Burton's Blooey Period

Fifties sci-fi movies may have been a skewed response to Cold War fears, but Mars Attacks! is a post-Cold War romp. The Russians don't even figure in it. And with no commies around to target, Burton goes blooey and targets everything. We've come a long way. Dr. Strangelove, our greatest Cold War comedy, was, of course, subtitled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. In Mars Attacks! Burton has his Martians inhale a nuclear missile and get high on the radiation. You can't love the bomb any more than that.

Mars Attacks!
Written by Jonathan Gems; directed by Tim Burton; with Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Lukas Haas, Annette Bening, Pam Grier, Jim Brown, Paul Winfield, Joe Don Baker, Sylvia Sidney, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, Lisa Marie, Tom Jones, and Rod Steiger.