The Atomic Café

[EvilNed]

The film was definetly very funny. Anyone here see it? I loved all those ol' duck and cover montages, as well as the contradicting evidence (one scientists said that anyone outside a 12 mile blast radius of an atomic bomb would have a good chance of surviving!!!) etc. etc. But the film was also somewhat bogged down by extreme leftist propaganda. Heavily critizising the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which I personally feel, are blown out of proportion: They were necessary and a much less costly end to the war than the alternative) as well as the concept of M.A.D. It painted (or rather, ridiculed) capitalistic america as dumb and unable to handle or even want to handle the communists. It was a funny film, but with an agenda I didn't wholly agree on.

[Eyebiter]

You have to recall the context in which the film was produced. The first term of the Reagan administration was a scary time. In some ways much worse than today. Cold war anti-communist rhetoric was in full swing USSR = evil empire. The Soviet Union was embroiled in combat operations in Afghanistan while the US supplied Mujahideen freedom fighters weapons and training. In the Middle East Iran and Iraq were at war. Libya threatened US Navy ships in the Gulf of Sidra and was invading northern Chad. There were several major terrorist attacks against NATO targets in Europe by the Red Army Faction, IRA, and various Arab groups. On the nuke front the US was deploying a new generation of Pershing II IRBM's and Cruise Missiles, in response to the large number of Soviet SS-20 mobile launchers being built. Both sides were testing ASAT weapons, and there were rumors of the Star Wars space based anti-missile program. The 10 mirv MX missiles were being developed, and many Trident Class boomer submarines each with 240 warheads were on the drawing boards. While Europe had the Green Party with the anti-nuke platform, here in the US there was a significant peace movement that was concerned with the large defense buildup by the US. Atomic Cafe, The Day After, Threads, and other movies were in some small part a reaction to these sentiments.

[EvilNed]

Yeah, that makes sense I guess. Even if it was made in 81. Was Raegan in office then? I guess he must have been. From 1980-88. But even if you take into regard the context which a film is made, that never makes it any better. A film is what it is. It can be interesting, but not better than what it actually is. And films age. Metropolis was groundbreaking at its time, but now silent films are just so dull.

[coma]

Yeah, that makes sense I guess. Even if it was made in 81. Was Raegan in office then? I guess he must have been. From 1980-88. Yes, he was. The first Political thing I really paid attention to was in 79 when Ronnie was running for Prez. I saw on the front page of the paper a chart from Reagan about how much arms build up the USSR had compared to us. It was depicted as a stack of tanks. The USSR stack was more than twice as high as the US. Turned out to be a total lie. The US had, and always had, way more stuff. Reagan was all about war predicated on lies.The USSR was scary enough. He didnt have to make up stuff. Young folks try to romantisize the 80s, but I thought they sucked. Insane amounts of Nuke tension, tons of hot war, escalating cold war, terrorism going nuts everywhere but the US (mostly), out of control Crack and Murder, bankrupt cities and hair metal. Lets not forget flouresant sweatshirts. Seriously, things were way worse than and by the time Bush sr. rolled around to be presm things were totally in the crapper. Anybody realize Nixon, reagan and the 2 bushes had almost the same cabinet in many ways, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove. We have had the same ruling junta almost continulously since 1968. My whole life. Nice. I say its time for all you assholes to go away for ever. We saw what you offer and it SUCKS