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Why you should see
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" As so-called satire, Strangelove is among the greats; the funniest, most frightening take on mutually assured destruction ever seared onto celluloid. On its release in January 1964 (held back two months after JFK's assassination), the world had just about started breathing normally again after the Cuban missile crisis. Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece reminds us that the real crisis - that of paranoid, impotent maniacs waggling their phallic bombs about - hasn't yet abated. This film is note-perfect, from Terry Southern's script to the performances (Peter Sellers's astonishing juggling act). And those sets: it's said that on his first day in office, Ronald Reagan asked to visit the White House's 'War Room', and was disappointed to hear it was merely invented for the film. The same president, incidentally, who once believed the Bomb could be 'recalled' after it was launched. Strangelove, satire? You must be joking.
Ali Catterall
