Special Bulletin (1983)

Brilliant and touching

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

An interesting insight into nuclear paranoia in the early 1980s, focused not on the Soviet cold war threat but on the possibility of home-grown American nuclear terrorism. This TV movie's fictional 'breaking news story' (War of the Worlds) format has been copied time and again on TV in the years since. The film hasn't aged well but viewers should remember that this production predated The Day After, Threads, and the special effects technology we take for granted today. It's also important to note that even when this was first aired, it was very bad TV. Kathryn Walker's performance as the overly emotional female news anchor was truly embarrassing, even in its day, and even the more skilled actors in the cast simply couldn't overcome the poor script and direction. As bad as TV was in the early 80s, it was rarely *this* bad. Which makes this movie all the more interesting to watch at three in the morning with your drunk on. It's an antidote for nostalgia and a counter-example not only to the many other movies that did a better job with this subject, but most the television content we take for granted today.

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???

If you missed this movie when it was first on in the early 1980s, then you should watch it now. It's probably out on DVD. The plot could be taken from today's headlines. However, it's not. The thought of terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear bomb seemed distant and unrealistic back in 1983. Today, it seems all too real. Three years ago, our troops in Afghanistan captured Al Qaeda documents that said it was "their religious duty" to obtain nuclear weapons. The movie was about a reporter and a cameraman who were taken hostage by "peace activists" on a tugboat in Charleston Harbor. The "peace activists" are actually terrorists. They're demanding that every nuclear detonators in the Charleston area be delivered to them to destroyed or else they'll explode a nuclear bomb of their own. Where did they get it? We don't know. We have to assume that it was stolen. What happens in the last ten minutes? You'll have to torture me to get that information out of me and even then I wouldn't tell you. Watch and find out yourselves.

Though this originally aired (on NBC, if I remember correctly) in 1984, it was prescient in how it depicted news media coverage of a "breaking news" event.Complete with glitzy (for their time) graphics, concerned anchors, wall-to-wall coverage, talking heads, and gripping live reports, it does not seem dated (except for the hair styles!), even today.Though it depicts the coverage of a hostage crisis by a fourth broadcast network, this aired a year before the Fox network came into existence. The RBS network's graphics, promotional spots, and anchors are so realistic that the real network that aired the film really didn't have any choice but to continually remind viewers that what they were watching was fiction. And though we're all familiar today with the news networks' saturation coverage of live events, this originally aired only 4 years after the inception of CNN -- before that network was the major force that it is today.Depicting a gripping series of events, it's as much or more of a commentary on how the news media handles such situations than anything else. The way that the events are presented will seem eerily familiar to anyone in today's world, but remember that terrorism was not a big concern to many people 20 years ago.The acting and production values combine to make for one of the most powerful films ever produced for television. I highly recommend this film not only for its impact, but for its almost too accurate portrayal of events that are all too easy to imagine in today's world.