(6.29) In 1964 Stanley Kubrick wrote and directed one of the best movies ever, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” It’s about Cold War brinksmanship and nuclear annihilation and it’s hilarious. Find out for yourself this week at Movies on the Block downtown. Roger Ebert wrote following his 10th viewing,
Kubrick made what is arguably the best political satire of the century, a film that pulled the rug out from under the Cold War by arguing that if a “nuclear deterrent” destroys all life on Earth, it is hard to say exactly what it has deterred.
“Dr. Strangelove’s” humor is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But a man who doesn’t know he’s wearing a funny hat … ah, now you’ve got something.
Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. I also recommend at least 10 viewings.
Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, and a young James Earl Jones.
Sunset 8:24pm, Thursday, June 29, Grant’s Block, 260 Westminster Street, (directions)