Meet the Bernie vet and comet hunter behind 'Don't Look Up'

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

But the star-studded Netflix movie — which began streaming on Christmas Eve and is now the platform’s third-most viewed film of all time — is also a surprising love letter to academics, bureaucrats and evidence-based decision making.

"This is about whether or not we respect science," David Sirota, an investigative reporter, former Bernie Sanders staffer and co-writer of "Don’t Look Up," told E&E News in a Zoom interview last week.

Unlike some science fiction films in which meteors, rockets and space travel provide the "background" for the drama, he explained, the discovery of a 9-kilometer-wide comet hurtling toward Earth — and how the federal government and mainstream media struggle to grapple with the existential threat — is the central focus of the film.

(snip)

Lawrence plays Kate Dibiasky, a foul-mouthed, tea-sipping Michigan State University Ph.D. student who discovers the comet. DiCaprio is her insecure astronomy professor who becomes the public face of the government’s stumbling response to Comet Dibiasky. The film also features a snack-profiteering general, sexist political leaders, glib TV newscasters and a tech billionaire looking to profit from the crisis.

(snip)

https://www.eenews.net/articles/meet-the-bernie-vet-and-comet-hunter-behind-dont-look-up/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Saw this the other day

Glad to hear how popular it is.

Gonna watch it again soon, there's a lot to unpack in it.

[Ocelot II]

2. Don't give that ass Sirota more credit for the movie than he deserves.

Sirota's involvement was apparently so minor that he's not even mentioned in the Wikipedia write-up or in most reviews. He wasn't a "co-writer" - the director, Adam McKay, not Sirota, wrote the screenplay.