Apocalypse Movies: End of the World Cinema

Apocalypse Movies: End of the World Cinema by Newman, Kim. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780312253691.

"Vivid, intelligently critical, perhaps best book ever written on the subject. Film history is all about choices. Newmans concise, no-bones prose keeps you humming through the book, all the way from the post-WWII bomber command cycle of American war films through the asteroid-threatens-the- earth cycle of the late 1990s (even an aside to last years Arlington Road.) Special treats: two chapters devoted to the now classic fifties cyles Monsters & Mutants, and Norms vs. Mutates. The common thread, from post-1945 on, is The Bomb, and as Newmans sublime thesis suggests, ALL MOVIES post WWII have had to acknowledge the reality of the nuclear genie in some way. Most insightful chapters: Learning to Love the Bomb, focusing on sci-fi films during mid-sixties, early-seventies detente and There aint no Sedalia! examines the last major burst of made-for-TV nuclear war movies in the mid-(Reagan)eighties. Newmans critical eye, sharp prose turns this into a landmark book of film scholarship. Film buffs: buy it, read it, read it again."