Latest news with #Don'tLookUp
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Climate
- Boston Globe
We're in for another scorching Boston summer
Weather for the summer is predicted to be hotter and wetter than we have experienced in the past. As Epstein wrote, 'We've got plenty of heat and humidity on the way. So if you're not a fan of summer, buckle up, it's going to be a hot ride.' But I don't want to buckle up. I want cool breezes and temperate days when we can enjoy the outdoors and not have to stay in air conditioning to be comfortable. I would like each of us to realize that the energy (heat) we are adding to Earth's atmosphere is destroying nature's balance. Advertisement We need to insist on measures that help keep us safe, like reduced emissions. And we need to listen to the climate scientists and meteorologists who are warning us. Then we need to support efforts to maintain a healthy climate. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up (Thank you, Boston Globe, for printing weather data as the Trump administration Angela Lomanto Great Barrington Climate change also means more wildfires Re: " When I awoke to see an orange-gray sky on the morning of June 4, I was reminded of the 2021 movie ' Advertisement The unusual sky was caused by smoke from wildfires burning in Canada, approximately 2,000 miles from Boston. Climate change doesn't ignite forest fires, but it creates the conditions that make fires more likely to happen and more severe when they do. Climate change is making summers hotter and windier and causing longer, drier fire seasons. Lightning strikes, the most common direct cause of wildfires, are 'Don't Look Up' depicted what happens when politics takes precedence over planetary survival. This week's smoky skies are climate change in action, yet Washington continues to approve new fossil fuel projects. It's time to look up and confront this threat without political blinders. Frederick Hewett Cambridge
Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Succession' creator Jesse Armstrong's ‘Mountainhead' is a too-literal-minded satire
Ven (Cory Michael Smith, who brought perfect smarm to the young Chevy Chase in ' They all have a direct line to the White House, and they all speak in the clipped, speedy patter of the Roy family — and of the characters from 'In the Loop,' Armando Iannucci's superb 2009 satire about bumbling British and America government operatives that Armstrong co-wrote, receiving an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Armstrong has a gift for puncturing balloons of power and hoisting the self-important with their own petards. He's also a wizard with one-liners. Walking into Souper's soulless, sprawling Mountainhead, Jeff asks: 'Was your interior decorator Ayn Bland?' It's a great zinger that holds out hope for light touches that never really arrive. Advertisement (l to r) Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef. Macall Polay/HBO That's a problem, because this material could really use an infusion of levity to make it go down without choking. Make no mistake, 'Mountainhead' is a comedy, with fangs. But too often it also feels like a literal-minded screed or lecture, not unlike the 2021 Netflix satire 'Don't Look Up,' in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence's astronomers struggle to interest the powers that be in the fact that a comet is on an apocalyptic collision course with Earth. See the short-sighted technocrats, whistling past the global graveyard. Except this time they represent the Musks, Zuckerbergs and Altmans of the world, the new power brokers convinced that their obscene net worths somehow equate to forward thinking that's good for the rest of the world. As Ven and his friends/sycophants justify the destruction and chaos they create, it's impossible to miss the echoes of the current broligarchy's crowing. 'Mountainhead' is nothing if not au courant. Advertisement The second half of the movie takes a plot turn that unfortunately for our purposes falls firmly in the spoiler zone. It does give 'Mountainhead' a jolt of focus and energy, and brings some comic clarity to dark questions that linger over the whole affair: What is the human collateral damage of zero-sum tech bro thinking? Are we all mere negotiating chips in some bizarre big picture we can't quite grasp? The second act of 'Mountainhead' feels more concrete and human than the first. It also feels like it belongs to a different movie. 'Succession' aficionados might find themselves flashing back to some of that series' best and most 'Mountainhead'-relevant episodes. There's Season 2's 'Hunting,' in which the Roy family and associates head to a Hungarian mansion for a corporate retreat that becomes a ritual of humiliation (this is often referred to as the 'Boar on the Floor' episode). And Season 4's 'America Decides,' which finds the Roy-run, Fox News-styled network ATN leaning on the levers of power to determine the winner of a U.S. presidential election. These stories, too, express their share of incredulous outrage. But they also move with a dancer's nimble grace. 'Mountainhead' is more like a heavyweight boxer, slugging away. It is satire as blunt-force object. ★★ MOUNTAINHEAD Directed and written by Jesse Armstrong. Starring Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, Hadley Robinson, and Amie MacKenzie. On HBO and Max starting May 31. 108 min. TV-MA (language, mild violence, adult content, wealthy people behaving badly). Advertisement
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion: There's One Looming Reason Why Trump Fired Waltz Not Hegseth
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher. Laura Loomer has struck again. The New Abnormal's Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy think they've figured out why President Donald Trump chose to fire National Security Adviser Mike Waltz over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following several Signalgates. According to Levy, all signs point to notorious Trump soothsayer Laura Loomer. Trump fired a top national security aide in early April because Loomer didn't like him, and, 'I am fairly certain that Mike Waltz is one of the people that Laura Loomer doesn't like,' said Levy. 'I guess what I would say is I don't think it's surprising that Waltz is gone,' he added. Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast. Plus, David J. Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever and Academy Award-nominated screenplay writer of Netflix's Don't Look Up, breaks down Trump's chaotic first 100 days. 'The economic contraction can really be blamed almost singularly on Donald Trump,' said Sirota. 'This is not some hangover from the Biden administration's policies. Donald Trump came in and was a shock to the system.' Then, Media Matters for America's senior fellow Matt Gertz examines MAGA's media spinning of Trump's collapsing poll numbers. Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Shut It Down': Why Adam McKay Is Endorsing a Mass Strike for Workers Across Industries
On Thursday Don't Look Up filmmaker Adam McKay appeared at the virtual town hall of a grassroots group attempting to help organize a general strike, encouraging participants to 'shut down this broken, befouled economy.' McKay joined a town hall for the 'General Strike 4 Resignations' group alongside Chris Smalls, the co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union and one of the subjects of the 2024 documentary Union, which McKay executive produced. More from The Hollywood Reporter Writers Guild West Staffers Launch Their Own Unionization Drive (Exclusive) My Mother, the Hollywood Scab Writers Guild West Bars Members From Working on Martin Scorsese-Produced Film Due to Randall Emmett's Role The idea of a general strike — however realistic or unrealistic — has gained momentum in select activist and labor circles in the last few years as a means of changing the status quo in the U.S. The general idea is that if enough working people, unionized or not, withhold their labor across the country, they can establish enough leverage to change policy. While still far from mainstream, two leaders of major stateside unions — Association of Flight Attendants international president Sara Nelson and United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain — have endorsed the notion, with Fain calling on fellow unions to time their labor contracts to expire on May Day 2028 to make a mass work stoppage possible for organized workers. McKay is a believer, as he demonstrated on Friday. 'I am here because I am terrified,' he told the modest group of attendees, which hovered a little above 30 over the course of the town hall. 'I have two daughters and a wife that I love, and I became friends with a bunch of climate scientists. Then at that point, I started to petition our government to do something about this calamity [climate change] that is happening right in front of our faces. And look, I'm a Hollywood guy, so we have money, we talk to people. You can be like, 'Screw you.' But I am here to tell you, the people in Washington D.C., the people in London and the Western countries do not give a shit about what's going on.' McKay added that he has tried to push the Democratic left 'for years' to no avail. 'Eventually I started to figure out, 'Oh, they don't want to offend their money.' So the two parties at this point are useless. So what do we do? And what we do is we shut down this broken, befouled economy.' Over the course of the conversation with Smalls and the General Strike 4 Resignations organizers, which occasionally meandered to the topics of the Blue Origin all-female space trip, AI, Palestine and socialism, the filmmaker promised that he would pledge $250,000 to a strike fund to help cover the living costs of people in the southwestern U.S. if a general strike came about. 'If you're a wealthy person and you're hearing this, you are delusional if you're not giving money to the same fund,' McKay said. The filmmaker also emphasized the importance of spreading the idea of a general strike through word of mouth, saying that his work in the media industry has shown him that the business is always trying to recreate those kind of exchanges. He underscored the urgency of climate change and its effects, like rising global temperatures. 'I kind of feel like the whole reason we're here is that every one of you needs to say, 'Fuck social media, fuck the press.' Talk to the people to your left and right and say 'shut it down,'' he said. 'It is a monster death machine. And I am telling you, I have met with so many scientists and so many economists. Shut it down. We can do it. We really can.' McKay has been active in climate causes in recent years, donating $4 million in 2022 to the Climate Emergency Fund and joining the board of directors. In 2023 he launched the nonprofit Yellow Dot Studios, which seeks to activate people around climate change with entertaining short-form videos 'that challenge the decades of disinformation pushed by oil companies and amplified by large swaths of elected leaders and the media,' according to the organization's website. As Donald Trump amassed electoral votes during the 2024 presidential election, which he eventually won, McKay — who has in the past identified as a Democratic Socialist — posted on X that 'it is time to abandon the Dem Party. I'm registering Green Party or Working Families. But am open to ideas.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
Winnipeg Free Press
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rhetoric and outdated policy won't solve crime issue
Opinion The movie Don't Look Up was a troubling satire on what happens when people don't listen to experts. In that film, climate-science deniers avoided the evidence of researchers and it ended in the destruction of the world. Bypassing scientific evidence has gained traction among politicians south of the border. With elbows up, I thought we were immune here — until I heard the campaign promises around crime. Crime is an easy target among politicians. No one wants to be a victim of crime. And as someone who has studied crime and advocated for crime policy for over 30 years, I've seen politicians prey on the topic of crime to scare people into voting for them. For the party that recently lost a significant lead in this year's federal election, it has meant taking a targeted aim at crime. Spencer Colby / The Canadian Press When politicians talk tough about fighting crime, they're depending on emotion, not evidence, for votes. Generally, the three main parties don't differ very much on their approach to crime. All want an increase in penalties, more accountability, and to protect the vulnerable. But the recent rhetoric by Pierre Poilievre has ramped up the discussion in a way that is twisting the reality of crime, to his supposed benefit. His extra-tough-on-crime stance, a familiar topic for Conservatives, is painting a skewed picture of crime. And just as it did with former prime minister Stephen Harper, it avoids expert knowledge, even for the most basic of criminal justice statistics. Poilievre is campaigning on the fact that crime has increased over the time the Liberals were in office. Some crimes have increased, but not the ones he's talking about. He is talking about multiple murderers, crime while on bail, unsafe streets, and oddly, victims not having access to the Charter of Rights. As an expert on crime, my bipartisan head is spinning. Could there be any more context missing? Crime peaked in the mid-'90s, under the reign of the 1984-1993 Conservatives. At the tail end of that Conservative era, crime declined consistently between 1993 and 2005, when the Liberals were in office. The decline continued between 2006 and 2015, when Stephen Harper was prime minister. Then, the Conservatives adopted a tough on crime stance, which many say was not necessary as crime was already on the decline. Since the recent Liberal decade that Poilievre constantly reminds us of, crime has had an odd pattern, somewhat related to COVID, which had a significant impact on crime globally. There are slight increases in violent crime, a decrease in some property crime, a decrease in highway traffic act violations, but an increase in administrative and other offences. Violent crime increased by two per cent, but it is 24 per cent lower than it was 15 years ago. In fact, homicide rates declined in 2023, with only 778 cases across Canada, 104 fewer than the previous year, and there has been a 14 per cent decrease in homicides, not the 112 per cent increase that Poilievre references. Generally, property crime is more impactful on the lives of people than violent crime, but politicians conveniently dismiss the idea that wages and good jobs can decrease property crime. Poilievre is correct in saying fraud and extortion have increased. It has and it requires intervention. Also increasing have been online crimes and intimate partner violence, topics that few parties want to discuss because all stripes of government have failed to adequately address these complex issues. Policy briefs and calls to declare IPV a national epidemic have not been addressed by Poilievre as an MP. Nor has another complex crime that has increased by 72 per cent — hate crimes. These statistics should be our starting point for any policy discussions about crime. What to do. The Conservative platform that getting extra-tough on crime, reinstating consecutive sentences for multiple murderers, modifying the Charter, and adopting a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy is an outdated set of policy reforms that will not meaningfully address the crimes that Canadians face. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Messing around with the Charter is especially concerning. Three-strikes-and-you're-out is a discredited crime policy that was popular in the 1990s and has been largely condemned by criminal justice scholars and practitioners. Not only do these polices not work to decrease crime, research has shown they increase homicide rates and create grossly disproportionate sentences. These are not solutions to protect people and create a safer sociey. These have been denigrated by those in the U.S., both in Texas and California, who implemented these polices and repealed them because they have failed. Not only do these suggested policies run counter to all the evidence of criminal justice research, they represent a waste of taxpayer dollars. This is something we can't afford to waste in these trying economic times. It's simply fiscally irresponsible. Evidence on how to reduce crime exists. We know how to prevent and decrease crime. But that knowledge doesn't make for a good soundbite. It doesn't instill fear in people who will then vote for a party who uses crime as a rhetorical strategy. As one character in Don't Look Up said, 'the truth is way more depressing.' Dr. Kelly Gorkoff is associate professor and department chair of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg.
