Countdown to Zero (2010) Reviews

• Errors in davegriffin1234's review

  beobachter-874-3445252012-07-03

  I've never written a review yet, but davegriffin1234's utterly wrong review made me write it. He accused the film of being nothing more than propaganda and he justified it by saying, that the night time satellite pictures of North Korea (which show essentially North Korea being almost entirely black, whereas South Korea is full of lights) would be "doctored" and fraudulent. Well, this is plainly and demonstrably wrong. North Korea *IS* almost entirely black as compared to South Korea or any other industrialized country. You can see that on all sorts of satellite photos from space agencies all over the world and even on pictures taken by astronauts from the International Space Station. If you don't believe that, just google "ISS030-E-25412.jpg" and click on the link to the actual NASA page that shows on the first result page. Scroll down on the NASA page to the ISS night time flight labeled "China to Australia". You can see a screenshot showing NK in dark and SK full of lights and you can also watch the movie taken from aboard the ISS as it flies during the night over the Korean peninsula (the video is fascinating and worth watching anyway, also check out the other videos, especially those with the polar lights or thunderstorms. Amazing!). I would normally provide a link, but that seems to be not allowed here. And dear Dave: Those lights in the sea around SK are also not doctored and can be seen on lots of satellite images. Those are simply oil rigs in the yellow sea which you can see from space, the same way you can see the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexiko. It is really ironical, that you stopped watching the documentary and wrote your first review because you were convinced that those photos cant be right, while it is *you* who is wrong about that. + As to the documentary itself: Well, it is perhaps overdramatizing a bit, but it is still worth watching.

• Luck and tragedy have everything to do with it.

  zaknaud2011-09-09

  Firstly I understand how many people will feel after watching this movie. That another liberal agenda is being played up and the end to nuclear armament is just asking for terrorism to advance within our country, you couldn't be more wrong. Being in the military for almost ten years it was my experience that most folks get three things wrong when they think about someone using such a device in our country. One, they believe that it comes from a country. This kind of terrorism has no country and has no head to govern it, merely opportunity. The idea that you can "nuke them back" gets a little complicated when the bomb may come from a diplomatically friendly country or even from within our own. Two that such a device is complicated and needs teams of people and money to create, not so. Such a device can be crudely manufactured with a lead pipe 4gm of enriched plutonium and a shotgun shell. The devices themselves do not need to be complex to kill several thousand people, and the people setting them off probably have no qualms about killing themselves in the process. A crudely made machine can be made from almost anything you can find in a hardware store and those items are so everyday that they will not raise any FBI flags. Lastly, Three that there is a solution to such a problem. There isn't one. While the film makes a proud gesture at telling us that all we need to do is this... That is a pipe dream and besides we have gone to far down the path of destruction to make it any better. So in all of this what might be the way to make any of these problems go away. Again I'm sorry to say, nothing. We now have to live in a world where this "might" happen any day at any time. The only thing we can do is hope that we find better ways of detecting potential threats than by clandestinely stumbling into them. The movie is a gem in terms of showing that the "human" part of these weapons is the most dangerous part of them. With respect to our last president he finger that could push the button was also attached to the brain of a recovering alcoholic judgment should be reserved for the viewer and their experience but keep in mind that these things however embellished are real and are waiting right within and outside your door.

• A compelling, but also very unsettling piece of research.

  Ryan_MYeah2010-12-10

  After a rather boring last few days, I finally got a bit of a shock after watching Lucy Walker's unsettling documentary, Countdown to Zero. Using the quote "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, etc." by John F. Kennedy as a structure of storytelling basis, Countdown to Zero explains in an essay-like form of the dangers of nuclear weapons even after decades since the end of the Cold War, and how these could be detonated, intentionally or unintentionally, and blow numbers of the human race off the earth. Walker explains this in three categories: "Madness" "Accident" and "Miscalculation." Examining the back story of the invention of the A-Bomb by Oppenheimer, to more current events of near catastrophe, she exacts just the right tone that is necessary for the film. While the editing and pacing feels very slow, and a bit choppy at times, as well as slipping a little back into madness every so often, it's nothing if not a brilliant piece of research into this very subject. It's a very eye opening movie, probably the best example of this, and the best scene of the film, is a hypothetical nuclear explosion taking place in New York City at Times Square after the New Year's Eve countdown, that features a brilliant sound mixture of audio narrations by many of Walker's sources by Michael Minkler and Tony Lamberti, and boy, is it one intense hypothetical. It's a compelling piece of film making that asks many to help eliminate a major threat, and never becomes sleep inducing. I give Countdown to Zero *** out of ****

• Propaganda.

  iamthehollow2010-11-26

  This is an ugly little film, I watched it because I wanted to see a balanced account of the state of world power and the insanity of the mutual destruction doctrine, what I got was a piece of propaganda that Goebbels himself would have been proud of. I watched open mouthed as the political bias of the makers was laid bare for all to see, they must really think we are moronic. If as I suspect this is just a 'psy-op' to make the world believe that is 'woz the Arabs, wot dun it' when a nuclear device is exploded on US soil, then you will see the truth in what I'm saying soon, I hope to the pit of my soul that I am wrong.

• The movie surely does not provide for a differentiated look at the nuclear armament problem, but it does resume its dangers impressively.

  leooel22010-05-08

  Remember "An Inconvenient Truth"? Rembember Al Gore, and how climate change became THE hot topic in 2007? Everyone talked about it, they made millions, climate change was even acknowledged and its fight endorsed in the US. Momentum has really been building up lately, for the topic of nuclear disarmament, since the Prague speech by Obama, the Nuclear Posture Review on April 6th, the New START on April 8th, the Nuclear Security Summit on April 12th/13th (biggest gathering of heads of state since the founding of the UN 1945), the NPT RevCon in May and now, starting in June in Cannes, this global movie which is going to raise awareness on a massive scale. After Al Gore receiving his Nobel Peace Prize for his engagement against global warming, the producers asked themselves, which other topic needed some massive attention by a broader public, and agreed they had to cover the issue of nuclear disarmament (voilà a video-interview of the producers explaining so: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Lawrence-Bander). The movie "Countdown to Zero", by the producer Lawrence Bender, which you are gonna know from movies such as „An Inconvenient Truth", or else almost all of Quentin Tarantino's movies, for that matter, and which UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon warmly lauded for his mobilization of a global public for the cause of climate change is supposed to be doing the very same for disarmament. Go get 'em, boys! Arguably, the timing could not be better. Marketing experts around the world are busy as we speak. The movie will start in Chinese theaters even before the US; also Iran, Egypt, Turkey, as well as Western Europe (the usual suspects) will be served soon, starting with the International Film Festival in Cannes. Ban Ki-moon and Michael Douglas (UN-messenger for nuclear disarmament) also strongly endorse it. The movie itself carefully approaches the viewer to the topic of imminently possible nuclear annihilation, not scaring people of with details right away, but repeating the important facts to enhance the chances viewers will recall them. The movie loses itself in multiple enumerations of horrible anecdotes, but without getting boring in doing so, as every one of them seems noteworthy. Having gone through the issues of false alarms, easy access to launch-codes, hair-trigger alert, the staggering consequences of even few nuclear weapons detonating and causing a "nuclear winter" (explained in this video by Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who is also featured in the Movie itself: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Ira-Helfand), an artificial ice age that would likely destroy almost the whole species due to plants not surviving three years of frost.. As to nuclear terrorism, insecure storage is covered, especially in countries such as Pakistan, as well as smuggling from the former Soviet Union, both of which could enable terrorists to blow up a major city changing all perspectives on security and personal freedoms forever. Pretty much detail is also given to just how swiftly a bomb could be made, once the fissile material has been acquired. All of these dangers then converge into an enthusiastically, pathetically presented appeal to the world and audience to demand and pursue complete disarmament and reach Global Zero. Despite the fact that the connection between the dangers arising from terrorist proliferation and the imperative to disarm is poorly outlined, the movie does make a strong case for an end to the era of nuclear weapons. This will receive massive worldwide attention thanks to the scale on which the production will be advertised. It is only thanks to this hope of broad attention that I can get myself to write this very review in spite of the whopping depressive message conveyed buy this movie. In case you aren't yet in favor of a world without nukes: Look, if […] you've never changed your mind about something, pinch yourself. You may be dead. - closing sequence In summary, the movie surely does not provide for an in-depths, differentiated look at the nuclear armament problem, but it does resume its dangers in a rather impressive way. Not touching on the controversial issues such as Israel, Iran, disarmament failures under article VI NPT, it can rather be described as the least common denominator, focusing on the indisputable dangers we face. But sure, why not?