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Summary: This movie may have saved your life.
Review: It's hard to believe but during the early 60's there were influential men who did seem to stop worrying and love the bomb. Henry Kissinger came to DC advocating the option of "limited nuclear warfare". General Curtis "Boom Boom" LeMay was known for violating Soviet air space, in what many considered an overt attempt to provoke something "toe to toe with the Rooskies". Jack Kennedy made some powerful enemies for peacefully de-escalting the Cuban missle crisis. Kubrick (and Terry Southern) responded with a brilliant film, featuring classic performances (including the multi-role brilliant improvisation from Peter Sellers that built from their collaboration in Lolita). It's impact was to change the topic of conversation from "strategic" to "mutually assured destruction", helping world opinion to back away from the brink of a casual option (such as calling it for Vietnam). I sure hope that someone can get the current President to watch it. Meanwhile, you should see it too.
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Summary: Classic Movie, Great DVD, but...
Review: I just got this and I must say I'm pleased with the package. The film is a classic so I'm not going to review it. There are 3 decades worth of that. You're interested in the extras and the quality. Extras: It's not perfection but it has its share of good stuff. A trailer, the interviews, the gallery and the talent files are alone an expected handful of goodies that should be on all dvds. Just my opinion but that should be a law. The big bonuses are the 2 docs- Wonderful and insightful "Kudos"! My only wish would have been a commentary. Certainly there is some person who could add some insight during the film. Any volunteers? Quality: fine nothing spectacular but nothing distracting. I would have loved to see it in the original widescreen though. Overall, if you love Kubrick click BUY now! If not it, still, is an exceptional DVD. My only wish is that all of Kubrick's films get this treatment or better. Then we can burn that Warner collection like the garbage it is!
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Summary: Wickedly Funny Perfection!
Review: Dr. Strangelove is not a typical Kubrick movie in many ways. It has the same wickedly funny detachment, but unlike other Kubrick movies, it is short, fast and furious. No indulgence, no ponderous "slowness." The characters are frantically trying to prevent (or provoke) nuclear war, and not a single second is wasted. Peter Sellers gives a predicatably hilarious performance in three roles: the mad bomber Dr. Strangelove, the ineffectual, soft-spoken President, and General Ripper's Chief Executive. However, it's Sterling Hayden, as General Ripper, who wants to start nuclear war to preserve "purity of bodily fluids" and George C. Scott, as the bellowing, airheaded General Turgidson, who really steal the show. Their performances are wicked parodies of their screen personas. It's brilliant, hilarious moviemaking from the first shot to the last.
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Summary: Dr. Strangelove or: Why I Learned to Love the DVD!
Review: The special edition of Dr. Strangelove is one of Columbia Pictures' better DVD releases, possessing a healthy portion of extras for the avid Kubrick fan. The disc includes a 45 minute documentary about the making of the film with many interesting tidbits, such as the fact, that Peter Sellers had originally been considered for the part of Major Kong, portrayed by Slim Pickens. The video package also has another mini-documentary about the cutting edge director, a rather skimpy "art gallery"(one photo) and fascinating footage of Sellers and George C. Scott in their costumes, doing mock interviews.Although, this film was supposedly filmed in mulitiple aspect ratios, I saw very little evidence of improvement, with the occasional off-and-on switch to full screen or to a minimal letterboxed format. The cropping reveals very little extra information. Although, the opening animated menu is creative with a little airplane flying by, dropping a bomb on a cartoon globe, this quickly grew tedious. The picture is crisp and the audio clear. The extra audio tracks include a Spanish and French dubbing of the film, which is mildly amusing to hear the different renditions. There are also at least 6 different subtitle options! Overall, I enjoyed this DVD edition and highly recommend it to any fan of this great black comedy.
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Summary: Good and realistic
Review: True story. When I was an Air Force Captain I had a TDY to NORAD. I was inside the mountain and we were looking at the big board of the world. There's a conference room behind us. I couldn't get the feeling that I had seem that conference room before. Then it dawned on me that I saw it in Dr Strangelove. Folks, the war room does exist. Also, the B-52 shots are dead-on. Not only is this a great movie but details are right on and true-to-life.
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Summary: The Best of Kubrick
Review: I'm not Stanley Kubrick's biggest fan but I think that this film is far and away his masterpiece. The humor is perhaps what makes this film easier for me to watch than something like 2001 (which I appreciate aesthetically). Kubrick manages to catch Sellers in some of his funniest roles. While some of the dialogue is quite hilarious there's a profound message at its core. Kubrick quite deftly points out the lunacy of the nuclear arms race. It's as though he sugar-coated the medicine without lessening any of its effect. This film is similar to Fail Safe in terms of plot. However, the two films take different approaches to the subject and both are worthwhile. I do think, though, that Kubrick made the better film.
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Summary: Superior edition of superb film
Review: I just received my copy of the special edition and I strongly encourage fans of this film to purchase one of their own. With its documentaries, film trailers (before now the only place that I found the trailer on DVD was--for some odd reason--"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), and other extras, this version blows the earlier "bare-bones" edition straight out of the market. The new edition has enhanced my appreciation and enjoyment of the film even further, as I'm sure it will for all who enjoy this brilliant satire. My only complaint is what they left out. For two days Kubrick filmed Sellers as Major Kong, yet this footage (if it still exists) has been left of this edition. While I can't imagine anybody other than Slim Pickens in the role, it would have been great to see what Sellers was like and how close he came to dominating EVERY scene of the film.
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Summary: Great Scott! Best Sellers! A Sterling performance!
Review: You know a film is a classic when George C. Scott, Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden are merely the icing on the cake! Stanley Kubrick's timeless satire of Cold War politics will probably still have 'em rolling in the aisles in 3001 (if they haven't dropped The Big One by then). Terry Southern's screenplay is so full of memorable lines that you might as well place quotation marks at either end. As he had already demonstrated in Kubrick's "Lolita", Peter Sellers shows an uncanny ability at playing mulitple characters, affecting a German and American accent that sound as natural as his native Queen's English in this outing. George C. Scott bellows, gesticulates, cajoles, glowers, sulks and generally pulls every face known to mankind in the most deliciously hammy performance of his career as the hilariously named General Buck Turgidson. Sterling Hayden gives all actors a master class on how to play black comedy by remaining as serious as a heart attack while he delivers the movie's most savagely funny monologue. Outstanding supporting performances abound. I guarantee you won't be putting this one on "pause" to relieve your precious bodily fluids until the final credits roll!
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Summary: Life Imitating Art Imitating George Jr.
Review: With Dick Cheney and Colon Powell in the Whitehouse using Bush as a pawn to get back at Suddam for their shortfalls in the gulf war, this movies is as funny and scary today as it was when it was first released. Who voted for him anyway? Politics aside, this is one of Kubrick's best movies, definitely his funniest. The new extras are great and the excellent replay value makes it worth owning.
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Summary: To die in order to survive, what a joy!
Review: Kubrick touches a very sensitive subject in this film, a subject that should remind us of man's supreme ability at destroying himself and surviving his own destruction. He points out how any nuclear protocol has a hole somewhere or a loophole to go around any kind of security precautions. Nuclear weapons are our unredeemable doom. They can only lead to a catastrophy. And humanity is such that it will enjoy destroying itself and then mobilize its intelligence to just survive in order to start again. There is no hope what so ever. Kubrick deals with this subject in a very humorous way but every detail is there to show that the patriotic motivation of any man justifies in his mind any possible crime or just folly. Man is a fool and his foolishness can know no end. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.
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