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.
Joining us to discuss episodes 4-6 of The Pacific (2010) is our friend Merc. We get into the meaty middle part of the show, saying hello to some new favourites (and clinging to them before they have to leave us again) while watching others go home. Its’ Peleliu time, which means everyone is having a terrible time. And Pavuvu, which is apparently not much better.
It’s our 100th episode and also Women’s History Month! So it’s only fitting that in this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss So Proudly We Hail (1943), a World War II film about American Army nurses during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941–1942. The story follows a group of nurses working in increasingly desperate conditions as the war closes in, from jungle hospitals on Bataan to the evacuation from Corregidor.
We also explore how the film reflects 1940s attitudes toward women, including Hollywood stereotypes, and obviously wartime propaganda. Along the way, we look at the real stories of the nurses on Bataan and Corregidor. These women kicked ass!
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 wrap up our three-part discussion of The Pacific (2010) with episodes 7-10. Brace yourself for the brutal fighting on Peleliu and Okinawa to John and Lena Basilone, his final chapter and the long road home for Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie. Alongside our returning guest George, we talk about leadership, disillusionment, the role of civilians, and the way grief and memory follow these men long after the war ends.
This week, we dive into Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), based on a book by the same name. Sam has read it, so you don’t have to. Maartje gets more excited about a Canadian character in this than Sam, so the world is definitely upside down.
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.