Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Jason Mihalko I grew up fearing a demon. I wasn't alone. Many of us learned, whether in school or through the news, that this demon was out to get us. The demon was different than us. They didn't believe the same as we did. They wanted to hurt us, hurt us so much that they had these horrible weapons pointed in our direction. The demon was called the United Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.A specter of nuclear war hovered right outside my young mind. I didn't know why the USSR was the demon. No one ever took the time to actually teach me anything at all about the USSR. I just knew I was supposed to be scared. I also knew that I wasn't supposed to like "those" people.My knowledge of the USSR? Minimal. Really none. My eighth grade history teacher, known for coming to class in a Elizabethan period outfit, skipped the lesson on the Soviet Union to "punish" us. He was mad, for some reason now faded from my memory, and refused to teach us. "This will be important stuff to you some day," the teacher said. "You'll be sorry you didn't get the lesson. We'll sit here in silence today."Yeah. My public school wasn't the most progressive experience. I've come a long way from Center Junior High School. Hopefully they too have come a long way.We have new demons to fear now. The process, however, is still the same. The xenophobia and ignorance is still the same. Children raised in the world since the World Trade Center came down have been taught by fearful adults to enact xenophobic fears toward people in Muslim countries--and people of the Muslim faith who are our neighbors in our own country.The cycle continues. Someday a new demon will rise and replace our fear of Muslim people. When we turn our eyes away from the Muslim world they too, might turn their eyes away from us. They'll grow fearful of another demon as shall we. We seem to be unable to find our way out of this cycle of fearing that which is different. You can find this same xenophobia in the movie Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie. Narrated by William Shatner, Trinity offers up stunning visual imagery of the destructiveness of the weaponry. It provides an engrossing and terrifying spectacle of destruction. The movie fails to question why the bomb was really developed. Maybe the horror is enough. The demon unleashed from the atom speaks for itself.I wish the documentary moved beyond "othering" those outside of the United States. The same tired old xenophobia is laced through the movie. The bomb was developed, as suggested in the movie, to end a terrible war with Japan. It also makes allusions to needed to protect ourselves against the danger of another more ominous other, the Soviet Union. The most haunting image of all was at the end of the documentary. Horses raced onto a mock battle field, faces and eyes covered with gas masks. Riding the horses were similarly masked human soldiers. When the mask was removed we saw the rise of a new other--the Chinese tested their own nuclear bomb.The horrifying cycle continues. German. Japanese. Soviet. Chinese. Muslim. We can't seem to find a way to see the other as part of ourselves. See http://irreverentpsychologist.blogspot.com/2012/07/demons-of-sixth- grade-red-circles-of.html for more

snoadog The HD detonations and superb soundtrack had me wondering if Satan himself was going to pop out of my TV. But for me there was precious little facts on the results of all the testing. As a layman I would like to have known how bad was/is the fallout/radiation on planet Earth. How much did this testing actually pollute the Earth and its life? And what about all the people involved with the testing? I would have liked a lot more input from that angle. It was just one detonation after another. Kind of made me think they were sensationalizing it all, assuming as most do these days that the viewing audience has a short little span of attention.

absolom7691 Many people have commented on this movie, giving it a bad review because it does not contain gory and shocking images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This says a great deal about our audience today. The movie industry has spoiled us with blood and gore to the point where that is all we want to see. No, this doesn't have the blood and horror that some are looking for. Others on here have said that it is missing all of the shocking tests and terrible things that the government did long ago to people and animals. No, it does not contain that either. That being said, if you are looking for gory and disturbing, rent something else or just get archived footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki aftermath. If you are looking for a government conspiracies, go rent the X-Files and don't waste your time here.This movie is about the atomic bomb and its development. It has a brilliant score alongside William Shatner narrating. It is a collection of wonderfully remastered footage of many of our nuclear tests. I think this film really illustrates the horrific and terrifying beauty of an atomic bomb. I would dare say that it is art piece that gave me chills at the thought of what this device could do. Like I said, there is little to no gore or shocking footage so it would be safe for young people to watch and understand what these devices are and how unimaginable the repercussions of using this device. It is easy for young people to lose appreciation for such things as new video games and computer games have "nukes" to throw back and forth at the enemy without any real consequences.The only downside I found to this film is, though it presented itself as non-biased throughout most of it, it did leave an overtone of "The US is responsible and stopped using them for testing while other countries still do and they are poisoning the world..." It never comes out and says that, but it seems to allude to it when showing China's nuclear test after the US had banned atmospheric testing. Of course, like most of this review, it is only my opinion.

dementos This documentary contains lots of impressive footage of atomic explosions. Those "atomic mushrooms" are frightening, yet beautiful.I just wish the whole documentary were a bit more informative. For instance, instead of showing one explosion after another, I wish they had explained the difference between a regular atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb, for instance. And what's a "thermo-nuclear" bomb? Furthermore, I was missing a more critical view of the risks of atomic weapons. The social and political implications of nuclear weapons are barely touched upon. This would have been so much more interesting than just mentioning codenames for various tests and their corresponding explosive power, measured in "kilotons" and "megatons".Where were all the ridiculous American propaganda movies (like the classic "Duck and Cover")? What about other countries with nuclear weapons programs besides the USSR and China? All in all, the whole movie casts a picture of the atomic weapons race which is too neat and uncritical.All in all, the movie feels like a new piece of American propaganda: We are the good guys ("nuclear weapons are good and necessary, and we are great because we invented them"), and they are the bad guys ("they only use those weapons to put us and the free world in danger").