Category Archives: Historic

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The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)

Until recently I didn’t know anything about the Pentagon papers. They were published before I was born and I didn’t know much about the Vietnam war (except for some excellent movies and series about it). This documentary tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, who decided to inform the public about the decisions that were made by government about the war. He manually copied hundreds of classified documents and distributed them to the papers. It’s an excellent documentary with a powerful message. Continue reading →

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Soul Power (2008)

The “Rumble in the Jungle” fight in Zaire between heavy weights Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in october 1974 is one of the most famous fights to ever take place. It’s not as well-known that before that match a music festival, Zaire 74, was organised which lasted several days.James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Bill Withers and Manu Dibango were some of the artists that performed.
This documentary shows the preparations for the big concert and some of the artists doing their thing on stage. Continue reading →

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The Great Escape (1963)

Steve McQueen is an icon and he always features prominently on the posters for this movie. Although he’s in this movie he actually does not appear in a lot of scenes. It’s the other actors that show what they got and they definitely impress.
The Great Escape is een movie that’s based on an actual, big scale escape attempt from a second world war nazi camp. A number of British and American members of the airforce have been captured and are held in the camp. These prisoners do try everything to make life a living hell for the captors by constantly attempting to escape. They do this by digging tunnels or wearing a disguise. These are just small attempts that are not on the scale of the great escape as for this escape they plan to do it with a couple of hundred men at the same time. Continue reading →

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You don’t know Jack (2010)

The name Jack Kevorkian, also known as Doctor Death, is a very famous name. I did not know much about him though. HBO has made a movie about the work of this doctor. It gives insight into his way of thinking and why he did what he did. He helped at least 130 people (most terminally ill or without will to continue living because of their pain). Since 2002 euthanasia has been a legal process in the Netherlands, for which strict rules have to be followed before a patient can be helped with dying. In America however, it’s not legal. Kevorkian decided to try to make it legal to enable a grown up person to decide for himself if he wants to continue living or if he/she wants to die. Lees verder

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The lives of others (2006)


What was it like to live in east Germany before the wall fell? What did it feel like to have to pay attention to what you said, because you never knew who you could trust or had to think about the possibility of the place you were in being bugged? What was the feeling a Stasi employee had when looking into the lives of others? This movie tries to give an answer to these questions. Continue reading →

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Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)

Besides new films i can also really enjoy the old ones. Judgement at Nuremberg is a good example. As the title already suggests, this is about the trials in Nuremberg against a couple of judges that ruled during the Nazi period. The question that is asked is if they were merely doing their job based on rightful laws or if they could be punished for sentencing hundreds of people (to concentration camps and having other things happen to them) based on laws that were against humanity.

The movie shows an interesting image of the trial and the arguments used by both lawyers. It also uses real images of the concentration camps, with chilling effect.  The final judgement must have been very hard. Maximilian Schell is excellent in his role as the defense (he reminded me of Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds) of the judges and really is the point of focus in every scene he appears in. He won an Oscar for this role. Recommended for people who like courtroom dramas or want to know more about this piece of history.

Score: 9