See these films: Duck Soup + Dr. Strangelove @ the Brattle

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Here's a cinephile's dream: Stanley Kubrick directing a Marx Brothers movie. The next best thing might be this twin bill of the two cinema legends' funniest, and most politically incisive, films. In Duck Soup (1933; 7:15 pm), Groucho plays Professor Rufus T. Firefly, a disreputable wise guy and con man who finds himself unexpectedly appointed the dictator of Fredonia. So empowered, he promptly declares war on neighboring Sylvania. Amidst the puns and nonsense lies a prescient satire of the war to come in six years. In his nuclear war doomsday farce Dr. Strangelove (1964; 5:15 + 9 pm), Kubrick exploits his black comic genius. Its nutty leaders completely divorced from reality, hilariously portrayed by Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, and Sterling Hayden, among others, seem all too true to life today. They both screen on Wednesday, October 5 @ at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | $9.75; $7.75 students; $6.75 seniors | brattlefilm.org.