Today I saw the final (and excellent!) episode of season one, Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles. In an earlier blog, I mentioned my relationship to the apocalypse - especially in the form of a global nuclear war. The thought of this occurring is a horror, but it is caked by a crazed need to see as many dramatized versions as possible.   

In honor of the season finale, here are two unbelievably bleak film masterpieces:

1. Threads - a 1984 docudrama set in England. The story begins around a boy and a girl from two very different families and their wedding plans following an unexpected pregnancy. World events unfold and escalate around this story through newscasts. The drama is told from before, during and after (even years after) an all-out global nuclear war. An absolutely brilliant film, far better than 1983’s sanitized, The Day After.

2. The Silent City - a 2006 short film about a group of soldiers trying to keep it together near a bombed out shell of a city. I’ve watched one scene many times, almost frame by frame: an aerial fly-by through the remnants of the city’s nuclear-blown downtown buildings. I’d never before seen such an incredibly realistic view. The best way to view this film is in the HD version (the link above leads to the lo-res version).