It was a great movie, watched before going to bed, thinking about it first thing this morning when I woke up. I agree, also, that the ending was perfect, the only possible way they could have ended it. (I say that about Hitchcock's "The Birds," too. Only possible ending, no matter how unsatisfying some people find it.)
I watched this movie last night, then listened to this podcast right after. You and Tom Nichols had a really fantastic discussion that provided solid context for this movie, which is so important. I thought it was so interesting that the "professional" security folk had a range of human reactions to this incident but still executed their jobs. It seemed that the civilian parts of this -- mainly the SecDef and POTUS seemed far more unmoored here. Also interesting that you can see all of the technology to track, to shoot down, to manage the nuclear decision didn't include a way to keep the civilian part of government in contact with their counterparts quickly and sharply.
This movie gripped me from the very beginning and I haven't gotten it out of my mind yet. Really appreciate being able to hear from Mr. Nichols directly on this great film.
It's an interesting look at how government functions. For people who believe things are always under control it's a shock to find out something didn't work. For people who think government is always incompetent, we see people behave cold and professionally under maximum stress.
What we should take away from this is there are people - just people - who take on the task of doing the best that they can to protect the rest of us. We entrust them with everything and expect them to get it right all the time. We assume they'll get it right and that we have golden dome like protection for any stupid thing we do. We elect someone who wants to be a dictator and we think that we can simply vote him out if he becomes a dictator. The magical system we correct our mistake for us.
thanks for clear 'reality' clarificiation....we all need continual Re-mind-ers that we are NOT as 'In control" of all imagined, assumed, wanted, wished for, etc..... - as animals living in human forms.
we live casually in 'blinded' trust, more so with tech & internet & overblown digital 'access' for other things we daily depend on to claim 'we are safe', 'we are richer', ' we must survive', etc. we dont actually !
keep helping us return to sanity, to whatever we can experience [thru bodies we claim 'we are' vs. 'egos' we dismiss we act "as if" & thru...
all wise, spiritual, 'teachers-gurus-religious clergy ...' can do no more than repeat - accept, adapt," Be Here Now "
and" do no more harm than all we-they are doing already "
but gotta 1st admit we are not in as much Control, have Power, are Aware, or Courageous to act with Caring..as we want to claim...he he
"'Everyone has seen the mushroom clouds; they’re almost iconographic,” said Abigail Solomon-Godeau of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“But very few people have seen photographs of keloid scarring or people with radiation-related leukemias – what the atomic bomb did to people. The mushroom cloud stands for a visceral view of man, but most people don’t understand the human sacrifice, the human element.”
In 1982, Ms. Solomon-Godeau assembled a more personal, more human view of the bomb’s effects. With the aid of five friends, the freelance critic and curator created “The War Room,” a photo documentary featuring pictures taken by U.S. military and Japanese photographers in Nagasaki and Hiroshima."
And what is truly frightening is that Fat Man and Little Boy would be classified as merely small tactical nukes today. The fusion bombs we have now are much, much more powerful!
I'm a few years older than Tom and have spent my entire life within 25 miles of a military installation and for the last 40+ years in San Diego. We were one of four targets on North Korea's map in the last Trump administration, so pretty much nuclear ash in the first strike. In the 50's and 60's the thought was that this would knock us back a few years, but we'd recover with large areas of the country contaminated. A good example of that perspective is the book Alas, Babylon. As Tom has said many times, the nuclear threat has fallen on the list of concerns for Americans, but for some of us over 60 it's never gone completely away. I'll probably watch this, but I need to get emotionally ready for it. I do take issue with Tom's perspective on climate change because it looks like our models underestimate the impact of what we are doing to the planet. Fast or slow the planet will be much less friendly to human life in the future.
It was all cart before the horse, with the false requirement that everything be decided and resolved before impact.
I did not like the attitude of the general lecturing the President and team about “this is reality” and wanting to destroy all possible enemies.
I did not like Sec Def making inappropriate personal calls, then refusing to follow protocol, then NOT telling his daughter to seek shelter in place, and then killing himself without knowing if his daughter lived or died.
I did not like that Chicago was not warned to shelter in place. Yes, many would have died, but with proper warning, many more would have lived.
I did not like the entire “President must choose now drumbeat". Given a little time, attribution could almost certainly be made. Backtracking the flight profile. Analysis of the explosion and residue. Huge amounts of HUMINT and cyber would have figured it out. The guilty counties and men were never going to “get away with it” if POTUS didn’t strike back instantly.
The idea that it was the guy carrying the football who was advising the president was nonsense.
What I really didn’t like was the Korean expert initially not wanting to advise the President because “it’s her day off.”
1. I thought the ending was brilliant. Any other ending would have made the whole movie meaningless.
2. For me Rebecca Ferguson playing the captain was 100% on target..even more than Tracey Letts..she was 100% professional and cool as a cucumber.. I've seen several people handle situations (non nuclear) and it amazed me how they could coolly and calmly act during extremely serious situations when so much could go wrong with dire consequences.
that assumption that everyone would react w/ emotions, or self-survival-above-all-else or even with-out ego --- or image-self-control -- is not correct.... for everyone.
Some personalities, characters, trained and disciplined people can act as they perceive is 'best' at that moment w/o all the movie-story-lines-dramas people enjoy watching and assuming 'everyone else must be like this too'...
…..& they may be labeled as "reckless”, “stupid”, crazy or destructive-BAD-guys… Later…
by those who didn’t agree with their calm, reasoned actions - that resulted in damage, death, destructions, ‘apocalypse’ et allll
Later - only after - survivalists, critics, commentators, story-tellers, historians... all who LATER can re-view and see a broad & wider whole-r scene of all factors In-volved ... tell different perspectives, of course !
what cannot be known, seen, admitted at the precious un-retrieve-able dangerous moments.
That we so easily Mix up & down what is Real, possible and probable, and what we Imagine, want, assume instead is our dangerous false mind-set...the default... the dangerous ways we protect our own images, egos and defend or blame...then..later
We - animals act similarly w/o our story-line-words-mind-films - act as best they can then see what IS HAPPENING there, then, and later may go away hungrier or mauled or dead [spirits still go somewhere].
Why humans persist in lying to ourselves and anyone who will listen that we can do better and are smarter than un-human-trained-tamed species do may be Wrong! after all.
it is just self-ego-idea-glorificatiion that we enjoy playing games and telling stories to fit what we wish were true. fools that we are ....
I agree. And I liked the way the movie handled the persons and personalities. And the different person dynamics. My own experiences in some situations is that the movie's portrayals were very real.. bit did not overdo it. Perhaps it was even underdone. But I think that made the film focused on the process in the midst of people's day and personal issues.. underpressure in a very tight time window
I didn't sleep the night we watched this movie. This is what happens if the smart people who know what to do are in charge and things don't go well. Just imagine what happens when clowns with flamethrowers are monitoring nuke launches and trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. Gasp!
Voting matters. This is just one of the myriad of reasons why.
In many ways this film is the reverse of Fail Safe. In that film, it's the US that is responsible for an accidental launch. In this one, we're the victims (although we can't be sure if the launch was accidental or deliberate).
So, given the utter destruction of everything resulting from a nuclear war, you have to wonder, what is the point in having these weapons? Yes, they may deter someone else from attacking us. But they also may cause an attack by someone who fears us doing a first strike.
I've never understood the rationale. I suppose we need a few of them for the North Koreas and Irans. But we could have deterrence with 20 warheads on a couple of submarines.
And for the youngsters, during the Reagan years, it really did look like we were going to have a nuclear war with the Soviets, now known as the Russians.
With Trump saying "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" back in 2016, what do you think is going to happen now that he is absolutely and completely bonkers and the theme is retribution?
I really think we'll be lucky if he doesn't set off a nuke before the end of the year. That'll be one way that will stop talk about the Epstein files.
As a person who lives in the city that is the first strike (in the movie) I was both alarmed and non-plussed at the same time.
Growing up we were told that this city would be the first strike. Not joking.
And somehow I was able to internalize this threat and go about my business: 1) Learning to bike with no hands; 2) Mastering Mario Brothers on our gigantic television; 3) Seeing revival films in the local theater; 4) going to camp to see my East Coast friends.
All before the age of eighteen.
Point being- this film is very flawed and yet extremely compelling. Oscar contender for directing and screenplay- calling it now.
I am perhaps a bit older than you are, as when I grew up we had regular drills where we hid under our wooden desks at school (you know, in anticipation of the incoming nuclear missiles). Lewis Black aptly and humorously describes it here:
I do not share your view that the film is very flawed, except possibly to this extent: The film does not disclose that the most likely culprit for launching a rogue nuclear missile is the United States of America.
Oscar contender for sure. Kathryn Bigelow is a great filmmaker.
When I say ‘flawed’ I mean it in the best sense of the word.
It poses a scenario that is plausible, but I would not react the way the main characters react. At least I don’t think so.
Kathryn Bigelow has done a masterful job in the reaction shot. I could go on and on about why she deserves an Oscar for the impossible- bringing out the best of every actor with screen time.
Also,
I am all too familiar with the ‘duck and cover’ because a tornado might hit anytime. We don’t get tornadoes here. So- what was the point of that?
Kathryn Bigelow is not prolific, but when she turns a lens, with the heavy lift of writers, she changes minds.
Maybe the scariest part of the movie is that the president is played by Idris Elba and things still go to shit. If hottie President Elba can't handle the pressure, how the fuck can the senile sociopath slob currently squatting in (whatever remains) of the WH?
It was a great movie, watched before going to bed, thinking about it first thing this morning when I woke up. I agree, also, that the ending was perfect, the only possible way they could have ended it. (I say that about Hitchcock's "The Birds," too. Only possible ending, no matter how unsatisfying some people find it.)
I watched this movie last night, then listened to this podcast right after. You and Tom Nichols had a really fantastic discussion that provided solid context for this movie, which is so important. I thought it was so interesting that the "professional" security folk had a range of human reactions to this incident but still executed their jobs. It seemed that the civilian parts of this -- mainly the SecDef and POTUS seemed far more unmoored here. Also interesting that you can see all of the technology to track, to shoot down, to manage the nuclear decision didn't include a way to keep the civilian part of government in contact with their counterparts quickly and sharply.
This movie gripped me from the very beginning and I haven't gotten it out of my mind yet. Really appreciate being able to hear from Mr. Nichols directly on this great film.
It took me a week to get to this podcast. Excellent discussion. Thank you both.
Excellent discussion. Thank you for this.
Two of my favorite people, Tom Nichols and Sonny Bunch, discussing a provocative film and the treacherous times that it inhabits.
It's an interesting look at how government functions. For people who believe things are always under control it's a shock to find out something didn't work. For people who think government is always incompetent, we see people behave cold and professionally under maximum stress.
What we should take away from this is there are people - just people - who take on the task of doing the best that they can to protect the rest of us. We entrust them with everything and expect them to get it right all the time. We assume they'll get it right and that we have golden dome like protection for any stupid thing we do. We elect someone who wants to be a dictator and we think that we can simply vote him out if he becomes a dictator. The magical system we correct our mistake for us.
thanks for clear 'reality' clarificiation....we all need continual Re-mind-ers that we are NOT as 'In control" of all imagined, assumed, wanted, wished for, etc..... - as animals living in human forms.
we live casually in 'blinded' trust, more so with tech & internet & overblown digital 'access' for other things we daily depend on to claim 'we are safe', 'we are richer', ' we must survive', etc. we dont actually !
keep helping us return to sanity, to whatever we can experience [thru bodies we claim 'we are' vs. 'egos' we dismiss we act "as if" & thru...
all wise, spiritual, 'teachers-gurus-religious clergy ...' can do no more than repeat - accept, adapt," Be Here Now "
and" do no more harm than all we-they are doing already "
but gotta 1st admit we are not in as much Control, have Power, are Aware, or Courageous to act with Caring..as we want to claim...he he
repeat the above msg more often too plse !
Watched House of Dynamite and its rough. Then found Threads at the internet archive Threads, 1984
https://archive.org/details/1984-threads-remastered/1984+-+Threads+(Remastered).mkv
yeah. really rough.
"'Everyone has seen the mushroom clouds; they’re almost iconographic,” said Abigail Solomon-Godeau of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“But very few people have seen photographs of keloid scarring or people with radiation-related leukemias – what the atomic bomb did to people. The mushroom cloud stands for a visceral view of man, but most people don’t understand the human sacrifice, the human element.”
In 1982, Ms. Solomon-Godeau assembled a more personal, more human view of the bomb’s effects. With the aid of five friends, the freelance critic and curator created “The War Room,” a photo documentary featuring pictures taken by U.S. military and Japanese photographers in Nagasaki and Hiroshima."
https://www.mcall.com/1984/11/02/photographers-artists-search-for-the-human-face-in-the-mushroom-clouds-over-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
In one of my past lives, I exhibited The War Room in Columbus, Ohio.
We don't remember, but images of the bomb and aftermath were heavily controlled and not part of the public discourse.
And what is truly frightening is that Fat Man and Little Boy would be classified as merely small tactical nukes today. The fusion bombs we have now are much, much more powerful!
I'm a few years older than Tom and have spent my entire life within 25 miles of a military installation and for the last 40+ years in San Diego. We were one of four targets on North Korea's map in the last Trump administration, so pretty much nuclear ash in the first strike. In the 50's and 60's the thought was that this would knock us back a few years, but we'd recover with large areas of the country contaminated. A good example of that perspective is the book Alas, Babylon. As Tom has said many times, the nuclear threat has fallen on the list of concerns for Americans, but for some of us over 60 it's never gone completely away. I'll probably watch this, but I need to get emotionally ready for it. I do take issue with Tom's perspective on climate change because it looks like our models underestimate the impact of what we are doing to the planet. Fast or slow the planet will be much less friendly to human life in the future.
It was all cart before the horse, with the false requirement that everything be decided and resolved before impact.
I did not like the attitude of the general lecturing the President and team about “this is reality” and wanting to destroy all possible enemies.
I did not like Sec Def making inappropriate personal calls, then refusing to follow protocol, then NOT telling his daughter to seek shelter in place, and then killing himself without knowing if his daughter lived or died.
I did not like that Chicago was not warned to shelter in place. Yes, many would have died, but with proper warning, many more would have lived.
I did not like the entire “President must choose now drumbeat". Given a little time, attribution could almost certainly be made. Backtracking the flight profile. Analysis of the explosion and residue. Huge amounts of HUMINT and cyber would have figured it out. The guilty counties and men were never going to “get away with it” if POTUS didn’t strike back instantly.
The idea that it was the guy carrying the football who was advising the president was nonsense.
What I really didn’t like was the Korean expert initially not wanting to advise the President because “it’s her day off.”
None of this had to be resolved before impact.
These criticisms are dead on
I think this is an important film, but I take your points.
1. I thought the ending was brilliant. Any other ending would have made the whole movie meaningless.
2. For me Rebecca Ferguson playing the captain was 100% on target..even more than Tracey Letts..she was 100% professional and cool as a cucumber.. I've seen several people handle situations (non nuclear) and it amazed me how they could coolly and calmly act during extremely serious situations when so much could go wrong with dire consequences.
that assumption that everyone would react w/ emotions, or self-survival-above-all-else or even with-out ego --- or image-self-control -- is not correct.... for everyone.
Some personalities, characters, trained and disciplined people can act as they perceive is 'best' at that moment w/o all the movie-story-lines-dramas people enjoy watching and assuming 'everyone else must be like this too'...
…..& they may be labeled as "reckless”, “stupid”, crazy or destructive-BAD-guys… Later…
by those who didn’t agree with their calm, reasoned actions - that resulted in damage, death, destructions, ‘apocalypse’ et allll
Later - only after - survivalists, critics, commentators, story-tellers, historians... all who LATER can re-view and see a broad & wider whole-r scene of all factors In-volved ... tell different perspectives, of course !
what cannot be known, seen, admitted at the precious un-retrieve-able dangerous moments.
That we so easily Mix up & down what is Real, possible and probable, and what we Imagine, want, assume instead is our dangerous false mind-set...the default... the dangerous ways we protect our own images, egos and defend or blame...then..later
We - animals act similarly w/o our story-line-words-mind-films - act as best they can then see what IS HAPPENING there, then, and later may go away hungrier or mauled or dead [spirits still go somewhere].
Why humans persist in lying to ourselves and anyone who will listen that we can do better and are smarter than un-human-trained-tamed species do may be Wrong! after all.
it is just self-ego-idea-glorificatiion that we enjoy playing games and telling stories to fit what we wish were true. fools that we are ....
I agree. And I liked the way the movie handled the persons and personalities. And the different person dynamics. My own experiences in some situations is that the movie's portrayals were very real.. bit did not overdo it. Perhaps it was even underdone. But I think that made the film focused on the process in the midst of people's day and personal issues.. underpressure in a very tight time window
I didn't sleep the night we watched this movie. This is what happens if the smart people who know what to do are in charge and things don't go well. Just imagine what happens when clowns with flamethrowers are monitoring nuke launches and trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. Gasp!
Voting matters. This is just one of the myriad of reasons why.
I'll stick with "FAIL-SAFE" as the definitive "what the f*ck do we do now" nuclear holocaust movie.
In many ways this film is the reverse of Fail Safe. In that film, it's the US that is responsible for an accidental launch. In this one, we're the victims (although we can't be sure if the launch was accidental or deliberate).
So, given the utter destruction of everything resulting from a nuclear war, you have to wonder, what is the point in having these weapons? Yes, they may deter someone else from attacking us. But they also may cause an attack by someone who fears us doing a first strike.
I've never understood the rationale. I suppose we need a few of them for the North Koreas and Irans. But we could have deterrence with 20 warheads on a couple of submarines.
And for the youngsters, during the Reagan years, it really did look like we were going to have a nuclear war with the Soviets, now known as the Russians.
With Trump saying "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" back in 2016, what do you think is going to happen now that he is absolutely and completely bonkers and the theme is retribution?
I really think we'll be lucky if he doesn't set off a nuke before the end of the year. That'll be one way that will stop talk about the Epstein files.
That’s bleak,
As a person who lives in the city that is the first strike (in the movie) I was both alarmed and non-plussed at the same time.
Growing up we were told that this city would be the first strike. Not joking.
And somehow I was able to internalize this threat and go about my business: 1) Learning to bike with no hands; 2) Mastering Mario Brothers on our gigantic television; 3) Seeing revival films in the local theater; 4) going to camp to see my East Coast friends.
All before the age of eighteen.
Point being- this film is very flawed and yet extremely compelling. Oscar contender for directing and screenplay- calling it now.
I am perhaps a bit older than you are, as when I grew up we had regular drills where we hid under our wooden desks at school (you know, in anticipation of the incoming nuclear missiles). Lewis Black aptly and humorously describes it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnN8nKSzIBU
I do not share your view that the film is very flawed, except possibly to this extent: The film does not disclose that the most likely culprit for launching a rogue nuclear missile is the United States of America.
Oscar contender for sure. Kathryn Bigelow is a great filmmaker.
When I say ‘flawed’ I mean it in the best sense of the word.
It poses a scenario that is plausible, but I would not react the way the main characters react. At least I don’t think so.
Kathryn Bigelow has done a masterful job in the reaction shot. I could go on and on about why she deserves an Oscar for the impossible- bringing out the best of every actor with screen time.
Also,
I am all too familiar with the ‘duck and cover’ because a tornado might hit anytime. We don’t get tornadoes here. So- what was the point of that?
Kathryn Bigelow is not prolific, but when she turns a lens, with the heavy lift of writers, she changes minds.
Maybe the scariest part of the movie is that the president is played by Idris Elba and things still go to shit. If hottie President Elba can't handle the pressure, how the fuck can the senile sociopath slob currently squatting in (whatever remains) of the WH?