Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer, a Dutch-Canadian female-led WW2 media podcast. A new episode airs every Friday!
Rosie the Reviewer is a passion project, built episode by episode. If you’d like to support what we do, you can help keep us on the air or pick up some Rosie merch. We’re working on more ways for you to get involved in the future.
In this episode, we take on the German Perspective as we discuss 2013’s Generation War with our friend Anna! This three-part limited series received praise and criticism in equal measure, and it’s a tough watch. Does it take enough risk? It certainly makes for meaningful conversation. This is episode one of two about this series, so be sure to check back for part two next week.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we’re joined by Lisa Koolhoven, Dutch historian and WWII Rotterdam bike tour guide, and Kristen Hayford, American-in-the-Netherlands, who joined forces to make the podcast Beb & Bob | Collateral Damage about their journey to discover whether their grandparents’ paths may have crossed in the Forgotten Bombing of Rotterdam by the Allies.
Together, we review The Shadow in My Eye (2021), a Danish film based on Operation Carthage, during which the RAF accidentally bombed a school in Copenhagen in March 1945.
We discuss the myth of the faultless liberator, what mainstream war media consistently refuses to show, and why the words ‘collateral damage’ carry so much weight.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we dive into Black Book, Paul Verhoeven’s 2006 thriller about a Jewish woman who goes undercover in the Dutch resistance. Nearly twenty years later, its themes of complicity, moral ambiguity, and survival feel sharper—and perhaps even more relevant—against the backdrop of today’s conflicts.
We unpack the film’s chaotic plot, infamous pube-bleaching scene, and the real-life resistance fighter who inspired the story. And we discuss the uncomfortable: how Verhoeven uses a WWII setting not just to thrill, but to ask unsettling questions about the blurred lines between victim and aggressor—and how quickly one can become the other.
A war movie that’s sexy, violent, politically loaded, and painfully relevant.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss I Was Monty’s Double (1958), a British WWII film based on M.E. Clifton James’ memoir. The film tells the almost unbelievable story of an actor recruited to impersonate Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in the lead-up to D-Day, as part of a wider Allied deception effort. Clifton James plays himself, and Monty. How any of this was true, we don’t know, because it really is stranger than fiction.
This week, we’re discussing Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (Die Letzten Tage) about the courageous last few days of German resistance fighter Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl and their friends.
It’s not for the faint of heart, so strap in.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we take on Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977), the war epic based on Cornelius Ryan’s book of the same name about Operation Market Garden. We take you through one of WWII’s most ambitious (and doomed-to-fail) military plans as we discuss the film. From Sean Connery’s Major General Urquhart to Gene Hackman’s Sosabowski (we approve), we talk about what led to Market Garden’s failure, and how Dutch civilians like Kate ter Horst were astoundingly brave in the face of absolute hell.
Market Garden, a little complicated? We try to make it simple for you!
Rosie the Reviewer is a passion project, built episode by episode. If you’d like to support what we do, you can help keep us on the air or pick up some Rosie merch. We’re working on more ways for you to get involved in the future.