wing satire can't be good. I suppose, though, that since we all have a point of view -- or a point of view has each of us -- that people are bound to find one side's satire amusing and on target and the other's not, but it's good to be able to recognize talent, even if we don't agree with its POV.
strangelove derived from peter george's red alert, was a satire in part on herman kahn, who thought a nuclear war was survivable, with elements of von braun because nazi,
really hard to satirize things when you’re in the middle of them.....
Isn’t that when satire works best?
Dr. Strangelove came into an apt environment.
Fifteen million men had served in WW II--there were many still alive from WW I--and, after the Korean War the standing military had been increased in size as a deterrent.
If you hadn't served, you knew and were likely related to those who had.
There were endless war movies and novels and memoirs. Victory at Sea was a perennial on local channels and the orchestral score was so popular it was sold as an album. "Navy Log" dramatized actual events. "The Big Picture" was an Army PR production available as a filler on local channels.
McHale's Navy and the Bilko--Phil Silvers--show were immensely popular.
The Cuban missile crisis was not far behind us.
Everybody'd heard stories about....the good and bad, the dumb and smart, the likely and the unlikely--which are different from the true and the false.
Had a sailor tell me the US destroyers used big canisters filled with cement trailing a cable fired from depth charge launchers over ships going to Cuba, then used to tow them off their course until they were too low on fuel to complete their route and had to gas up in Miami or someplace. True? False?
I had occasion to do some library research and looked far back at Life magazine. As I had recalled, about every fourth issue had a puff piece on our military.
Lots of people knew, or thought they knew, enough about the military and the situation of the time that Strangelove was sufficiently believable as to be good satire. At the least, they had sufficient vocabulary to understand what was going on.
Hollywood is leftist and will never understand satire. They are unable to mock their own with authentic unleashed abandon.
Oh, and, gilbar, 8:27:
"i don't think of [the B-52 scenes in Dr. Strangelove] as satire (and, apparently, neither did Slim Pickens)"
When I first read that no one told Pickens it was satire and he didn't realize it, I thought the people saying this were just snobs making fun of a guy they saw as a yokel. But now I think those scenes work all the better if the B-52 crew (who are awesome) play it straight; if they're actually quite competent and absolutely determined to complete their mission no matter what.
On the other hand, of course, you have Major Kong's name, or his swapping his helmet for a Stetson (didn't he get it out of a safe once he knew the mission was real?), or his whooping and hat-waving in that iconic scene....
Biden and his loser tax payer funded corrupt son are incredibly mock-able. YET - ..
Nothing.
A classic satire, very well done, was The China Syndrome.
It supposedly shows the dangers of nuclear power plants.
In reality, it shows how safe they are.
It's insidious in that way. People come away thinking DANGER!
Then they start thinking "wait a minute. Worst case scenario, on worst case scenario on worst case scenario and nothing happened. NOTHING HAPPENED. No melting to China, no explosion, no radiation, no nothing. Maybe nukes are really safe."
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Failsafe played it safe, it was a technical glitch that launched the bomber toward moscow, the butt of the joke then was kissinger, played loosely by walter matthau, because he had a written a treatise on tactical nuclear weapons use,
thirty years later was by dawns early light, a rather earnest teleplay of a william prochnau script, the Russians launch a nuke at the Ukraine!! triggering a response launch at the West,
the late Darren McGavin is the strangelove figure as the last man in the chain of succession, Martin Landau playing the president, who was blinded in the evacuation
Contrary to the opinions of wannabe screen play writers, "Don't Look Up" is the most successful Netflix movie to date. Still holding onto your Blockbuster shares, David?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenrant.com/dont-look-up-netflix-viewership-audience-ratings-details/amp/
satire is dead, see the 'insurrectionists' that abided by dc gun laws, kinzinger vouching for ray epps, the mark of a chinese spy, threatening to nuke the midwest,
"The China Syndrome" has had the largest negative impact on the fight against air pollution and global warming.
@Althouse, I think true vanity is when one labels satire as “mediocre” just because many of its targets are in one’s pantheon of heroes.
Keep in mind that this movie is propaganda. That is why it got green lighted. We are probably over the hump with COVID-19. EVen the CDC knows this - as they just announced that they are no longer going to track COVID-19 deaths, at least partially, probably because when the case counts shot up, due to Omicron, the death toll didn’t.
We have an election.on coming up in 10 months. If they can’t do something dramatic, the Republican.cans are very likely going to blow out the Democrats, retaking the Senate, and possibly having their largest majority in decades in the House. The J6 conspiracy will quickly collapse with the release of the thousands of hours of video Pelosi has embargoed, as well as the specifics on the murder of Ashli Babbitt, etc. And Job 1 of the next Congress is very likely going to be investigating the myriad screwups and questionable machinations of the FJB Administration, as well as the less savory actions of the Pelosi and Scheamer Congress.
So, how do they divert attention from the collapsing COVID-19 pandemic, and all the questionable things done by the FJB Administration? The obvious answer is another “We’re all going to die!!” Panic. And it has been clear for some time that the preferred agent for this is Climate Change. It has a proven track record at making esp Dem politicians very rich, and, besides, “We’re all going to die!!”
a service connected 100% disabled veteran who wasn't even on the premises, is named an 'seditionist'
Richard Aubrey said...
then used to tow them off their course until they were too low on fuel to complete their route and had to gas up in Miami or someplace. True? False?
++++++
Did he start the story "now this ain't no shit..."?
If he did, it's a sea story.
If he started out "once upon a time..." it's a fairy tale.
I have a lot of trouble believing it whichever
Also: I've probably seen every ep of victory at sea a dozen times or more. Just rewatched the Rings Around Rabaul ep a couple weeks ago when I was reading a novel about rabaul. It still holds up very well.
Navy Log and Big Picture not as much, though still interesting
John LGBTQBNY Henry
"I'd like to make a list of movies where everybody acts like a character is devastatingly good looking but they're not."
There's a movie literally called Pretty Woman that could go on the list.
'"The China Syndrome" has had the largest negative impact on the fight against air pollution and global warming.'
Brought to us by left-wing, authoritarian, hypocritical Hollywood assholes.
Go figure.
“Trump. He’s kind of beyond parody. But you can call attention to the dynamics of the way that people relate to him and the effect he has on the world around him“
The effect Trump seems to have had on the world around him was growth, earnings, and lots of jobs. In retrospect, if nursing homes had been seriously protected instead of made into death camps we would have escaped the Covid nightmare, as co-morbidity is the cause of excess death.
china syndrome wasn't about any of that, oh that email string that said discussing the origins of the virus, would interfere with 'international harmony'
“I'd like to make a list of movies where everybody acts like a character is devastatingly good looking but they're not.”
Start with Pretty Woman and the list goes on and on. Remember Rosie playing cute little Betty Rubble in The Flintstones? OMG!
of course the atlantic is full of 'satire is dead' moments, like when they said opening up georgia was an exercise in human sacrifice,
"@Althouse, I think true vanity is when one labels satire as “mediocre” just because many of its targets are in one’s pantheon of heroes."
You need to support your statement with the proof that I have a "pantheon of heroes." Go ahead: You have my 18-year archive from which to find my heroes. You're going to need at least 3 to fit "many of its targets are in one’s pantheon of heroes." I dare you.
I can only think of one person I've called a "hero" of mine — Robert A. Caro. Do they mock him at the Babylon Bee?
I can't imagine who you are referring to if you're talking about me unless you mean to support my opinion that the BB is mediocre.
Be careful. Once you name names, I'm going to ask for citations to blog posts that support your position.
Howard said...
Contrary to the opinions of wannabe screen play writers, "Don't Look Up" is the most successful Netflix movie to date.
===
Since people don't pay to see Netflix movies, ratings are meaningless.
What is meaningful and the only reason Netflix makes movies or pays big bucks for friends and the like is sign-ups.
How many new subscribers did Netflix get because of this movie?
That's the only success that matters, Howard
John LGBTQBNY Henry
John Henry. Yeah, it was probably a sea story. Didn't know if they were still using depth charges at that point.
But the point I was making is that everybody was exposed to WW II and the contemporary military all the freaking time. Even Mickey Mouse Club's "Spin and Marty". First episode, two adults at the dude ranch are watching the young guys getting off he bus. One says, indicating one of the kids, "His father was XO on my ship." Totally and completely irrelevant to the plot but it HAD to be there.
My folks had the Victory at Sea album.
Life magazine had a dramatically illustrated article on ICBM and ABM battles decades before Reagan's SDI.
So,as I say, Strangelove moved into a receptive atmosphere and didn't need info-dumps (hist fic author used the term) and characters earnestly explaining to each other things they actually would have known so that the audience could grasp the plot.
JPS said...
the B-52 crew (who are awesome) play it straight; if they're actually quite competent and absolutely determined to complete their mission no matter what.
We actually Studied this movie in my High School English Film Studies Class*. Our Teacher used the movie as an example of 'antiheroes'; and asked us, if there were any "heroes" in the movie.
I raised my hand and said:"Major Kong and his Whole crew!"
and She said: "BUT! they destroy the world!"
and I said: "They STOP Fluoridation!"
(she didn't like me much)
High School English Film Studies Class* yep, i got Senior English credit for watching movies
(and, writing essays about them)
"Wait! It’s vain to think the Babylon Bee is satire, alive and well?"
It is vain to think that the satire on your side is really good when it's mediocre.
*************
Are you pontificating "off the cuff", or "Ex Cathedra" here, Miss Ann?
Good one, gilbar!
Let's not.
"I'd like to make a list of movies where everybody acts like a character is devastatingly good looking but they're not.”
Pretty much any movie with Julia Roberts would be on that list. She must have something in her contract that requires a slow shot of her meant to convince us that she's the hottest thing alive. OK, she certainly would do in a pinch, but not devastatingly good looking.
Netflix just raised the monthly payment for all plans JH. Cha Ching.
Conversely I am often surprised to see familiar faces from my TV saturated youth, who I came to know in their later years of television work, from their early movie career. During the Murder She Wrote years Angela what’s-her-name was touring with the musical Sweeney Todd, in which my friend Vince was a back-up for another tenor. He took me backstage to meet her and she was so nice and had a little sparkle in her eyes. Later when I saw her in the old movies Manchurian Candidate and was surprised at how cute she was as a younger actress. Just offering this to balance out my strong objection to Julia what’s-it earlier.
she was in that corporate espionage comedy with clive owen, that didn't age well
"He clearly did not want to be in a cartoony pastiche movie."
Now that's funny because I clearly thought this was a cartoony pastiche movie and that's why I sorta, kinda liked it. I did not see it as any sort of climate change commentary. In fact, the few lines that gave a 'climate commentary' were so usual that I simply ignored them. I've trained myself to do that, as I suspect so has most of humanity.
And rightfully so. Comedy and climate change haranguing do not mix well. Especially when you're staring at below zero temps or an ice storm or record amounts of snow almost 4 years after the NY Times declared that we'd soon see the end of snowfalls.
Here's the current set of parody news headlines at Babylon Bee. They're obviously mediocre. Come on!
By the way, the current Onion headlines aren't good either, but surprisingly they are much less political. Example: "Is It Ethical For Prenatal Testing To Tell You If Your Baby Will Be Too Annoying To Love."
My favorite Onion satire was during the Obama campaign where they “found” his long lost hillbilly brother in overhauls shouting
“ Hell yes y’all can!” to an adoring crowd. This was before they found his real African half brother.
Not mine, Howard
I had Netflix for years, DVD and then streaming. A couple years ago they hired Obama AND raised the price the same month. I bailed since I mainly watched prime.
I recently had to change from sprint to t-mobile when they merged. I save about $150/month and I get free Netflix.
To your point, How many people will they lose due to the price rise? Some for sure. More than the additional revenue from the higher fee?
And you don't address the question of new subscribers/fewer quits because of this movie.
Is Netflix profitable? Apparently not in a cash basis. Their Profits require accounting magic.
@Althouse, I. Am. Not. One. Of. Your. God. Damned. Students. And. You. Are. Not. A. Professor. Any. More.
As far as I am concerned your heroes include practically any female politician with (D) after her name. Amy (“eats her salad with a dirty comb”) Klobuchar, Elizabeth (“Fauxahontas”) Warren, worthless and disgusting people like that.
Oh, and Alec Baldwin back when he was doing his spittle-flecked impressions of Donald Trump.
Citations? Riiiight. I’ll Psircle back to you on that.
We tend to think of satire as challenging convention, not championing it.
My guess would be that the Onion is currently less political because their side is in power.
Dr. Strangelove is not a perfect film, but it's at its best when you feel that the characters really believe what they are saying. One of the reasons why doing comedy is hard is that you have to play a character that says and does ridiculous things, but the character you play doesn't believe that they're being ridiculous.
An acting teacher of mine once said that the key to playing a drunk is to not accentuate the symptoms of being drunk; rather, you play a person who happens to be drunk but is trying to look as sober as possible.
Remember when you talked about comedy shows that could be done as serious shows? If the characters are real enough, the show should still work whether the script is funny or serious.
I was just reading Sterling Hayden's Wikipedia page and it mentions that he was in the movie, Zero Hour. That film is the serious movie that the comedy, Airplane, is based on.
Howard, perhaps unwittingly, exposes a major progressive fallacy. That companies, like Netflix but all companies, can increase revenues and profits by raising prices.
The reality is that all goods and services are somewhat price elastic. Some more tha oi there's but all to some extent.
So if a company like Netflix raises their price by 10% but drives away 15% of subscribers they wound up with less revenue.
Otoh, if they drop their price by 10% and get 15% more subscribers they wind up with more revenue.
There us always some price at which revenue us maximized. Very difficult to determine. Often lower than management thinks it is.
Just ask Henry Ford, Sam Walton or president trump (taxes)
John LGBTQBNY Henry
The headlines at the Bee linked by the Prof are actually pretty good. I usually get by there a few times a week.
Julia Roberts, I know, right? I see better looking women every day and have never understood the appeal. Most movie thespians count on natural photogenicity for an edge; her case makes me wonder if her meatspace self is even all that good looking.
Maybe she's just another willing Hollywood mouth.
This is what going broke looks like.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/netflix/marketcap/
Narr said...
Julia Roberts, I know, right? I see better looking women every day and have never understood the appeal.
*********************
Her mouth has always reminded me of Senor Wences's "Johnny":
"S'aright?"
"S'ARIGHT!!"
"S'ok?"
"S'OK!!"
The funny thing about Julia Roberts is that those features on a guy are almost attractive. Ok, not quite that wide a mouth. But my partner loves her brother’s cra-cra Doctor movies on Lifetime. Maybe their best all time male villain. He’s good enough looking, and smooth enough, that you aren’t surprised when his female victims fall for him. But then, he can go obsessively cra-cra when crossed. She thinks that he is almost attractive. There are a lot of those situations, where features look good in one sex, but not in the other. I know I probably wouldn’t have been that attractive as a woman. My head is much too big, and my trunk too long. Etc.
Oh, please. Talk about vanity. Ugh.
Ann, I don't understand the hostility towards the Babylon Bee. Obviously every headline isn't a standout; that's why they call them "standouts." But a large fraction are, and that's better than, say, SNL on a good night. SNL, for me, has been all but unwatchable for twenty years or more, but mainly (of course) for the past five. They have no one to mock but Trump, basically, b/c the current administration is obviously off limits, and a lot of the actually active Republicans are proving themselves capable of governance, which Biden manifestly has not. Dislike the Bee if you like, but don't deny that it's there.
"Of course, no reasonable person believes the experts."
Said by someone who does not believe the experts and who sees himself as a reasonable person. In other words, a self-serving tautology.
"@Althouse, I. Am. Not. One. Of. Your. God. Damned. Students. And. You. Are. Not. A. Professor. Any. More.
As far as I am concerned your heroes include practically any female politician with (D) after her name. Amy (“eats her salad with a dirty comb”) Klobuchar, Elizabeth (“Fauxahontas”) Warren, worthless and disgusting people like that.
Oh, and Alec Baldwin back when he was doing his spittle-flecked impressions of Donald Trump.
Citations? Riiiight. I’ll Psircle back to you on that."
In other words, you've got squat! You proved her right.
They're obviously mediocre. Come on!
I agree if you agree not to move the goal posts again…
A great movie satire would be about a demented and aged politician being selected as president without campaigning outside his basement and devoid of any policy ideas so he uses ideas from past Democrat administrations and radical leftists. Add in that he can't formulate a coherent sentence on his own, talks like Clint Eastwood telling Americans to get off his lawn, and makes up stories about his achievements. His staff control him by threatening to take away his ice cream. He needs to go home to his own house as often as possible so he doesn't lose his mind even faster than his trend. And he uses undisclosed drugs to help him function. Then he meets with world leaders and is treated like a child to be pushed aside when serious topics are being discussed. Then add in media figures glorifying him in writing and on set while shaking their heads in private.
Sort of an updated Being There. Who could play the president role? Peter Sellers would have been perfect.
Critter: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and subsequent novels tell a story almost like the one you propose, but about the leader of the universe, who is a man completely secreted away from everyone and everything, and is dedicated to not making any decisions for anyone about anything, and thus is the only person capable of properly and fairly administering the universal government. Or perhaps he isn't, the books are a bit unclear on that point.
yes zaphod beeblebroz was the frontman, who was all about himself, I dubbed obama zaphod at one point,
Blogger Howard said...
This is what going broke looks like.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/netflix/marketcap/
You will need to explain to me what market cap has to do with profitability, Howard. If you know.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Mikee:
Good thought, but in my screenplay the protagonist likes to make decisions because he is so sure of himself but always makes bad ones. Staff are constantly trying to keep him away from issues until they have made the decisions and can explain it to him and put it on a teleprompter.
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