Countdown to Looking Glass (1984)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Countdown to Looking Glass is a good speculative thriller examining the outbreak of World War III. Made during the Cold War, it is rife with the tension of the period. It also gives a haunting portrait of how the apocalypse could have happened.Through a series of news reports, we see events spiral out of control following a financial collapse in South America. We see both the televised reports and the behind the scenes debates among the reporters and their producers. The film not only has a keen eye for political developments, but also a good sense of the role of media in shaping the world.The film also wisely avoids showing the actual nuclear exchange. Rather than imitate The Day After, which had come out a year earlier, the film keeps its focus on the lead up to disaster, heightening the tension. It is a worthy entry in the early 80s end of the world genre.

I saw this movie on TV years ago when it came out. It reminds me of the original radio broadcast of "War Of The Worlds" that spread fear and panic throughout the east coast of the USA because the general public thought it was a "real" broadcast. If you tuned into it while the show was in progress, you'd swear you were watching the news as it was happening. It's done in a very effective and realistic newscast-type format. In my opinion,"Countdown To Looking Glass" is definitely one of those shows you can't shake out of your psyche. I agree with one reviewer's comments that it made their neck hairs stand on end - it was so grippingly realistic. You'll remember this one for the rest of your life.

Don't read if you want to be surprised (Spoiler alert)CTLG was another in the line of "nuclear war/confrontation" movies of the early 80s, along with "The Day After", "Threads", "By Dawn's Early Light", and "Special Bulletin". And of the "nuclear war" movies ("Special Bulletin" was about domestic terrorism using nukes), it was clearly the most chilling, at least to me.Although I'm not certain, I believe that the movie was Canada's contribution to the genre; most of the actors are Canadian, and the "newscasts" during the movie happen on a network that begins with the letter "C".The movie begins with a group of countries forming a "debtor's cartel" and defaulting on billions of dollars of payments to the US for loans made, and escalates from there into an oil embargo, and then clashes in the middle east. Through the movie we get the inside scoop on what's going on in Washington from a reporter working the story (Helen Shaver) and her boyfriend, who works in the White House (Michael Murphy). And we get how it is presented to the public on a network news program.As the movie nears it's climax, the network's star reporter (Scott Glenn, doing some of his finest work as one of the most underrated actors of all time), aboard a US battleship in the Persian Gulf, is on the air with the network, live, when two nuclear bombs are used. All hell breaks loose.The final shot of the movie is the President's Plane taking off from Andrews AFB in Washington late that night and the shot freeze-frames on the engines of the plane heading into the distance as the news coverage in the background goes to the piercing alarm used by the Emergency Broadcast System, and the announcer entones that the code name for nuclear war is Looking Glass. I was barely out of my teens when I first saw this movie, and it chilled me to the bone...and to this day, the site of a plane arching off into the night will bring the end of this movie back to my mind...The movie is extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) hard to find; i've long lost my video of it, and I would LOVE to see it come out on DVD. To my knowledge, at least where i've been, it's been seen or made available only three times. It originally aired as a feature on either HBO or Showtime (I forget which), then made it's way to the Fox Network as a "movie of the week" entry early in that network's history, and I have seen it only one other time, in a syndication movie package that aired on my local UPN affiliate sometime in the mid 90s.If it ever airs in your area, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE IT. Especially if you like this genre of film. It can be a bit slow moving at times, but overall, the experience will be a satisfying one.My Score (out of 10) 9.5

"The Day After" tried to scare us with it's vision of nuclear horror. It failed. But "Countdown To Looking Glass" worked because it fictionalized the events leading up to a nuclear conflict. You basically watch it like you were watching CNN coverage of a Middle East crisis (except you get a little bit more omniscience.) It was made in 1984 yet I can still remember scenes from it. Scott Glenn's live shots from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf were so much like Peter Arnett, John Holliman and gang broadcasting from the Al-Rasheed hotel in Baghdad during the first invasion of Iraq. The film doesn't appear to be on DVD which is a shame. This film perfectly captured my fears of nuclear war at this time (I was 18.)