WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

john_vance-20806 The older boomers would recall the atmosphere of this era very well.The belief that nuclear weapons were probably going to fall at any time was accepted as a matter of course. Coming out of the carnage and rubble of WW2 perhaps that was to be expected, but the PSAs and political leaders honed that message to suggest it was not much more of a concern than a flock of tornadoes. "Duck and Cover" ads, back yard bomb shelters, Conelrad symbols on the radios (AM of course), public fallout shelters in the bank basements and other related markers were given little thought.Younger folks would get a kick out of the over-simplified logic and ham-handed propaganda and be astonished to think that we took it for granted that nuclear warfare was just a dirty conventional tactic similar to the London Blitz.It is an informative film and very entertaining in its odd way. Worth a watch for interested parties.

Theo Robertson THE ATOMIC CAFE is one of those few rare documentaries that doesn't have a narrator or a framing figure . All it consists of are clips in a chronological order of the history of the atomic bomb and of the early stages of the geo-political situation of what became known as " The Cold War " which was the direct result of the bomb . There's two ways of looking at this . One is the subject matter is a little bit dry and absurd and the second point of view of view is that the audience are allowed to make up there own mind and it's somewhat refreshing to see a documentary that doesn't involve someone bludgeoning the audience over the head while sticking their opinions down their throat in a painfully smug and snide manner . You can tell this wasn't made by Michael Moore One wonders what life was like in a pre-nuclear age ? I remember the cold war in the 1980s and the paranoia of that era was chilling , so much so that for people of my generation still refer to the 1984 BBC docu-drama THREADS as the most terrifying thing they have ever seen . That said it could also be argued that if it wasn't for the bomb then a conventional war that would have surpassed the death toll of the second world war might have broken out between 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 . Reagen in The White House and Brezhnev in the Kremlin ? Not really a recipe for peace and the fact that nuclear weapons are so terrible to contemplate probably focused the minds of world leadersBeing an American documentary all the clips are from an American point of view with an exception of a clip that's almost certainly from an early edition of PANORAMA from the BBC . This is a pity because I would liked to have seen what sort of propaganda if any the USSR was producing at the same time . That said the old cliché of " Americans don't understand irony " is evident as someone praises the virtues of American freedom " because we have shopping malls that are full of food and clothes and most families can afford cars " . I think someone is confusing system of government with economics .As I write this in 2014 China has shopping malls full of food and clothes and the Chinese people can afford to drive cars . The difference is there's no democratic system of government in China so democracy and capitalism are not the one and the same thing , but I guess that clip is to illustrate the inherent absurdity of propaganda ? Likewise we get clips of real life footage of American servicemen being used to test the effects of being caught in an atomic blast " There's nothing to worry about " and of relaxing should your city be caught up in a nuclear war . Did someone say " Absurd ? " One very interesting point that is often talked about by the CND mob is in relation to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as in " Why didn't the Americans drop the bombs in a remote unpopulated area of Japan to force their surrender ? " I've often thought that myself and am unable to give a counter argument to that question . Here we see an interview with Paul Tibbets the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima who goes in to some detail - it's because these cities were untouched by arial bombing and the American government wanted to study the effects on a bombed city after the war had ended . Some people might think this is amoral or cruelly cynical but you can make up your own mind as to morality during wartime and THE ATOMIC CAFE does allow the audience to think for themselves no matter what the opinions of this documentary's producers are . In that respect it's very refreshing

Martin Teller Completely free of narration, commentary, or intertitles, this documentary presents archival footage from the Cold War era expressing all the facets of nuclear paranoia and the government's feeble attempts to pacify it. Mostly comprised of bits from newsreels and education films (with occasional nuclear-related songs of the time on the soundtrack), the material is alternately hilarious and horrifying, preying on the public's gullibility and need for a voice of authority, no matter how absurd the message. Thirty years after its release, the film is still relevant (everyone got their duct tape ready?).8/10

Michael O'Keefe Travel with us now if you will to the mid 1950s, when it wasn't only fear we were to fear, but the atomic bomb and the grinding pelvis of Elvis Presley. This is a nice documentary made up of a collection of American propaganda films and material from newsreel archives. Various nuclear-themed clips from the 1940s and 1950s. Building of the atomic bomb and the devastation it left in Japan. Thoughts of the H-Bomb and how it would/could be used. Washington's Communist witch hunt and the notorious trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Actually a well pieced together history of our lives and fears. Footage of the Bikini island test; atomic mushroom clouds and footage of school children learning to "Duck and Cover". Sometimes humorous; sometimes dour...Atomic City to Nagasaki. Educational look at the dark side of Cold War America. Appearing through archive footage: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Paul Tibbets, Richard Nixon, Harry S. Truman, Lloyd Bentsen, Val Peterson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Hugh Beaumont.