Dr. Strangelove
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
DVD | Digital HD
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, James Earl Jones, Peter Bull, Keenan Wynn, Sterling Hayden
Columbia Pictures
Original Release date: January 29, 1964

Fathom Events, Sony Pictures, and Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series brought Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb back to theaters in the U.S. for select dates this month (with two screenings still to come), so this was my chance to see Stanley Kubrick‘s 1964 satire on the big screen for the first time.

When Dr. Strangelove came out in 1964, the United States in deep in Cold War paranoia. The 1950s saw the rise of McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Hollywood blacklists, and the Rosenbergs trial. As the decade turned, Americans sat with clenched teeth during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. A year later, President John F. Kennedy was dead. Only a visionary filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick could make light of such a dark period in history. What he co-wrote and directed was a fiercely anti-war movie, and one of the greatest satires ever made. It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George), and Actor (Peter Sellers). Based on the political climate right now, maybe it is the perfect film to be re-introduced into American pop culture.

Crazed military men threatening worldwide annihilation”¦ The two biggest global superpowers threatening World War III”¦ A deranged madman with a doomsday device”¦ must be one the best damn comedies of all time! Thanks to Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies’ TCM Big Screen Classics series, Stanley Kubrick‘s classic satire Dr. Strangelove is returning to this theaters this month for a few screenings.

On Sunday, September 18th and Wednesday, September 21st, the film will play twice each day, at 2:00pm and 7:00pm (local times), in over 650 movie theaters nationwide, and feature a specially-produced commentary from TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is The Pink Panther Ultimate Collection DVD box set for only $34.99 (that’s 83% off the list price of $199.98).

This DVD box set contains 8 Pink Panther films starring Peter Sellers as bumbling French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, as well as the 2006 reboot The Pink Panther with Steve Martin in the lead role. There’s also nine cartoon classics and the Pink Panther encyclopedia Pink Panther, The Ultimate Guide to the Coolest Cat in Town! by Jerry Beck, along with over 60 minutes of never-before-seen footage.

Famed Hollywood writer and director Blake Edwards died yesterday at a health care center in Santa Monica, California. Edwards passed away due to complications from pneumonia with his family close by, including his wife, Julie Andrews. He was 88 years old.

Edwards actually started out as an actor, appearing in many different films of the 1940s, but it’s his work as a writer and director for which he’s best known and will be remembered forever. Most notably, he both wrote and directed the late Peter Sellers in 1963’s The Pink Panther, which turned into a franchise with sequels in 1975, 1976, and 1978 — all involving Edwards and Sellers. Not to mention the many spin offs, adaptations, and remakes that have made the character a pop culture icon over the years.

Though the Pink Panther films are his most identifiable works, in no way did they define his career. From westerns to dramas and romances to wars, Edwards set his stories in whatever genres complimented them the best.

Although it’s one of his many brilliant performances, Peter Sellers in The Party is not as known as it should be by far. It’s about as simple as films come and it all rests solely on the performance of Sellers as Hrundi V. Bakshi, an Indian extra who accidentally gets invited to a tremendously upscale Hollywood party instead of getting fired, and his clumsy attempts at trying to fit in. Answering the call, Sellers nails every second with ease.

Now comes word that Marco Garibaldi — a dude who directed three episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers… yeah — is building his own production company called Godfather Entertainment where he’ll make movies for much cheaper than all the other studios ($20 million-ish) and put every cent on the screen. The flagship movie of his endeavor will be a remake of the aforementioned The Party, which he feels he can make for a lot less than say, DreamWorks… because a movie about a dude at a party would require lots and lots of CGI balloons, of course. Silly people.