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 pretty 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…

Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a brilliant war satire, having plenty of remarkable characters and outstanding performances from its cast. The writing really is top-notch as all the characters’ arcs are absurdly hilarious on so many levels. As soon as we enter “The War Room”, we face a riot of laughter that never stops throughout the film. However, there are several memorable moments outside the room too. How could I forget about the maniacal General Jack Ripper constantly talking about his theory on bodily fluids or the crazy cowboy, Major Kong, who is on a mission to take out a few “Ruskis” and is willing to do whatever it…

“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…

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Sidney Lumet by Dropping A Bomb

You don’t believe, we’re on the eve of destruction.

After watching Fail Safe the other day, I really wanted to rewatch Dr. Strangelove right after so I could compare these two masterworks.

Here are my original reviews of Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe.

In 1964 one of the foremost things on people’s minds was the potential for nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis had just been narrowly averted, and, for the first time, the world populace came to understand that civilization could be wiped out at the press of a button. At any second.

I was 5 years old at the time, and was…

Well... Here we are. In a little over 24 hours we'll find out who the next President of the United States is going to be, and for the first time in an election I've realized that I hate everyone involved. On one side, we have a homophobic, racist joke of a candidate with no filter or sense of decency and an unrestrained sense of entitlement to the point where I want to vomit. On the other side, we have a criminal, murderer, liar, and general bully who will be just as susceptible to obliterating our decent foreign relations as the racist cheeto is. It's a no win situation- claiming nonpartisan has never felt more relieving. I like absolutely nothing about…

The ending of a film is, often, what sticks in the viewer's mind after walking out of the theater; after all, it’s the conclusion of the diegesis: the meaning of which the entirety of the film is building towards. For example, in the Empire Strikes Back, evil has effectively won in the narrative. The final shot is one of hope, a willingness to continue the fight against tyranny no matter the insurmountable odds; the viewer can contextualize the lighter moments -- scenes of comedy, friendship, and perseverance -- peppered throughout the film, and possibly apply the morality to their life. An illogical or poorly executed conclusion risks undoing an otherwise finely crafted narrative. And this very scenario is what film…