Great Film overall

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I have now seen this ingenious made for TV movie twice: Upon original broadcast and again last night via the marvel of the internet. In 1983 I was a high school sophomore who watched in thunderstruck awe as a dark fantasy of nuclear hell played out as vividly as it had in the music of the era which captivated me. Here at last was a suitable pop culture document of how senseless it all was, with even the well-intentioned terrorist/activists being as dead wrong as the suicidal federal policies they were trying to put a stop to. It scared the living crap out of me to say the least, ringing with authenticity and dead cold delivery. The few moments where the script tries to become pat and predictable are all undermined by the activities of the players. Normality is set aside.Upon second viewing now as a jaded adult approaching fifty some of the seams in the weave are evident. We've grown up in an era of 24hr cable news programming with one on the spot disaster coverage after another. The mother of all being coverage of the September 11th attacks, as riveting a 36 hours of nonstop news viewing endurance as I can recall. Then there's all those plane crashes, space shuttle disasters, hostage dramas, reality TV law enforcement shows, and the Ferguson riots, which were streamed live from people's smart phones. You can now pretty much cut out the middleman of the broadcast journalist and watch events unfold live via those who are there.So there's sort of a chicken-egg thing going on here: Which came first? The cinema-verity docudrama approach of speculative fiction, or the tradition of Americans tuning in on their TV sets to watch events of horror or spectacle happen before our eyes? Which was one of the aspects which made that 1983 viewing so unforgettable — The story *happened* to the viewer and could not be stopped or paused or Tivo'd to watch it later. You had to be tuned in and paying attention, and I am struggling now to recall how or even if I knew specifically to watch. It certainly would have been a priority viewing experience if told about it. I was a young suburban punk being prepared for the coming apocalypse by the music of The Clash, British Ska bands, artist/experimenters like Eno and King Crimson, and watched Carl Sagan's COSMOS religiously. It's fatalistic anti-nuclear theme was pure and rational enough to be convincing even without "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe". We were doomed as far as I was concerned. Just a matter of circumstance and POOF. There goes 6.5 billion years of evolution.None of what "Special Bulletin" depicts stretched outside the realm of what we thought was possible in 1983, and there wasn't opportunity to stop the proceedings during events to check IMDb or other resources (which didn't exist at the time) to try and make sense of what the hell was going on. You sort of have to surrender yourself to the passage of events shown, which was easier 32 years ago than it is now. Viewing with a 2015 sensibility the authenticity of certain moments suffer, specifically the final shootout where a live feed camera is allowed to capture the initial moments of the assault. First thing Delta would have done was get the goddamn cameras out of there, but then again this is as much a fantasy about the news media's irresponsible nature as it was about the nuclear incident. In such fantasies plausibility will be the first thing to go out the window.So scratch watching this for an authentic demonstration of how such an event could unfold. Watch it instead for the performances, all of which are pretty much dead on, David Clennon being especially convincing as the leader of the group. It is the staging of the interplay between the media personalities which dominate the proceedings being the main shortcoming for contemporary audiences. Or rather, subsequent experience with such broadcast events have rendered the approach taken by the writers as being naive. It's never that simple, and indeed the broadcast's finest moments are when events spiral out of control and leave the commentators bereft of anything to say. Because there is nothing to say at such times, and the best thing they could do was shut the hell up. At least they got that right.

This blew me away the first time I saw it in 1983, and if it effected me less this time, that's a mix of my knowing how it would unfold and the fact that news is different now and thus Special Bulletin often seems dated. The movie actually captures the TV news of the time pretty well. The female anchor is a little annoying, but then Zwick and Herskovitz have always had problems creating likable, realistic women. While done like a documentary, the drama unfolds with, well, more drama than one would expect in real life. The terrorists are well educated and sincere (in the 1970s terrorism often seemed to attract well-read, articulate nut-jobs, as opposed to today's illiterate whack jobs). Tensions rise rather more precipitously than is probably realistic, but it does make for a more interesting story.Special Bulletin gets better and better as it progresses, with a rising of tension and horror that is hard to bear by the last half hour. The documentary device is well done and, in spite of dated qualities, does give you a sense of watching unfolding events. Highly recommended.

I had this movie on VHS and thought it was a great practical joke to play on people by putting it on before they came in so they just thought it was background noise only for them to hear the "We interrupt this program for a special bulletin" and watch the fun begin.Of course as the years progressed, the joke lost its power because the look is so 80s and the USSR is no longer a threat.The main storyline is one of a group of terrorists, who do not think of themselves as such, trying to get everyone's attention to what a full scale nuclear attack can do. They take a news anchor and camera man hostage and tell their story to the world. Their message is totally missed in the glitz of the media's usual antics such as fancy graphics and theme music to the crisis instead of just focusing on the crisis itself.This should be seen by anyone taking a journalism course and those critical of the mainstream media would get a kick out of it.

This was a very riveting movie, done in documentary or newsreel format. (like an actual news bulletin). Very eye-opening. Would also be appropriate for today's timeframe, it should be aired again!!!Would even more get your attention with all the tension in the world. Not a high-budget movie, but done well. Was done on video instead of film, to simulate realism. Could be used as a New Year Eve's prank, or other type of prank, but the timeframe (this is over 20 years old) might give it away.I have been unable to find this movie, except for a few copies on Amazon at a ridiculously high price (like $40 for a VHS tape !!???) What were they thinking???I would love to find this on DVD???