Welcome to Monday Picks, a new weekly feature that examines a new movie every week from a wide array of different genres. In the spirit of the Halloween season, and being that the prequel opened this weekend, to kick us off is this week’s pick: John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing.

The Thing is one of my favorite sci fi horror films for several reasons. 1) It is one of John Carpenter’s best films besides Escape From New York, Assault on Precinct 13, Starman, and Big Trouble in Little China. 2) Kurt Russell’s acting is phenomenal and his character MacReady is the textbook hero of the film, who overcomes and triumphs. 3) It is a very well done film in which the suspense, and the acting play a crucial role in executing the plot. From beginning to end, the film is truly a flawless picture.

The film was based off of John W. Campbell Jr’s short story “Who Goes There?” The film is not a remake of the classic 1951 Howard Hawks film, but is a very faithful new version of the short story for a new generation of sci fi horror fanatics.

This week’s pick is Hiroshima (1995), which was a made for T.V. mini series on Showtime Network, and was directed by both Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode . The film is about the events that led up to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan during the tail end of World War II. The film is told through the eyes of both American and Japanese militarists, and civilians who were responsible, and were greatly affected by the decision to use the bombs.

The film stars Kenneth Welsh (president Harry S. Truman), Ken Jenkins (Secretary of State James F. Byrnes), Wesley Addy (Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson), Richard Masur (Maj. General Leslie Groves), Colin Fox (Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal), George R. Robertson (Admiral William D. Leahy), Saul Rubinek (Professor Leo Szilard), Cedric Smith (Gen. Curtis Lemay), Bernard Behrens (Asst. Secretary of War John J. McCloy), Jeffrey DeMunn (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Tim West (Prime Minister Winston Churchill), Naohiko Umewaka (Emperor Hirohito), Kazuo Kato (Prince Fumimaro Konoe), Ken Maeda (Minister of War Korechika Anami), and Hisashi Igawa (Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo).

Hiroshima sets the tone of the film almost immediately with the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. His reluctant successor Harry S. Truman assumes the presidency and quickly learns of the secret government project that has devised a “gadget” which will help end the war first in Europe. Welsh, who is the spitting image of Truman, plays him to perfection. Other actors play the their historical counterparts the same.

Other notable standouts are Masur as General Groves who was the military mind behind the Manhattan Project that created both bombs at the Los Alamos, New Mexico laboratories. One of my favorite characters in the film is played by Wesley Addy who plays Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War. Stimson pleaded with Truman that the use of such a weapon could create a new arms race for atomic weapons in the near future. One scene in the film that has been debated by historians for decades is the meeting between Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard (Rubinek) and James Byrnes (Jenkins) at Byrne’s home in South Carolina.