The inevitable has occurred: I've watched a hugely popular and acclaimed film and come away scratching my head, wondering what on earth is so special about it. But don't revoke my Letterboxd membership just yet: do me the favor of hearing me out first.

Dr Strangelove is obviously a sacred cow in film circles, and I can see why. It's often hilarious, sometimes visually striking, and full of excellent performances and dialogue. It's a funny film about a thoroughly unfunny situation. It's a perfect satire, really. But it left me completely cold.

Perhaps that's because I'm eighteen and therefore my memory (or even my parents' memories) doesn't extend back to a time when nuclear annihilation seemed almost imminent, and my…

Despite being one of the finest examples of genre-filmmaking that's neatly crafted, superbly scripted & wonderfully performed, Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove is a film that I admire more than I love. I've no hesitation in calling it the ultimate black comedy or the perfect satire but I also won't deny that my experience with it was rather ordinary, regardless of the few laughs in between.

Set during the Cold War era, the story of Dr. Stangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb concerns a paranoid Air Force General who green lights a nuclear attack on Soviet Union without the knowledge of his superiors, thus causing mass panic in the Pentagon War Room where the President, his…

“Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.”

Laughter is such a strange thing. We laugh because we’re happy. We laugh because we find something amusing. We laugh to displace our discomfort. We laugh because otherwise we might cry. We laugh because we don’t know how else to react. Same response, so many different triggers. The past decade has seen those non-traditional triggers frequently exploited by “cringe comedies” like Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office; laughing at uncomfortable or sad situations has become all the rage. But it’s one thing to laugh at the absurdity of a politically incorrect…

An ingeniously well-crafted political satire made by director Stanley Kubrick that without a doubt remarkably stands the test of time all these decades later, Dr. Strangelove is an all-around lively film that masterfully works all the way through as Kubrick tackles a what could go wrong scenario in absolute facetious fashion.

This sharp dark comedy which cleverly satirizes the legitimate fear of a nuclear conflict breaking out between the US and Soviet Union during the midst of the Cold War with it featuring a nonsensical narrative that ideally matches it in its entirety is absolutely hilarious across the board with savvy humor that has certainly aged like fine wine, and I can now definitely see why this top-notch comedy classic…

Dr Strangelove (1964)
Groundbreaking satire about the very real possibility of a thermonuclear war. Brig. Gen. Jack D Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is exploiting a loophole that allows a subordinate of the US president to instigate a nuclear attack of their Cold War enemy Russia. He has locked down his airforce base, instructing his men to fire on anyone that comes within 200 yards, as they’re likely to be communists in disguise. Trapped in the room with him, is British Officer Mandrake (Peter Sellers) who has established that Ripper has lost his mind and is the only person in possession of the virtually unbreakable recall code.
The screen play would allow it to be produced as a play. If you say…