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04/23/09
Sputnik Mania (2008)
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Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:19
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: Featuring riveting footage, Sputnik Mania is an informative, well-made piece that effectively captures the mood during the height of the Cold War.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: Fifty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth, bringing America to its knees in awe - then fear. Initially thrilling as a marvel... [More]
Director: David Hoffman
Reviews for Sputnik Mania
The sharply edited film, which includes (happily) just a few talking heads but mostly exciting archival celluloid and campy stock is a love letter to Ike Eisenhower.
10/18/08
Director David Hoffman marshals his information into an absorbing story, adroitly narrated by Liev Schreiber, that captures the fears and the hopes of the dawn of the Space Age.
06/20/08
The enlightening Sputnik Mania looks at the late '50s, a time that was dominated by Cold War hysteria.
06/19/08
[A] smart, wry look at the American enthusiasm for and then paranoia over the first manmade satellite to orbit Earth... [R]ings with a truth that still holds...
06/18/08
Sputnik Mania plays, discreetly, like a negative love story between superpowers. Sure they moved on to other enemies, but they still haven't gotten over each other.
06/13/08
The reigning champion in the archival footage department features great Soviet footage of those days that (hopefully) will never be seen again---the days of the US-Soviet space race.
03/28/08
Hoffman manages to keep the tone light -- even H-bomb paranoia gets a breezy treatment -- though most of his filmmaking choices range from banal to boneheaded.
03/20/08
Clear, comprehensible, polished and articulate, but lacking the gut-punch to raise this portrait of a world-changing event from the level of a museum piece.
03/17/08
something unlike anything out there.
03/17/08
Avoids reveling in Cold War kitsch in favor of a serious look one of the most important -- and frightening -- moments in human history.
03/14/08
For those too young to remember, Sputnik Mania documents the fear and anxiety that gripped the United States half a century ago when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in October 1957.
03/14/08
The archival footage here is great, and the cosmos-conquering craziness will satisfy space-race nuts. But the small budget is obvious, so director David Hoffman couldn't go from the Earth to the moon on every detail.
03/14/08
David Hoffman’s documentary Sputnik Mania is an account of that Soviet satellite’s effect on the American consciousness.
03/14/08
Top CriticClips from old television broadcasts make this space documentary entertaining.
03/14/08
Top Criticreminds us that there was a time in the past when world leaders had morality and values
03/13/08
Sputnik Mania is not riveting; but it is, first and last, informative.
03/12/08
So obsessed with delivering a story about "mania" through overcooked narrative and aesthetic means that one ultimately feels as manipulated as enlightened.
03/09/08
Refreshingly, 'Sputnik Mania' stands back and allows its tale to be told in memorable actuality footage backed with unobtrusive period music.
03/08/08
...when it plays to our sense of selective memory and fills in the blanks on issues long forgotten, Sputnik Mania is masterful.
03/07/08
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