Writer and Director: Adam McKay
Actors: Jennifer Lawrence (Kate DiBiaski), Meryl Streep (President Orlean), Melanie Lynskey (June Mindy), Leonardo DiCaprio (Dr. Randall Mindy), Rob Morgan (Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe), Timothee Chalamet (cute punk guy), Jonah Hill (Jason Orlean)
Hey Leo,
I don’t know if I want to subscribe to Netflix anymore. I think I am going to cancel the service.
It is just too overwhelming. You go into Netflix, and all these movies start talking at you before you can even see what it is you’re watching. I like to read descriptions of movies and consider them before something starts playing in my face. I find this approach they have really annoying.
Even recently, when the film Don’t Look Up was ending, the movie screen minimized to the left side and then the Netflix app started showing me a new potential show to watch while the music from the movie was still playing. I wasn’t done watching Jonah Hill. I wanted to sit with the experience of him being the last man on earth before having another option shoved in my face.
I am like, “Can you give me some space here, Netflix people?” It’s crazy. People go for this? People put up with this?
It has gotten to the point where I have to turn off the volume so I don’t have any noise while I peruse the Netflix offerings. So I am just going to cancel my subscription, I think. Which is annoying because there are all these movies and shows on Netflix, and I know that Netflix has some good stuff, but this past week all I found was a bunch of junk. Just superficial junk. I started watching a rom-com, for instance, and it had really nice lighting and the shots seemed really professional, and there was diversity in the cast, but all the three women were doing was getting high and drinking a lot of shots and having sex or trying to have sex with someone. How annoying and boring.
What I can say is that Don’t Look Up is a brilliant film. I watched it first in early 2022, as I was packing up my apartment in Delaware County to embark on a cross-country drive to California. That time was like my own little apocalyptic event. I had like, a roll of paper towels and some cleaning stuff and take-out Indian food in my kitchen, and a meditation pillow. (And my cat, Myra.) And I found this movie Don’t Look Up, and I just kept laughing and enjoying myself. Finally, I thought, a movie was accurate about portraying the relative idiocy of our social and governmental frameworks. A film that was this intelligent and funny? So rare. So, so rare.
The second time I watched Don’t Look Up was during a winter holiday break. This person I was with said he was going to watch the movie, and did I want to join, and I said, “Yes, sure!” But then he had all this baggage and emotions and a lot of assumptions about me and really, he was not interested in a shared experience of watching the film. So I just kept watching and laughing when he exited the room. The film was just as good the second time.
The third time I watched Don’t Look Up, was this past week. I don’t know what came over me—I was journaling one morning, and I opened up my computer, and saw the paused screen of the bad rom-com from the night before, when I’d fallen asleep. I quickly exited that film and just came to Jesus, if you know what I mean. I came into that place in my heart where I asked a sincere question, and I got into the seek-until-you-find-thing, and I asked out loud, “Like, is this really what this world is coming to? That I am inundated with this many movies on a streaming service, and none of them seems appealing or interesting, and what is happening? Why? This can’t be my reality! This can’t be our nation’s reality!”
And I browsed for just one moment more, and then I saw Don’t Look Up with this picture of you in glasses and with a beard, and I remembered the good old days. The days when I could select a movie in relative peace. When it felt exciting to select a film and watch it, or anticipate watching it, and have a shared experience with other human beings, where we all watch something and breathe, and take it in, and then maybe get dinner afterward.
When I was in middle school, I lived in this barren-ish part of south Jersey, where any movie theater was a half-hour away. Anything I wanted to do for most of my childhood was a half-hour away. One night, my friend’s mother decided to take three of us girls to the movies. So I went with my friend Vanessa and another friend whose name I think was Alicia. Alicia was really sweet. Anyway, we went to this movie and I don’t know what we saw. But I remember I dressed up a little bit. I wore nicer black pants that I didn’t normally wear, and a blouse. My mom helped me pick it out. And I actually took a purse that night, too. It was a small purse and I draped it across my chest, because you do that with some purses. Some just go on one arm, but others have a long strap and you put them across you to keep them more secure. So the four of us women watched a film, and then Vanessa’s mom took us to the Olive Garden for dinner.
Olive Garden was a little expensive for us back then, but Vanessa’s mom treated us anyway, even though I had brought a 20-dollar-bill from my mom. We all had such a nice time that night. I felt so grown up. I loved those breadsticks. I loved the sound of forks hitting plates, a sweet little clink that kept happening throughout the restaurant. The waiter treated all of us at the table like princesses. There was a relative elegance to the experience that filled me with warmth and imagination.
What does this have to do with your movie? Well, yesterday, I opened my inbox and saw some newsletter from the the New York Times that I’d recently subscribed to. I had subscribed because I was trying to find out more about this long-lost artist Hilma af Klint, and the New York Times had an article about a controversy related to her work. Then I got bogged down with figuring out if the Times was free for teachers, and if I could use the information in my classes somehow. I guess I subscribed to something. Anyway, when I got the newsletter in my inbox the next morning, and was inundated with more information that I couldn’t possibly process in one sitting, or even in a day, I got fed up all over again.
Who needs all this information, all the time? This is my point. We are human beings. We are meant to breathe and breathe deeply. We are meant to find our way out of our heads, and into our bodies, and especially our hearts, and feel the hum of being alive. We are meant to watch the breeze flow through the trees, and the flowers blossom, and the squirrel run up the tree’s limb. We are meant to feel our feet on the earth.
We are meant to look everywhere at what we have, and the connections we’ve made or are making, and cherish our moments. When we do this, we can be in a perpetual state of grace and gratitude.
We never know what is going to happen on any given day. But wow, we have this moment, right here. We can see.
We can hear.
We can feel.
We can experience.
That is how I live, the best way I can. I don’t get bogged down with too much information. It is not always helpful. Instead, I get lost a bit in the ideas of the art I want to create, the conversations I want to have, the people I want to connect with, the ways we can make beautiful dreams a reality. I listen to a lot of music. Living like this makes me less fearful.
What do you like to do?
I have some videos of looking up on Rose Woods TV, if you or anyone else wants to see what looking up is like for a lady in the Philadelphia wilds.
Cheers,
Ms. W
The Wilds
The Animal Tree
Trees Help Each Other
3 Trees in the Magic Forest
Intuition in the Forest
(Oh and I am also maybe running for Madame President. If I have extra time and a good camera person to film my campaign….Is Jonah Hill good with a camera? I wouldn’t know because Netflix pushed him off of my screen.)