A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is one of the most biting and hard-hitting commentaries about the U.S.-Soviet arms race, overdependence on technology, the can-do philosophy of the Air Force, and the sheer lunacy of MAD, the apt acronym for the term Mutual Assured Destruction, the Cold War diplo-speak that meant "you nuke our country, we'll nuke yours." Normally one wouldn't think the possibility of nuclear annihilation would be the wellspring for a comedy, just as most people today wouldn't think the Holocaust is fodder for satire. Yet when Stanley Kubrick set out to do a straightforward dramatic film based on novelist Peter George's Red Alert, a novel about an "accidental" nuclear attack on the Soviet Union by the United States, the more research and contemplation the director and co-screenwriter did on the subject of nuclear deterrence and all the nitty gritty of nuclear warfare, the more insane t...

Pros:  Gripping story, excellent performances from cast, great directing from Lumet Cons:  Too stark and depressing for some viewers, dated, claustrophobic at times Imagine, if you will, that you are Col. Jack Grady, USAF, the commanding officer of a squadron of "Vindicator" bombers on routine patrol somewhere over Alaska. It's the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union still exists, and the Cold War is still being waged. Your plane, along with several others from your squadron, is nearing its Fail-Safe point -- a spot on the map where you will "orbit" for a specific amount of time before either returning to base or, if worse comes to worst, a coded attack signal orders you to head to your target inside Russia. This is part of your routine as an Air Force pilot, and thus far every time you've gone up on patrol you've reached the Fail-Safe point and returned home without incident. That is....until today. Today, your "routine patrol" will be ...