With some people saying that 2012 will be the final year of mankind because of what the Mayan calendar says, what could be better than to encourage building panic by starting off the year with a movie about the end of the world? In This Is Not A Test, several strangers gathered together in the desert find out their country is about to be struck by a nuclear attack. What should they do? What would you do?
#1 by Jen S on January 4, 2012 - 1:02 pm
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Oh, Jesus, Miracle Mile. Definitely number one on my list of “Excellent Movies I Never, Ever Want To See Again.”
This film sounds interesting as a time capsule piece, and I don’t mean just the acting or the beatnik (Gah, if there’s a word we could vote for being incinerated in the blinding fires of a nuclear holocaust, I nominate Beatnik) stuff.
I mean, the reason films like Miracle Mile or The Covenant or something like this one (Lifeboat but with radiation1) affect me and people of my generation–that is, Generation X, ages say 40-45–is that I grew up in America in the eighties, when nuclear war was a possibility at its most distinct. Pop culture dealt with it in many forms of media, probably enough output to rival zombies or vampires today. I had distinct dreams of the bombs coming, waking up seconds before they were to hit. Something like this film would assuredly take me back to that place and time.
Nowadays, the nuclear arsenal isn’t half so well guarded and more and more countries are achieving weaponized uranium, and it should be on the forefront of our conciousness. But Kids Today won’t feel about it the way we do. Their pop culture is dealing with infectious diseases, bioweapons, and ungovernable weather.
#2 by El Santo on January 4, 2012 - 6:03 pm
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It’s also worth pointing out that although the actual likelihood of a nuke or two being used in anger is probably greater now than it was at any point between 1963 (the year after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought a new sobriety to the conduct of the Cold War) and 1991 (when the Soviet Union finally finished collapsing), there is virtually no prospect anymore of the sort of world-destroying nuclear conflagration that loomed over the second half of the 20th century. It’ll suck to be those directly concerned if, say, the next war between India and Pakistan escallates to the point where folks start throwing A-bombs around, but none of the nuclear powers that have emerged since the 1960’s has enough firepower for a conflict between them to have the kind of global ramifications that would have attended an all-out war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
#3 by Richard on January 4, 2012 - 8:11 pm
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I actually thought this really *was* a made for TV movie. The whole thing is done like a stage play (small cast, essentially one location/set) to the point where you could do it on stage if you could figure out how to get all the vehicles there.
#4 by rjschwarz on January 5, 2012 - 7:26 am
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Cuban Missile Crisis happened the same year. I’m sure this was cooked up in a hurry to take advantage of the fear. Then the crisis ended and the world moved on and the producers were stuck with a low budget quicky.