The Atomic Cafe, or: how I learned to start worrying and hate the bomb.

Tonight, Summer and I watched the documentary The Atomic Cafe (available online through Netflix streaming if you have it and Google Video if you don't)

I would say this is the most harrowing film I've seen in a long time if I hadn't seen A Man for All Seasons (a classic film of comparable gravity) a few weeks ago. (Summer interjects here that the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir is similarly sobering.) The film is edited entirely from archival footage, including firsthand looks at atomic blasts, their holocaustic aftermaths, and the Cold War propaganda that arose with the development of nuclear weapons.

Here's a memorable scene, in which the risk of nuclear testing is justified: