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.
We discuss the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! about the attack on Pearl Harbor just to see how much Michael Bay ‘borrowed’ from it. Kidding! We giggle over the Star-Spangled Banner played at eight times the speed. Kidding! This might be the most accurate film about WW2 events ever made.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Grave of the Fireflies (1988), the harrowing Studio Ghibli animation that left us emotionally wrecked. We follow the story of Seita and Setsuko, two siblings trying to survive in Kobe, Japan during the final months of World War II. We discuss the film’s gut-wrenching portrayal of innocence lost and being forgotten, and why this is possibly the greatest movie you’ll never want to watch again.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we continue our accidental monster-movie streak with Beast of War (2025), written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner. Loosely inspired by the real sinking of the Australian ship HMAS Armidale in the Timor Sea on 1 December 1942, the film follows a group of soldiers stranded on a rapidly failing raft, hunted by a great white shark.
Joined by our favourite returning, usually SAS Rogue Heroes, but now creature-feature correspondent George, we talk about why this is not just a horror movie, but a survival story with real themes: isolation, fear, trauma, and the brittle veneer of civilisation when the ocean is doing its absolute worst. Merry Christmas, see you in 2026.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we welcome an extraordinary guest: Bruce McKenna, co-executive producer, creator, and principal writer of The Pacific, and writer of the Bastogne episode of Band of Brothers. We talk about the moral stakes of war, what made it into the episodes and what didn’t, and why everything is about narrative and theme.
We explore Bruce’s creative process and the kind of stories he likes to tell. This one may change how you look at WWII media.
For the video version of this podcast, please go to our Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/@rosiethereviewer
This week, we have a very special guest on the pod: actor Scott Gibson. We talk to him about his portrayal of Andy Haldane in HBO’s The Pacific, his recent trip to Guam and Peleliu with Beyond the Call and his upcoming documentary.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we head to the South Pacific to explore Rodgers & Hammerstein’s classic World War II musical. Maartje and Sam discuss whether war is a suitable backdrop for a musical, and dive into the show’s complicated relationship with racism — from its progressive anthem “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” to its undeniably stereotypical portrayals. Plus, a detour into the CB’s (Maartje’s obsessed!) and cultural memory.
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.