Adam McKay’s laboured satire challenges political indifference to looming comet catastrophe but misses out on the comedyHaving long complained that movies aren’t engaging with the most vital issue of our time – the climate crisis – it’s perhaps churlish of me not to be glad when one comes along that does exactly that. But Adam McKay’s laboured, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire Don’t Look Up is like a 145-minute Saturday Night Live sketch with neither the brilliant comedy of Succession, which McKay co-produces, nor the seriousness that the subject might otherwise require. It is as if the sheer unthinkability of the crisis can only be contained and represented in self-aware slapstick mode.With knockabout hints of Dr Strangelove, Network and Wag the Dog, Don’t Look Up is about two astronomers discovering that a Mount Everest-sized comet is due in six months’ time to hit planet Earth and wipe out all human life. The scientists urgently present their findings to the White House, but find that the political and media classes can’t or won’t grasp what they are saying: too stupefied with consumerism, short-termism and social-media gossip, and insidiously paralysed by the interests of big tech. Leonardo DiCaprio plays nerdy, bearded astronomer Dr Randall Mindy, nervous of human interaction and addicted to Xanax. Jennifer Lawrence is his smart, emotionally spiky grad student Kate Dibiasky. Meryl Streep is the panto-villain president, Jonah Hill her son and chief-of-staff, and Mark Rylance is the creepy Brit tech mogul Sir Peter Isherwell. Continue reading.........

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Elon Musk’s problems are bigger and more important than yours. While most of us are consumed with our day-to-day activities, Musk has been anointed by a higher power to save us all from ourselves. He’s here to ensure we eliminate car accidents, make traffic a thing of the past, solve autism (his words, not mine), connect human brains to machines, fill the night sky with satellites so everyone can have internet access, and colonize Mars. He doesn’t exactly know how we’re going to accomplish all those things, but he has more than enough money to turn any and every single good idea…This story continues at The Next WebOr just read more coverage about: Tesla......

Academy’s Science and Technology Council Adds New Members The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have appointed David Pierce, Andy Serkis and Jeffrey White to it’s Science and Technology Council 2021-2022 membership, bringing its roster to 25 individuals. Pierce’s previous roles include working as an assistant chief and chief operations officer at the National […]......

When South African officials held a briefing introducing a new and worrying coronavirus variant late last month, the reaction was swift: countries around the world threw up travel bans, decimating flight schedules and isolating nations across southern Africa.As African leaders decried the moves and warned of dire economic impacts, the global fallout began.A top South African scientist said the bans were disrupting imports of lab materials critical for generating data needed by the world. And a…......

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