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, our friend Bec joins us to talk about Fury. Listening to Bec talk about Fury is much better than watching Fury, for the most part.
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This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re tackling The Sound of Music (1965), directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. On the surface, it’s a sweeping musical about love, family, and catchy songs you’ve known since childhood. But watch it through a World War II lens and it’s surprisingly sharp.
We revisit the Von Trapps’ romance, the Anschluss, and the film’s portrayal of Austrian opposition to Nazism.
Netflix’s Nr. 24 (2024) follows Gunnar Sønsteby, Norway’s most decorated citizen and one of the most effective resistance operatives in occupied Europe.
Tense from beginning to end, the film uses a sparse, near-ticking score and a documentary-style framing device to press a harder question: was it worth it? An elderly Sønsteby lectures students who have never known occupation, and what he chooses not to say is sometimes as revealing as what he does.
How do resistance stories shape national memory? And who gets left out of the telling?
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss The Longest Day (1962), the docudrama based on Cornelius Ryan’s nonfiction book about the Allied landings at Normandy on 6 June 1944. We go through the mega ensemble cast, stuff we liked and can’t get over how good Cornelius Ryan is at character driven narratives.
We also get into: the star-studded cast, the lack of blood, some movie trivia and the Plus: Canadia mention.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we take on U-571 (2000) with returning guest Katie. This tense, incredibly fictional tale is all about American submariners capturing a German U-boat and its Enigma machine. It’s got Matthew McConaughey, Jon Bon Jovi and Matthew Settle and everyone’s damp. We explore the claustrophobic depictions and why the British were fuming about this one.
Including some real-life naval details, from the cramped quarters of the U-505 to the history of segregated Black sailors in WWII (because, let’s be real, this movie does no historical heavy lifting).
In our very first episode, we discuss episodes 1-3 of the HBO war show that led to the creation of this podcast, Band of Brothers. We’re a little nervous, so please be gentle. 😉
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.