A race against time in order to save the world is ostensibly the schema of the latest Netflix film “Don’t Look Up”. DiCaprio plays as professor Dr. Randall Mindy and JLaw is an astronomy grad student. The pair stumble across a life-changing discovery… that a comet is on a collision course for Earth.
Based on first impressions film may be more of a accurate allegorical send up for our real life climate crisis. In the film, when the scientists raise the alarm to the U.S. government about the comet, the response, in typical bureaucratic insanity is to “sit tight and assess”, just as has been the case for over 30 years regarding global warming (joke delivered by the wildly funny Jonah Hill).
The über impressive cast has a handful of extremely talented actors including (in addition to the marquee stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence); Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry.
The movie was both written and directed by Adam McKay, the Oscar Award winner responsible for “The Big Short” and “Vice”.
Similar to those films, his patented multi-layered approach is in play, where comedy, absurd pathos and a “laugh about the tragic stupidity of the human race” reigns.
And, possibly, with this amazing cast, it will be the most successful iteration to date.
A huge departure, if you take the correlation to the looming climate extinction level events at face value, is how the film is focused on the future (a fictional one, but still looking forward) for a change.
While both “The Big Short” and “Vice” chronicled a historic event or personage, this time, it is the potentially devastating human inability to see past their own self absorbed pathetic existences that is lampooned.
And if we can all laugh at ourselves and somehow get the message underlying, what meanwhile appears as great comic entertainment, perhaps the outcome can be altered. Or at least we can appreciate the absurdity as we all go down in flames.
The comedy will be released in select theaters on December 10th and two weeks later be available for subscribers to stream free on Netflix, starting on December 24th
Looking at the cast alone, is likely to turn out to be a must watch. With the writers and directors behind “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers” the film can’t not turn out to be hilarious!
The premise is a trending theme: doom and hopeless dystopian futures; this time there is a comet that will collide with Earth. Two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo Di Caprio) discover the problem, but the twist is, no one actually believes the news. Sound familiar? Just ask the Climate deniers and antivaxxers out there…
The impressive cast boasts a gaggle of untra-high-profile names including: Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry.
The comedy will have a theatrical release on December 10th and quickly be available to stream on Netflix starting on December 24th ( as a little Christmas eve gift for the rest of us, apparently).
Above: “Brokeback Mountain” / Photo Credit / Focus Features
Sitting on top of the heap of ultra successful streaming giants Netflix must spend and produce more and more content to keep up with views that binge watch new movie titles and even series as fast as they arrive, it seems. It’s given that the deluge of new arrivals helps to reduce the feeling of frustration that can arise when you are searching for something you have yet to watch, but it feels like hours go by, with little new to consider.
With a large number of new titles coming down the pipeline each month, and spread out in terms of release dates presumably in order to prevent a bulge in the first week, at least there is a chance that something completely new, or at least new to the classic library of titles on the streamer, will pop up in the browsing selection.
But what if you don’t stumble across a great, classic title and it is removed, perhaps permanently, before you had a chance to see it? To help pay for the many new titles that are always being added, and produced from scratch, the library must also be culled on a continuous basis. And as we all know by now, often the older classic titles outshine the more recent productions, sometimes with aging, half interested stars and “direct-to-streaming” titles and directors.
Fortunately, this month the last day falls on a Monday and it also comes in direct proximity to a 3-day weekend for Memorial Day, so we have a bit more time to warn you about what you might want to see, before it’s too late.
Netflix had a huge release of new titles for May 2021, 90 to be exact, that were added to the platform. As the end of the month rapidly nears, 20 titles will be leaving to make space in the budget for the June 2021 arrivals.
Therefore, be sure you don’t miss out on the titles below. We have provided trailers and a synopsis for a few select choices, since they are classic movies boasting high-profile stars. Examples such as Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in “50 First Dates”, “Meryl Street and Amy Adams in “Julie & Julia” and Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway in “Brokeback Mountain” give you a taste and the full list also follows below.
Comedy, Romance, Action, Historical, Horror, Thriller are all on the list.
The list of titles leaving Netflix also includes award-winning films such as: “Milk”, “Miracle” and “The Pursuit of Happyness”.
Below are the titles that will officially be gone from the platform on May 31st at midnight:
Brokeback Mountain
In 1963, rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) are hired by rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) as sheep herders in Wyoming. One night on Brokeback Mountain, Jack makes a drunken pass at Ennis that is eventually reciprocated. Though Ennis marries his longtime sweetheart, Alma (Michelle Williams), and Jack marries a fellow rodeo rider (Anne Hathaway), the two men keep up their tortured and sporadic affair over the course of 20 years.
50 First Dates
Playboy vet Henry (Adam Sandler) sets his heart on romancing Lucy (Drew Barrymore), but she has short-term memory loss; she can’t remember anything that happened the day before. So every morning, Henry has to woo her again. Her friends and family are very protective, and Henry must convince them that he’s in it for love.
The Help
In 1960s Mississippi, Southern society girl Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from college with dreams of being a writer. She turns her small town on its ear by choosing to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent white families. Only Aibileen (Viola Davis), the housekeeper of Skeeter’s best friend, will talk at first. But as the pair continue the collaboration, more women decide to come forward, and as it turns out, they have quite a lot to say.
Milk
In 1972, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) and his then-lover Scott Smith leave New York for San Francisco, with Milk determined to accomplish something meaningful in his life. Settling in the Castro District, he opens a camera shop and helps transform the area into a mecca for gays and lesbians. In 1977 he becomes the nation’s first openly gay man elected to a notable public office when he wins a seat on the Board of Supervisors. The following year, Dan White (Josh Brolin) kills Milk in cold blood.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Life is a struggle for single father Chris Gardner (Will Smith). Evicted from their apartment, he and his young son (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) find themselves alone with no place to go. Even though Chris eventually lands a job as an intern at a prestigious brokerage firm, the position pays no money. The pair must live in shelters and endure many hardships, but Chris refuses to give in to despair as he struggles to create a better life for himself and his son.
Act of Valor
All Dogs Go to Heaven
The Blair Witch Project
The Boy
Deliver Us from Eva
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Julie & Julia
Above: “Julia & Julia” / Photo Credit / Columbia Pictures
Marauders
Miracle
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption
Soul Surfer
Striptease
Waiting…
Above: “Striptease” / Photo Credit / Warner Bros. Pictures
Robust Laughter will arise from these Verses for the Despotic Age of Trump
Last year, Tony Award winning actor John Lithgow released a playful book of satirical poems titled “Dumpty: The Age Of Trump In Verse.” The collection poked scathing fun at President Donald Trump as well as many of his supporters in Washington, all alongside illustrations from the author.
Like Lithgow’s first book, “Trumpty Dumpty” explores the chaos that is the current presidency through poetry. Only now, there are even more characters and topics to delve into, and Lithgow does so with humorous and timely poignancy.
Lithgow’s images take on the same style as those in the first book as well. The author noted in an interview that he grew up wanting to be a visual artist before falling into acting. Clearly, he’s never lost touch with his original passion. For this book, the pictures appropriately look like something out of an old-time newspaper; the author cites political cartoonist Thomas Nast as a primary inspiration.
More than a book of illustrations – prose and rhymes delight as well
As for the writing itself, Lithgow has always held a longstanding passion for stories and verse. The Harvard grad mentions that his father— actor/director Arthur Washington Lithgow—held immense skill in creating rhymes on the fly. Evidently, it must be hereditary, as John never misses an opportunity for cleverness in this cheeky collection.
Gearing up for tonight’s #TrumptyDumpty launch event! While you wait, here’s another limerick:
“Colonel Vindman, the POTUS’s nemesis, Bears a fearlessness right out of Genesis. Since he showed deeper fealty Than our titan of realty, Dumpty had him removed from the premises.” pic.twitter.com/3GcpTcmclc
The author finished writing the book in May, and he read some of the original pieces on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert several months back. However, the accompanying drawings took a bit longer to finish, and the publication process went right up to the bell.
Click here to see “Dumpty” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
Now that the book is out, though, many others are getting in on the fun. In an amusing promotional endeavor, Lithgow organized some dramatic readings from his celebrity friends. Fellow actors Meryl Streep, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Samuel L. Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Glenn Close all showed up, as well as a few figures on the political scene.
With the help of producers B. Swibel, Adam Westbrook, Adam Bankhead, and Tim Van Patten, the team created a series of videos with these notable faces reciting Lithgow’s zany words, the backgrounds all cartoonish facades in the spirit of Lithgow’s art.
Lithgow says that he had the time to write the book during quarantine, as Broadway theaters shut their doors and film/television productions took a pause due to the pandemic. Poetry kept him busy as the acting business went on hiatus. Only now are productions starting to pick up again. While Lithgow makes a stellar poet and a great humorist, he now looks forward to returning to the thespian world.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
