mixman_2007
It's now 2007 and I'm still impressed by this 1983 super movie! It was on Dutch television, I recorded it then and watched it for so many times. The dutch title is: Hier volgt een extra bericht. Please, can this movie be on television every four years? The makers deserve that! This is very good scenario-writing and acting. An example for everybody how to choose a theme for a movie and how to puzzle it out...it's ahead of it's time. I was so glad that there were still filmmakers with fresh ideas, who could wake up the public from their long sleep. The Dutch television made a bar in the upper end of the screen, because you think as a viewer, that it's all real happening now....like breaking news...so realistic. This movie and makers may not be forgotten!! Watch it!
mystiquetrax
It is rare to see a movie that both fascinates for its subject matter and makes your skin crawl because the reality of the drama is so plausible. This movie was a bland warning of how terrorists might infiltrate suddenly; even with recent history, it still has impact. The dramatization was so credible, I'm surprised copycat formats haven't followed. The only movies I can remember that came so close to reality prior to Special Bulletin were Kent State and Attica. Those movies noted history; this one brought out "history-in-the-making". It is easy to see how viewers in South Carolina who were unaware they were seeing a movie, despite disclaimers, panicked. One of our guests that night gave it a "five-star 'wow'" rating. I'm glad we taped it; I haven't seen it on TV since (mid-80s). I wish it would come out on DVD.
David Powell
Very ahead-of-its-time story, tremendous commetary on the media and politics among other things. Someone else referred to modern day disaster coverage by the media and disaster response by the federal government, and boy do those both come into play here, amazing for a telefilm made in 1983.The dialogue was also pretty good, and if you look at some of the films that the writers/producers of this gem went on to make, definitely a lot of material there.Also some good performances from great actors, which is always a good thing, of course! Why was this never released on video? The original (and excellent) "Brian's Song" came out on DVD, so certainly a TV movie could be doable for DVD."Countdown to Looking Glass" is another good one. IMO both of these are tons better than "The Day After" which I found cheesy even then. "Special Bulletin" almost has a surreal quality that is very hard to match.
Mark Mears
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.
