Tag: Ken Burns

The Vietnam War–Closure or Catharsis?

Written by diana on February 12, 2018. Posted in Television reviews. 3 Comments on The Vietnam War–Closure or Catharsis?

The Vietnam War Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s PBS masterpiece, The Vietnam War is a mournful, heartbreaking documentary: an essential expose and an unvarnished history of war. The refocusing of history using first-person stories is the most important “Ken Burns effect” producing his best documentary to date. Burns loves to film everyday people’s “small” stories which give perspective and emotion to the larger picture. The interviews are unforgettable and poignant–a viscerally searing reminder why there is no winner in war. The human faces, together with the visible...

Jackie Robinson Day—April 15

Written by diana on April 15, 2016. Posted in Television reviews. 2 Comments on Jackie Robinson Day—April 15

In the two-part Ken Burns’ documentary, “Jackie Robinson”, broadcast this past week on PBS television, we are immediately hooked by the legendary baseball player’s opening statement: “If I had a room jammed with trophies, awards and citations, and a child of mine came into that room and asked what I had done in defense of black people and decent whites fighting for freedom, and I had to tell that child that I had kept quiet, that I had been timid, I would have to mark myself a total failure at the whole business of living.” In raw archival footage and interviews we see Jackie...

“Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

Written by diana on April 22, 2013. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on “Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

In 1989 the “Central Park Jogger” trial had the country’s attention and a media frenzy fed the heightened fear of New Yorkers who saw their beloved Central Park and the city as a whole becoming a dangerous environment simmering with crime and mayhem. “The Central Park Five”, a new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, retells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of brutally raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park on April 22, 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case from the perspective...

Tag: Ken Burns

The Vietnam War–Closure or Catharsis?

Jackie Robinson Day—April 15

“Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

Subscribe to my Newsletter