Asleep While the World Ends
A funny thing happened when I woke up this morning. After enjoying coffee and a cigarette, and a quick check of the morning news, I remembered that I watched A House of Dynamite the night before.
“Oh, yeah,” I thought. “It was pretty good.” Then I forgot about it.
That’s strange because the Netflix movie, while I was watching it, kept me absorbed throughout. And yet … I don’t think it will stick with me. Not like Fail Safe. Not like Dr. Strangelove or Crimson Tide or any other nail-biter about nuclear war.
I suspect House doesn’t hold up because of its structure. Director Kathryn Bigelow mounts a fine production with numerous tense scenes. The setup: Someone has launched a nuclear weapon aimed at Chicago, and the U.S. government scrambles to decide what to do. In just 19 minutes.
But the script plays out this horrifying scenario in a nonlinear fashion. We see the same 19 minutes from the perspective of three different characters. Just when suspense should be reaching fever pitch, we cut back to witness the same events from someone else’s point of view. This undercuts tension.
The result is a gripping story that starts and stops, starts and stops. After the first segment, we know what will happen in the next playouts.
House is a good movie but, unlike Fail Safe, not a particularly memorable one. On the other hand, we do need periodic reminders that civil war and pandemics are not the only nightmares we have to be concerned about. The nukes are still there.
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On a lighter note, Sabrina Carpenter guest-hosted Saturday Night Live.
For those of us who prefer not to listen to her hit song “Manchild,” we can watch her dance in her underwear, instead:
And look what demonic A.I. has done to poor Sabrina’s panties:
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