Rating: 72/100
AFI Top 100 #39
Here we go again ( I want to be more than friends…).
Whoops… did I just get that song stuck in your head? Sorry about that. What I meant was that we have us here another AFI movie review. Before you know it, we’ll be done with the list.
Okay, I won’t get ahead of myself, but I think we’ve got a running start. It’s helpful when you have friends joining in for the ride. We even set up a little outdoor movie theater, complete with twinkle lights, to maintain social distancing. I highly recommend it unless your neighbors are the chatty kind. If anything, COVID- has helped the world become a little more creative.
Enough about that. Now to the movie review.
For those that don’t know it, Dr Stangelove (I’m going to stick with a shortened title) is actually written, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. I might not be his biggest fan after watching 2001 Space Odyssey, however, I was also informed that he did The Shining which is a favorite of mine. None of this matters, because Dr Strangelove is on the list which means I must watch it. I’ve already used my get out of jail free card with Annie Hall. I’m happy to report that I survived our viewing and that my rating fell between the other two movies. There’s nothing extreme like 2001 Space Odyssey, but it was also lacking the brilliance of The Shining.
If you’re looking for a satire on everything that’s wrong with the American government and its military, this might just be the movie you’ve been searching for. I’d even go so far as to say that parts of it are relevant to today, this country hasn’t changed that much. There’s even a note at the beginning to inform viewers that nothing depicted in the film can actually happen… then why did I read a fun fact that said changes were made in the military after the film was aired? Hmmmmmm. That sounds a little fishy to me.
But really, this movie was an outlet for the actors to act their butts off. Can you guess the three characters that Peter Sellers played? If it’s true that he was paid 55% of the film budget, he should have played the whole cast. This may sound like I’m complaining, however, the actors really did do a decent job. My favorite character was Gen. Turgidson. At least he was the most fleshed out, accurate character.
My plotting heart couldn’t fully get behind the movie though. What’s the point in the end? Was it just a story of how everything that could possibly go wrong did? Yet, those weird things, like trying to call the President on a payphone, were still believable. Okay… ya… even the idea of calling the President on a payphone requires a bit of suspended disbelief, but I wasn’t struggling to hop on the bus and enjoy the ride. The rest of the movie lends itself a little bit more to the believable side of things.
At least there wasn’t a food fight at the end. That might have been just a little too much.
The funny bits aren’t in your face, so don’t go in thinking this is a comedy in the literal sense. You must work for every laugh. You must read into the over the top characters, which in my opinion, needed a little bit more fleshing out. They were too on the nose without a hint of subtlety. I guess that lends to the comedy. It also lends itself a notch against the movie. Then I learned that Steller ad libbed a lot of his lines and even though I’m not against that practice in general, I feel that there’s a writer for a reason.
And on a last note, I think the choice for a black and white aesthetic was perfect, as subtle as the comedy. I couldn’t actually imagine the film in color. I think color would have created too much realism for you to enjoy the comedy while the conversation revolved around the whole world being radiated. Though those bomb shots at the end didn’t leave me with the best, comedic taste in my mouth.
Happy Watching
Love Kait