"The China Syndrome": 30 years later

Was trying to decide on a movie to watch last night when Stephen Bishop's song "Somewhere In Between" came up randomly on my iPod while I was driving home. It was the only piece of music created for "The China Syndrome", and it's hard to believe this movie came out 30 years ago last month! Wow.

So last night's screening became a 30th anniversary nod to a film that eerily came out only twelve days before the real life catastrophe of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Quite ironically, a physicist in the movie says that the China Syndrome would render "an area the size of Pennsylvania" permanently uninhabitable. I remember being in the theater right after Three Mile Island and hearing gasps come from the audience when this line was uttered.

The absence of a music score only added to the chills this movie generated, especially when the climactic TV news live feed turns to color bars and then cuts to black. The credits roll in complete silence for the duration.