Nuclear war on film
June 23, 2002 6:13 PM   Subscribe

Nuclear war on film The Los Angeles Times [registration required] reviews the potrayal of nuclear war in the movies.
posted by kirkaracha (9 comments total)
 
Half the article is about "The Sum of All Fears"! Gah. Turan's usually better than this. What about:And honestly, if "Kiss Me Deadly" counts, you may as well throw True Lies in there as well.
posted by jjg at 7:14 PM on June 23, 2002


And Terminator 2, for that matter.
posted by kindall at 8:49 PM on June 23, 2002


Broken Arrow?
posted by Neale at 9:01 PM on June 23, 2002


jjg, he mentioned The Day After, as well as the excellent Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe, which make for a great double feature.

I recently watched Kiss Me Deadly, and the nuclear stuff was very amusing.

I also saw The Sum of All Fears, and they made a huge mistake showing the explosion in the preview. It wasted an opportunity to be suspenseful. (Although I did learn that nuclear explosions aren't all that dangerous if you're a politician or the hero's girlfriend.)
posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 PM on June 23, 2002


Threads is the greatest film ever made about nuclear war, it turns The Day After into radioactive glass. Another link. And another.

Every British kid who was at school during the late eighties watched this film. At our school it was like sex education, our parents had to sign something to say we were allowed to watch it.
posted by vbfg at 12:00 AM on June 24, 2002


He didn't mention By Dawn's Early Light either which I thought was quite good.
posted by vbfg at 12:08 AM on June 24, 2002


I remember people grousing about The Day After when it was mentioned that the production used edited pig squeals in the soundtrack because human screams weren't chilling enough.

I thought one of the better (and too short) scenes in The Day After was the shot of panicky Kansas City suburbanites mobbing the IGA grocery store in anticipation of the attack. Much more interesting than just seeing things blow up.
posted by gimonca at 7:44 AM on June 24, 2002


kirkaracha, Turan mentioned The Day After Trinity, the 1980 documentary, but not The Day After, the 1983 miniseries.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:46 AM on June 24, 2002


Testament and Miracle Mile are the ones to watch if you want to teach your kids about nuclear war. The Day After is so totally incoherent, it loses it's punch.

One thing I hate about Clancy's feel good Ben Affleck pablum (rent By Dawn's Early Light instead) is it tells people exactly what they want to hear, that everything will be just fine and dandy, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation. Trust the CIA! They'll protect us!

Clancy is to political thrillers what Crichton is to sci-fi and Grisham is to lawyer novels. For those of you who don't know better, this is not a complement.

Here's a good link on nuclear war movies: Post Modem.
posted by mark13 at 10:30 AM on June 24, 2002


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