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.
This week, we talk about The Darkest Hour and Winston Churchill, with a healthy discussion about the importance of not putting your heroes on pedestals.
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This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re heading to the beaches of postwar Denmark with Land of Mine (2015), a Danish film about a young German POW crew tasked with clearing a mine-affected beach and the Danish sergeant who oversees the process. It’s tense, visually striking, and explores trauma, anger, humanity and innocence. A movie about what comes after.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we take on Season 2 of X Company, the tense Canadian WWII drama set at Camp X. This season brings higher stakes, deeper trauma, and a brutal reckoning with the Dieppe Raid. We talk Alfred’s Magneto cage, the complexity of Faber and Sabine’s marriage and a certain “code machine that looks like a fancy typewriter”. Yes, the Enigma makes an appearance. Plus: tortured romances (literal and metaphorical), and Aurora absolutely going off-script.
We also get into the real-life inspirations behind the season, from David O’Keefe’s Dieppe theory to the heartbreaking Canadian casualties. And no one is safe, emotionally or narratively. Not even Tom.
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).
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?
This week, we are delighted to welcome author Robert B. O’Connor to our show to talk about his book Jeep Show: a trouper at the Battle of the Bulge.
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.