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Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition)

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love it
Review: This is an amazing portrayal of American and Soviet reactions to a nuclear crisis (Despite the cracks on fluoridation). The humor is great, and you really have to be thinking about the movie to notice it. Genius, pure genius.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still Works!
Review: This is proably Peter Seller's most enduring work. It is funny, tense, enlightening, wierd, and it is still relevant. There always were and will always be demagogues (George C. Scott), heroes (the President), and people so sure of their own importance, that they will ruin the earth to make their point (Sterling Hayden). In the decades since this film was made we have the same kinds of characters, particularly those who see the only acceptable future for themselves is to destroy our world, who believe that individual lives are unimportant.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unfortunately This Was The Early Sixties
Review: In the sixties when thus movie came out I was an undergrad student. At the time the movie was portrayed as a comedy but close to terrifying reality. It is a story of a local commander of a B-52 wing in the US Air Force deciding to launch a nuclear war on his own.

Seeing a B-52 up close in a sobering experience. These are big mean looking planes with 6 large jet pods - each with two engines - so we have 12 individual turbo jets driving this fearsome monster into the sky with up to 50 tons of bombs. In the 1960's they would be sitting on runways or flying towards the USSR loaded with nukes waiting for the command to proceed. This was a 24 hour a day activity, seven days a week, between 100 and 200 fully loaded B-52 bombers ready to wipe the USSR off the map.

When the Cuban missile crisis came, many of us thought that would be the end. Apparently, and we found out much later that it almost was, except for a Russia sub commander that held back a nuclear tipped torpedo.

This was a "black comedy" about a war actually starting. The movie is probably Peter Seller's finest performance playing three roles, with great roles for Sterling Hayden as a general, along with George C. Scott and the Slim Pickens's character riding the first bomb out of a B-52. But at the time it was all too horribly close to reality. So the movie/DVD tells a tale of what could go have gone wrong with this "strategic force" of B-52's if a local commander was a madman and how the pentagon brass viewed a nuclear war in terms of "acceptable" survival probability. All quite scarry.

Get the early 60's ambiance and watch this movie.

Jack in Toronto

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not a single false move
Review: It's difficult to add much to the endless parade of rave reviews, except to point out that you'll probably never, ever see another film this TIGHT - it fits together like Johansen blocks. Some have said it drags or slows down at times; they must have switched channels or something. It's the shortest 93 minutes you'll ever spend watching a movie.

I first saw Dr. Strangelove on network TV at age 10, all by myself...and it scared the HELL out of me. New viewers have every reason to be just as scared today. Although it's largely unknown to the public, the Cold War arms race is being revived right now, with the recent termination of the ABM treaty and the Bush administration's plans to build the first new American nuclear weapons since 1989. The good Dr. S was beginning to look a little dated during the late 90s, but he's right back in business now.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Reference
Review: Slim Pickens riding the bomb is a reference that is part of the American culture. Other than knowing the origin of this reference, this movie is a waste of time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: interesting anecdote
Review: The movie is awesome. An interesting story that Tony Harvey tells in the commentary for The Lion In Winter is how he cut Dr. Strangelove while on a boat to Australia during the Cuban missle crisis. Ironic that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Slim Pickens as a B-52 Pilot?
Review: 5 Stars aren't enough for this film. It is the first DVD I ever bought and rightly so as it is, if not the best comedy movie of all time, certainly one of the top two. It very accurately captures the near-paranoia of the cold war in the early sixties. Peter Sellers never did a better job of acting multiple rolls in any other movie. The supporting cast did very well by themselves as well. Yeah, Slim Pickens performed convincingly as a B-52 pilot to his credit. This movie was shot in black and white and wouldn't have had nearly the impact if it had been shot in color. If you haven't seen this movie, buy it and see it. See it many times over. It is a first rate flick on all counts.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dude, Where's My Bomber?
Review: It's on every list of the greatest comedy movies. Even though it was made back when movies were still limited to two colors, three if you count grey, it's humor is still...humorous. People today think it's cool when Mike Meyers does multiple characters, but he's nothing compared to Mr. Seller's. Despite a sort of slow start, you soon come to realize why this made it on so many lists. If only because of the great ending.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Spot on!
Review: As timely as ever as once again we see the Doomsday Clock approaching midnight with all the false bravado of the White House when it comes to its war on terrorism. Kubrick nailed the Cold War. The characterizations are spot on. Peter Sellers has a field day in his multiple roles, with Dr. Strangelove a fantastic parody on the German scientists who came to America to develop the bomb. General Turgidson made me think of Rumsfeld. Quick to come up with a snappy reply to any of the questions posed in the War Room as the crisis deepens. But, the star of the show is Slim Pickens as Major TJ 'King' Kong as he leads the B52 deep into Russian territory determined to find his target. As Kubrick noted, the scenario was so absurd that humor was the only treatment possible, steering a different course than the novel he loosely based the movie on, Red Alert.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So sattire wasn't invented in the year 2003
Review: If you have a keen sense of irony and a love of classics then buckle your seat-belts kiddos and get ready for the ride only thoughtful and discerning viewers can truly appreciate. If, on the other hand you totally lack social nuance like I do, and maybe one time, accidentally, used the big fork instead of the small one at the fancy office Christmas party and Jenny from accounting will never let you forget about it no matter how many times you change the cooler water for the department and show her how to use company time to check stock quotes and download gourmet recipes to feed her gifted brood (who by the way would rather have a grilled cheese sandwich) without getting caught, then get down with the veiled slapstick. Either way, DVDs count as members of a culturally sophisticated lexicon, as books did some years ago and if you have this one on your shelf, your sure to impress the coffee-swilling vixen that you picked up at the trendy hot spot with your contrived use of film knowledge.


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