Countdown to Looking Glass
A fictional confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf. The narrative of the film details the events that lead up to the initial exchange of nuclear weapons from the perspective of an on-going news broadcast.
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- Cast：
- Scott Glenn , Michael Murphy , Helen Shaver , Patrick Watson , Eric Sevareid , Michael Beattie
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Reviews
Very well executed
It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Director Fred Barzyk has created a classic in Countdown to Looking Glass.Starring Scott Glenn who has been in other classic flicks, Apocalypse Now 1979, The Right Stuff 1983, Silverado 1985, The Silence of the Lambs 1991, Extreme Justice 1993, The Last Marshal 1999, Training Day 2001, The Bourne Ultimatum 2007 and Into the Grizzly Maze 2015.Also starring Michael Murphy has has been in other classic flicks, White House Down 2013, Salvador 1986 and two episodes of the classic television series, Combat! 1962-1967.I enjoyed the television scenes.If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic nuclear bomb theme flicks, Special Bulletin 1983 and By Dawn's Early Light 1990.
This old film shares the same traits as most other films about a nuclear war, this time as seen from the fourth wall, your TV screen and from the rooms of a news station.As many other nuclear war movies, in order to really submerge the viewer into something unthinkable, this film does its homework very well, and having 'real' people like Newt Gingrich playing themselves only lends extra weight.However, being filmed as mainly a series of news broadcasts, the film fails at showing the human side of the conflict, and that is a pity, because the buildup is excellent.Of all the nuclear war films done in the 80's this is not the best - Threads show a nuclear war MUCH better. But that is not to say this or any other nuclear war film should not be seen - most do a splendid job showing a nuclear war from its respective perspective and Countdown to Looking Glass fits right in.Since this is written in 2009, it feels like it is still very valid with our bank crisis, failing economy and tension i the middle-east, and the fact that Countdown is still doing fine is a testament to the value and message: It could still happen.
I think this was one of the most captivating and well thought out "Doomsday" movies ever made...does anyone have any clue as to where I can find this movie in 2006?I always think of the ending when the aircraft is flying through the myriad of mushroom clouds and think to myself that it would be an awesome spectacle to see something like that in reality. Of course I do not think I would want to experience it first hand, but just imagining the magnitude of it just boggles my mind, especially with the yield of our bombs being a hundred times more than what they were depicted as in this film, and the others, like "The Day After", and "Threads"My Ex-Wife has the only copy, that I know of, on video tape, and she cannot, or will not part with it...and I was just hoping that HBO or some other entity has had the urge to mass produce this work of art.
Outstanding Cold War TV movie. I loved this film, it's very shocking. Possibly my favorite Scott Glenn movie next to Gargoyles his debut film. The ending is excellent and, being in the Navy, very scary. Great end of the world as we know it flick. Remember it was made when Breshnav was Leader of USSR!