Product: Special Bulletin (TV-Movie) [VHS] (1983)
Rating: 5.0
Gut Wrenching
When this was first aired in 1983, it was a frightening idea, that someone out there would have both the means and mentality to do something really bad for what they saw as a really good reason. We know that people like that are everywhere now."Special Bulletin" pulls no punches anywhere, whether your target is extremism the government or the media. What are you willing to do to get your message out? How do you respond to a threat? What are ratings worth, and how do you handle the big situations? When is a good time to show things and when is a bad one? While the media then (and now) have no answers for this, (see "15 Minutes" with Robert DeNiro and Ed Burns for more on this even though it's not as good as Special Bulletin, sorry Bobby and Ed) you can see where their dilemma is. What is happening is definitely news, but should it be shown?If you watch much from the late seventies and early eighties, especially news and documentary video, you can see this is a piece locked in its time. The reasons for the events are not something you would see today. Do we still have nukes everywhere? Yes, but the brinksmanship games are basically over. Here it is still the height of the cold war, and things are not looking pretty, and that includes the clothes and hair. Did people really look like these guys? Yes.Ultimately this is a movie about scaring people. For real.Twenty years later it is a lot scarier than it was then.