Starring:  Ray Milland

Running Time:  93 minutes

Release Date:  July 5, 1962

The Baldwin family set out of Los Angeles, California for a fishing trip one sunny day.  They are a seemingly normal family:  Man and wife Harry and Ann Baldwin with their two children Rick and Karen.  Only after a little while's drive, the family sees a great explosion behind them, what they would later find out is the beginning of a third world war.  Immediately, Harry predicts the mayhem and lawlessness of his family's impending future and breaks many laws for their preservation.  This includes robbing a hardware store and gas station within the first couple hours of the nuclear blast.  But they're not the only ones operating on "survival of the fittest" mode.  People are scrambling to leave the city, driven only be fear.

And of course there are others who seek to take advantage of all the madness...  Three hooligans Carl, Mickey and Andy rape and pillage their way about town only making matters worse for the Baldwin family.  Of course, Harry Baldwin guessed that would happen too, and he tells his wife and daughter to hide in the trailer attached to the back of the car.  They don't seem to understand why until the hoodlums show up.  How will the Baldwin family ever have a normal life again?

An extremely brave, realistic, and tense movie, Panic in Year Zero! triumphs in its portrayal of human nature and the complete breakdown of societal norms.  The movie's faults lie in its women characters.  With her world crumbling before her very eyes, Ann Baldwin insists that people are still inherently rational, although she is repeatedly proven wrong.  Even with the threat of rape constantly looming, Ann Baldwin remains in denial insisting that Harry not harm "those boys."  This is, of course, until her daughter wanders too far away from camp and encounters the infamous cackling hooligans.

An excellent movie that has yet to receive the credit it deserves.

When AIDS was discovered, it was believed to be a "gay disease." This common misconception lasted until as late as the 1990's. This movie exceptionally exhibited peoples' reactions to AIDS and how ignorant they were about it during the time period of the film. Not much was known yet about AIDS because not enough medical research had been done, so naturally the public was misinformed. A perfect example of this ignorance comes in the scene when Andy is reading court cases in the library and he sneezes and people feel very uncomfortable. This discomfort comes from the fact that people thought at the time that AIDS could be contracted by any kind of contact with an infected person. The librarian comes over to Andy and says, "Sir we have a private research room open, would you like to use it?" to which Andy replies, "No, would you like me to use it?" In this scene specifically, the film exemplifies the attitude toward gays and people with AIDS in the 1980's.

Along with not knowing how AIDS was passed along, at that point in time, people thought that AIDS could only be contracted by gay people, hence the name "GRID," or Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This led to a growing dislike of gays and a lot of discrimination. The film also portrayed this aspect of 1980's society very well. Outside of the trial on the first day when Andy leaves the courthouse there are people outside protesting against gay rights with signs such as, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." There is also another example of peoples' emotions towards gays when in one scene Denzel Washington is inside a pharmacy and a gay man asks him to go out and have a drink with him because he likes that he is one of the few standing up for gay rights. Denzel responds with outrage and threatens to beat the man up. These scenes exemplify the discrimination gays went through in the 1980's.

Philadelphia is a film about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's and its cause for discrimination towards gays and it portrays it just as it happened in history. Most people in the movie except close friends of Andy are hostile towards gays. Even the distinguished head of Andy's former law firm did not like gays. A smarter man like his character also shows how little people actually knew about AIDS at that time. A very educated man like the head of an enormous law firm does not know that AIDS was not only for gays and could not be passed through hugs, handshakes, or sneezes. Philadelphia excellently portrayed the social climate of the 1980's and peoples' lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS.