The inevitable has occurred: I've watched a hugely popular and acclaimed film and come away scratching my head, wondering what on earth is so special about it. But don't revoke my Letterboxd membership just yet: do me the favor of hearing me out first.

Dr Strangelove is obviously a sacred cow in film circles, and I can see why. It's often hilarious, sometimes visually striking, and full of excellent performances and dialogue. It's a funny film about a thoroughly unfunny situation. It's a perfect satire, really. But it left me completely cold.

Perhaps that's because I'm eighteen and therefore my memory (or even my parents' memories) doesn't extend back to a time when nuclear annihilation seemed almost imminent, and my…

Despite being one of the finest examples of genre-filmmaking that's neatly crafted, superbly scripted & wonderfully performed, Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove is a film that I admire more than I love. I've no hesitation in calling it the ultimate black comedy or the perfect satire but I also won't deny that my experience with it was rather ordinary, regardless of the few laughs in between.

Set during the Cold War era, the story of Dr. Stangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb concerns a paranoid Air Force General who green lights a nuclear attack on Soviet Union without the knowledge of his superiors, thus causing mass panic in the Pentagon War Room where the President, his…

“Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”

Laughter is such a strange thing. We laugh because we’re happy. We laugh because we find something amusing. We laugh to displace our discomfort. We laugh because otherwise we might cry. We laugh because we don’t know how else to react. Same response, so many different triggers. The past decade has seen those non-traditional triggers frequently exploited by “cringe comedies” like Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office; laughing at uncomfortable or sad situations has become all the rage. But it’s one thing to laugh at the absurdity of a politically incorrect…

Stanley Kubrick’s film features a scenario where a madman triggers a nuclear attack.. that scenario is absolutely absurd! Oh wait we have a madman currently in office as I speak within close proximity of the football and he has the codes! Where are those underground mines again? Excuse me whilst I go pack my bags ;-)

I know it is meant to be a black comedy but seriously between human error, mechanical failure, military/government snafu's, paranoid warmongers, Murphy's Law, mental instability, ignorance and extremism should ANYONE have these capabilities? Yeah it's a Laugh-O-Rama if you're totally oblivious as to just how close we truly are or have been to reserving a seat next to Slim Picken's on his gleeful ride…

There are very few movies I love more than this one, and I'm certain that none of them achieve the level of absolute perfection that this one does. What struck me this time is how none of these characters are idiots. They may have their own personal priorities but they are all (with the notable exception of Ripper) behaving quite sensibly and are very competently handling this extreme situation. Even Strangelove, who reacts with far too much glee at the eugenic possibilities of his plan for preserving the human race, is presenting the only practical action when faced with nuclear armageddon. Turgidson seemingly approaches Ripper's level of madness with his First Strike solution, but it's coming from a place of…

Plans or machine are used to act out base human instincts, not unemotionally control them
General Ripper is framed in the center and with blurred backgrounds, t show his stability, but verbal muddle
The War room appears encircled by darkness yet organized and accurately reflecting of it's inner "psychology", but it too is an expressionistic facade with mental instability and chaos inside, shown through close-ups with fuzzy backgrounds, and the officers' either uniformity or exaggerated actions.
Dr. Strangelove brings Ripper's satiric insanity into the War Room, and finally becomes erect as he envisions the post-apocalyptic future (mein führer)
Kubrick's aesthetics of contingency-This is a film about people debating contingency, but for a problem that human error caused and will exacerbate…