Aside from former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s upcoming interview with him for her NBC gig, Russian President Vladimir Putin also sat down with Snowden filmmaker Oliver Stone for a new documentary series. Creatively titled The Putin Interviews, the Showtime special will air on four consecutive nights beginning Monday, June 12th. And judging by the recent teaser trailer, it will feature Oliver’s hard-hitting questions (“Why did Russia hack the election?”) and Putin’s serious responses (i.e. he giggles). That, and a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
According to the Washington Post, Oliver and Putin watch the Cold War classic together in one particular segment for… reasons:
The interview that filmmaker Oliver Stone has taped with Russian President Vladmir Putin, which is set to air on Showtime next month, sounds like a doozy — in one segment, the Platoon director and the former KGB-er watch the classic, Stanley Kubrick-directed political satire that features a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Putin, according to Showtime, had never seen the flick before.
Aside from the fact that Putin, who had never seen Dr. Strangelove before, watched the movie with Oliver, little is known about why the filmmaker chose to do this. As the Post notes, it probably has something to do with the strained relations between the U.S. and Russia, and how it relates to Kubrick’s satire of Cold War hysterics. Which wouldn’t be the worst reason to make Putin watch Major T. J. “King” Kong straddling his payload. It’s not like they screened Air Force One for him.
(Via Washington Post)