Não Olhem para Cima

Uma comédia de Hollywood muito melhor sobre o fim do mundo do que Isto é o Fim! :-) Inteligentemente não só escrito, mas também interpretado. Por exemplo, o uso de Ariana Grande e da sua canção é o topo. Achei as cenas transmitidas ao vivo as mais satiricamente apropriadas. Outro papel interessante para Mark Rylance. A última frase de DiCaprio, embora não seja inovadora, é adequada e correta na minha convicção. E é exatamente esse tipo de Cate Blanchett que eu quero como amante. (06/03/2022)

Fui um dos poucos a quem A Queda de Wall Street deixou absolutamente indiferente. O esforçado Vice pareceu-me bem e gosto bastante de Repórter como uma comédia despretensiosa. Mas só hoje Adam McKay me agradou verdadeiramente como criador, graças ao seu Não Olhem para Cima. Não é fácil fazer uma boa sátira e todos os anos alguns fanfarões convencem-se do contrário, mas neste caso correu bem. É equilibrado tanto na dose de piadas simples (algumas das quais não me agradaram, enquanto outras causaram-me explosões de riso), além do humor satírico inteligente (mantive uma careta durante todo o filme) e de cenas sérias e bem pensadas (que Leonardo DiCaprio rouba para si mesmo, o que funciona bem). No final do ano passado, a Netflix agradou-me com Mank e neste ano conseguiu a mesma coisa com este filme,um bocado antes da véspera do Ano Novo - começa a tornar-se uma tradição. PS: O facto deste trabalho refrescante ter atualmente uma classificação dos críticos de 55% num agregador da internet, cujo nome não menciono (ou seja, menos do que o terrível Venom: Tempo de Carnificina deste ano), enquanto que o chupa-chupa de feira popular Homem-Aranha: Sem Volta a Casa tem 90%, prova mais uma vez que aquela fossa hipócrita realmente não é fonte de opiniões relevantes e devo deixar de dar-lhe qualquer valor, nem que marginal. (25/12/2021)

It's easy to see why Leonardo DiCaprio, an environmental activist who chooses his films carefully, gave his nod to this one – substitute a deadly comet for current and worsening climate change in the coming years and you get the picture. On the one hand his character, Dr Randall Mindy, and on the other – in real life – deniers like Klaus, Trump and similar idiots who, despite clear scientific and factual evidence, deny the human effect on climate change, just as McKay's film shows. And the people who, just like in this story, generally don't give a shit, they'd rather superficially like an article about how some pseudo-celebrity broke up with her boyfriend and completely ignore something that will be in a few years, or is slowly coming, because celebrities and other such superficialities in commercial media (and now, unfortunately, in public media as well), which focus primarily on entertainment, are pulling their weight these days. You can't be surprised, then, that Ariana Grande's breakup is hilariously taking precedence on TV over information about impending danger from outer space. Unfortunately, after an energetic first half, when McKay, in addition to the aforementioned, aptly addresses the unfortunate influence of social networks, the superficial and short-term thinking of politicians and the herd mentality of the population, the film loses its grip and its momentum and reaches the end at an idle. It just goes from a biting satire to an overly activist thing with no insight. But overall, the 4 stars are well deserved for the message that we're sitting on a barrel of dynamite while laughing like idiots. (29/12/2021)

Is this a brilliant satire that affects a sensitive point? Nope. Rather, it’s a very dry affair that fails in all disciplines. It strikes out in all directions indiscriminately and sometimes hits something rather unintentionally. That humanity is, at its core, a bunch of greedy assholes driven by the lust for riches and the desire to be better off than our neighbor is nothing new. Yet the film shouts it out to the world with the smiling naivety of young teenagers who want to save the world with a banner in one hand and a cobblestone in the other. Maybe these old-fashioned thought "overlaps" are enough for some people, but if I’ve got the laziest dramaturgy, I'm damn well taking the opportunity to be really clever and, above all, funny. This collection of caricatures without a single full-blooded character just travels around America, decrying concentrates of media outpourings, billionaire complexes, and political clownery, where it's fine to look for all the real-life foreshadowing, but absolutely no one is standing on their own two feet. It's like the jokes my fourth graders sometimes tell me at school: it has a confusing beginning, everything gets repeated about four times, and by the punchline, you have to help it or it's never going to end. This simply lacks effort and cuteness. The condescending smile is nowhere to be found. Middle finger up. (21/02/2022)

The worst thing is that in a world where populists rule politically, where even infotainment is no longer enough for the media but pure entertainment, where much of the real power is held by unaccountable tech giants headed by eccentric megalomaniac billionaires, where social media trends set the agenda, where likable bullshit carries more weight than fact-based opinion, a doom-comet could very well end up exactly like this. Scary, true, and funny at the same time. (25/12/2021)