The first trailer is out for Colossal, from director Nacho Vigalondo, and there’s something a little familiar about its premise. Anne Hathaway plays an alcoholic who’s just crossed the line from functional to nonfunctional, returning home to live with her parents and keep drinking with childhood friend Jason Sudeikis. After a blackout bender, she awakes to find that a giant monster has appeared in Seoul and is smashing things up. But as she eventually realizes, the monster is mimicking her every move like a big, dumb, automaton: raising a hand, walking, and even dancing. Her smallest, most insignificant decisions turn out to be wreaking chaos and killing people.
In news that is completely unrelated to Colossal, as Slate’s Elliot Hannon reported, on Tuesday there was a gap of one hour and 16 minutes between a segment on Fox News in which Bill O’Reilly got agitated about the crime rate in Chicago and this tweet from the president of the United States:
Who knows what kind of bloody crackdown just got set in motion because O’Reilly and his producers indulged in their usual fearmongering at a moment the President happened to be watching TV? It looks like the tiniest decisions Fox News employees make from now on will send the giant behemoth that is Donald Trump lurching in whatever decision they choose, wreaking chaos and killing people.
Fox News has presumably realized this today, just like Anne Hathaway in Colossal. Are they lying around in horrified shock or popping bottles of champagne? Will they use their remote control of the government United States of America with the same sense of responsibility as Hathaway’s alcoholic, spiraling towards rock bottom? Audiences will have to wait until Colossal’s release in April to make a direct comparison (Sundance buzz is good), but we’re ready to call this one: Fox News is going to do Godzilla-size damage, and some of it won’t even be on purpose. Whether or not you move back to your parents’ house, it’s time to start drinking.
