The Atomic Cafe

Teach Your Children Well
This review is directed primarily to the under 30's who are still trying to figure out the boomer generation. As one savvy reviewer here surmised, this film goes a long way into explaining the psychological behavior of boomers who actually were instructed by well-meaning nuns (in my case)or other elementary and high school teachers to practice ducking beneath their desks in the event of a nuclear strike. As the wit, Dave Barry, points out, the stucture of wood and minimal steel was no doubt designed as a carefully-constructed safeguard against nuclear annihilation by the brain trust that was guiding the civil defense system of the era. Other such gross anomalies are addressed in this film.

In this case, the idea of looking back provides some comic relief, but I for one, can tell you, that when the sirens were going off every other day back in 1962-63, we didn't regard it as all that funny. Read the Amazon reviewer's take above, then invest some money in purchasing this film. It is...

Movie - 5 Stars - DVD - 3 Stars - Average - 4 Stars
Before Peter Kuran and his special effects magic on old atomic films, there was "The Atomic Café." It's a psuedo-documentary (it's all pieces of old Civil Defense, nuclear testing, and government films cobbled together, with some newsreel footage to boot) by Jayne Loader and Kevin Rafferty (George W. Bush's cousin, who later added his talents to a little production called "Roger and Me.") The humor is dark (and funny) only in retrospect, as "The Atomic Café" explores some of the most insidious and stupid moments of the cold war.

It starts with the Manhattan Project and the effects of the Bomb on Japan, and segues right into the Rosenberg's trial and the insanity of McCarthyism. Next, you have the famous "duck and cover" films along with lesser-known civil defense stuff, including fallout shelter plans and so forth. There is little narration, and what you hear, comes from the Rosenberg's testimony, army technicians explaining how radiation can be avoided (yeah,...

America Adapts to a Nuclear World -- on film...
The Atomic Cafe is a cult classic Cold War documentary, focusing on the development and deployment of nuclear weapons from the perspective of the U.S. in 1982. Some of the footage of nuclear detonations is breath-taking, especially when placed into the perspective of the time.

The Atomic Cafe does a masterful job of weaving together news reports, government information films, public service announcements and dramas from World War II right up through the Cold War of 1982. It's interesting to watch the sometimes frightening, sometimes naive and sometimes even humorous moments that illustrate the American culture adapting to a world in which it had the ultimate destructive power (the atomic bomb), then lost the edge over the menacing Soviet Union, then developed an even more powerful weapon (the hydrogren bomb) and then saw the Soviets catch up yet again.

Some of the moments in the documentary are just classic, thanks to great footage but even more, awesome editing. For instance, one...

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