Countdown to Zero

2010 "Demand Zero."
6.9| 1h31m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 25 January 2010 Released
Producted By: Lawrence Bender Productions
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.takepart.com/countdowntozero
Synopsis

A documentary about the escalating nuclear arms race.

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Lawrence Bender Productions

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Reviews

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.
SnoopyStyle This documentary takes a look at nuclear weapons and the rise of terrorism. Various terrorist groups try to buy, steal, or build a nuclear bomb. Russia is a source of many stolen nuclear material. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the safeguards seem to fade away and many attempted smuggled nuclear material has been caught. It's unknown how much have not been caught. Then there are the nukes that is kept by the nuclear powers. There are accidents. There are close calls. There is proliferation. There is the possibility of war. There is an ever-rising possibility of nuclear weapon use in today's complex world. Filmmaker Lucy Walker is not subtle about its anti-nuke message. She's also convincing in her logical, thorough examination of the issue. There is not a lot of new investigations. However, the regular guy on the street would probably be shocked at some of the presentation.
tika bordelon i encourage you to read all of the reviews. this film interviews a lot of experts and people involved with this technology, on a global scale. it's nightmarish that humans have gotten to the point of near world destruction but i found the opinions of various world leaders interviewed for this film, along with technical facts, very interesting. the in-depth science behind bomb making and strategies really opened my eyes and made me appreciate international defense agendas and why we need them (and why we should learn to live without them). i don't understand how right-wing republicans can argue the facts, but then again.. they are republicans and prone to that kinda of thing.
daveinlv While the movie goes into great details about the dangers of nuclear weapons, it neglects to mention an important possible beneficial aspect of them. There are massive objects traveling in the space called NEO (near-Earth object) which come dangerously close to the Earth from time to time. Then there are those called Earth-Crossers whose orbits actually intersect that of the Earth. Astronomers tell us that a collision with such an object is inevitable some time in the future and it could be catastrophic for all life on our planet. If such an object is ever spotted coming at us (Jupiter had such an event only a few years ago) then those much-maligned nukes and ICBMs may be the only weapons in our arsenal with which to defend ourselves and we will not have a whole lot of time to manufacture them from scratch if we do not have some already on hand. While it may not be possible (or even desirable) to destroy such an object altogether, its trajectory may be deflected just enough to make it miss the Earth.Therefore it might be wise for us to think things through before taking any drastic measures for their total elimination.
matthewkosak Writer/director Lucy Walker's "Countdown To Zero" is a "wake up call" in the second nuclear age. An urgent call, crafted in the film genre, for reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons around the globe. The threat has fragmented slightly to also encompass global nuclear terrorism, another risk dealt with at length in the film. It takes surprising twists, following closely upon the history and facts of the issues that have brought us the nuclear age we live in today. The film is neutral, candid, cold, "unblinking", fair and true to the intensity of the obvious threats, it builds continuously from their facts and anecdotes of the past and present, conception in Oppenheimers brain, the horrendous use of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a trail of broken treaties, missed opportunities, diffused and decentralized agendas, near misses, persistent threats of terrorism, and failed visions of the nuclear age. President's John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have both left legacies in this territory, based in their historic action taken toward reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan personally believed that we could reduce nukes during his presidency, eliminate them completely, and Russian Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and Pres. Reagan came very close to realizing the dream. JFK also believed strongly in the need to eliminate nukes, "before they eliminate us". What struck me in the film was how JFK, early on in his campaign recounted the time when he first began talking to people about nuclear disarmament, he was surprised by how many people cared deeply about the issue and if he'd known earlier (about the deep public interest), he would have made it a priority much sooner than he did. I thought it was surprising incite from the film (an aside), because it showed how public opinion more than anything, had influenced JFK's opinion on the problem and his policy. The same is true today. It's a deep, perhaps, covert lesson of the film. Which perhaps goes beyond it. And its important to keep public interest focused on this issue. Its not about scare tactics or party lines, but about keeping this issue at the top, because that's what gets work done on the problem, not only providing the incentive to our politicians to action, but the public support they need to make change. That is why I think it is so important for people to see this film, because its gotten a lot of attention in the press and the popularity of the film will, no doubt, unofficially be looked at by our political leaders as possibly one indicator, a gage, of how important this issue is to us, and not only to the people in the U.S., but also worldwide.