What was the last TV show you watched?

[Stearmen]

Exterminate Exterminate Exterminate!

 

[Fading Fast]

finally caught up on a couple endings...

Boardwalk Empire. Not a bad final season, but in that final stretch of maybe five episodes, it felt more and more like they gave up on the series. Not a bad ending, considering. I enjoyed seeing Nucky's past. Anyone else think they sort of let the series walk itself home?...

There was a loss of energy toward the end, but the revealing of Nucky's past and all the interpersonal connections really helped explain a lot of the different characters' motivations and odd inter-personal relationships that were only hinted at for the prior five seasons. I know it couldn't happen, but I wanted to see Nucky get away - by the standards of his crazy, immoral, illegal and brutal world, he was one of the more decent ones.

 

[Worf]

The NYT review reads as if the author's opinion was formed before watching - this movie is not hard enough on the Germans, it softens historical atrocities to allow for modern German acceptance - and it wasn't going to be changed by the contradictory reality of the movie itself. Despite his intense desire to dislike it, you can feel the author slipping into admiration for the quality of the production in the middle of the review, only to force his "this movie is a whitewash" attitude to return later. It is a historical fact that not all Germans were ardent Nazis, that some Germans risked their lives to save Jews, that some were ambivalent to the war and some just went along with the tide. This reviewer seems scared that these facts might sneak out and break down the one sentence narrative that all Germans were bad Nazis in WWII.

While I could quibble here or there with it (when can't I), the Washington Post review is respectful of the limitations of a six hour movie that wants to succeed as entertainment and appreciates the thoughtful portrayal of the characters. Sure, it was an active, against-the-odds choice to highlight five not-Nazi youths in 1941 Germany, but as the reviewer notes, German atrocities aren't hidden and the intent of the film was to highlight those who didn't fit the mold. And it is a fair point to note that the Russians (who did, on the whole, engage in vicious, inhuman retribution on the Germans) get treated in the same two-dimensional way that Germans in WWII usually are. What I'd like to know - and am surprised I don't as I read regularly on WWII - is if the Polish resistance was as anti-Semetic in reality as they were portrayed?

Yeah.... A lot of reviews when it first came out were quite hostile along the same lines as you state here. I also believe that not everyone in Germany were die-hard, Hitler loving fanatics... if they were we never would've beat em! But I don't view this film as an attempt to let em off the hook. As far as Polish anti-Semitism.... it was pretty rampant between the wars, always actually. Sigh... What a mess.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Yeah.... A lot of reviews when it first came out were quite hostile along the same lines as you state here. I also believe that not everyone in Germany were die-hard, Hitler loving fanatics... if they were we never would've beat em! But I don't view this film as an attempt to let em off the hook. As far as Polish anti-Semitism.... it was pretty rampant between the wars, always actually. Sigh... What a mess.

Worf

Nice point about them not all being fanatics "if they were we never would've beat em!" Also, there is historical evidence - factual and well-documented - that not all Germans were Hitler fanatics (from hiding Jews, to spying for the allies, to not joining the party despite it hurting one's career). That said, I've never seen any percentage numbers on any of this. In a country of millions, how many hid Jews, spied for the allies, didn't join the party despite pressure to do so, etc.?

While not fair, one of my favorite lines on this ever comes from the movie "Judgement at Nuremberg -" an outstanding film that doesn't seem to get the notice today that, IMHO, it deserves. Spencer Tracey is the supreme judge at the trial and is visibly sickened from having watched the films from the concentration camps. While in Germany he is kinda dating Marlene Dietrich (beautiful, but warm is not the next adjective that would come to mind to describe her) - playing the window of a German Army officer. Dietrich - frustrated that Tracey is reluctant to pursue the relationship (and what a win for her that would be - from another bedraggled-and-tainted German to wife of the Supreme American judge - you got the feeling she'd walk across broken glass to marry him) - tells Tracey that she wasn't a Nazi (with dripping disdain for the word itself). He pauses, gives her a wearied look and says (I'm paraphrasing from memory), "I've been in German all this time and I've never met one single Nazi."

She's done, she's toast, it's over. It's not that he's saying she's a Nazi or had been - he doesn't know and, at some level, he doesn't even care. He's just sick of it all. She leaves and the relationship is over. Fair no - but not hard to see how in 1946 many could have felt the same way about Germans. Also, what a absolutely devastating line.

 

[LizzieMaine]

She's done, she's toast, it's over. It's not that he's saying she's a Nazi or had been - he doesn't know and, at some level, he doesn't even care. He's just sick of it all. She leaves and the relationship is over. Fair no - but not hard to see how in 1946 many could have felt the same way about Germans. Also, what a absolutely devastating line.

It's the same way that every single person living in France between 1940 and 1944 was involved in the Resistance.

 

[Touchofevil]

Silva was suspended and fined today for failing a drug test. His victory over Diaz has been overturned as a no contest.
HD

Sad news, but not as sad as the lame excuses he kept throwing out for testing dirty.

 

[Touchofevil]

Hell on Wheels and Mr. Robot. Robot's, Rami Malek is one of the most entertaining actors on television at the moment.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

It's the same way that every single person living in France between 1940 and 1944 was involved in the Resistance.

With the exception of Coco Chanel, who went scurrying off to Switzerland in a somewhat self-imposed exile at the end of the war because her fellow Parisians didn't take kindly to the fact she'd spent the war having a Nazi lover. But all was eventually forgiven and once again the House of Chanel reigned as the center of Parisian - and world - couture.

 

[Fading Fast]

With the exception of Coco Chanel, who went scurrying off to Switzerland in a somewhat self-imposed exile at the end of the war because her fellow Parisians didn't take kindly to the fact she'd spent the war having a Nazi lover. But all was eventually forgiven and once again the House of Chanel reigned as the center of Parisian - and world - couture.

Surprisingly, I think I remember reading that Churchill had a hand in getting her out of France at the end of the war - but that could be an incorrect memory. Away from that, it is quite surprising that she was able to make a comeback as the people who lived through the occupation were still quite alive when she did. Maybe the cache she brought to a renascent France, Paris, French-fashion outweighed their anger at her collaborating.

 

[Babydoll]

With the demise of our tv, I've turned to youtube. Found the show "Homefront", so I've been enjoying that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As far as "average Germans" are concerned, no matter how many or few active hard-core Nazis there were, the regime wouldn't have been possible without the passive support of the majority of the German people. I think that was the principle under which collective guilt was assigned -- there were an awful lot of people who swore up and down that they weren't Nazis and hated Hitler, but they were more than happy to profit from, say, the abolition of Jewish business competition.

 

[Fastuni]

This so called "collective guilt" must be one of the largest logical fallacies.

If the people within a dictatorship is guilty for all the regime's misdeeds,
then how much more guilty must the population of a "democracy" be for the governments misdeeds?

After all the people is supposed to be the sovereign and the government elected and held accountable... (in theory at least).
Also the price one has to pay for opposition within a democracy is far cheaper than resisting within a dictatorship, or not?

Yet "collective guilt" is rarely applied to the peoples of "democratic" states which also had their share of exploitiation, aggressive wars, genocidal policies or other morally reprehensible deeds.

"Collective guilt" whether directed against Germans or any other nation/demographic is also an inherently racist concept.

Nazi thinking also relied on this concept... that all Jews should be "collectively guilty" for the exploitation, crimes and all other morally reprehensible actions of Jewish capitalists or communists.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This so called "collective guilt" must be one of the largest logical fallacies.

If the people within a dictatorship is guilty for all the regime's misdeeds,
then how much more guilty must the population of a "democracy" be for the governments misdeeds?

I think in that case, I'd submit that the collective guilt would be even greater, as in a "democracy" the government is supposedly the direct instrument of the will of the people themselves.

And the last thing I watched on TV was a 25-year-old VHS tape of "Doctor Who: The Three Doctors," taped off PBS. The tape has aged much more gracefully than I have.

 

[AmateisGal]

With the demise of our tv, I've turned to youtube. Found the show "Homefront", so I've been enjoying that.

Is the the one from the mid-1990s? If so, I LOVED this show. Wish it wouldn't have been canceled after only two seasons.

 

[AmateisGal]

Surprisingly, I think I remember reading that Churchill had a hand in getting her out of France at the end of the war - but that could be an incorrect memory. Away from that, it is quite surprising that she was able to make a comeback as the people who lived through the occupation were still quite alive when she did. Maybe the cache she brought to a renascent France, Paris, French-fashion outweighed their anger at her collaborating.

There's a really great book that features Coco Chanel during the Occupation of Paris that you might want to read. It's called The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar J. Mazzeo. It's very good. And yes, I reviewed it on my blog. LOL. http://bestofww2.blogspot.com/2014/06/review-hotel-on-place-vendome.html

 

[Fading Fast]

There's a really great book that features Coco Chanel during the Occupation of Paris that you might want to read. It's called The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar J. Mazzeo. It's very good. And yes, I reviewed it on my blog. LOL. http://bestofww2.blogspot.com/2014/06/review-hotel-on-place-vendome.html

I gobbled it up when it came out and is likely from where I had a faint memory of Churchill, probably, helping Chanel. Excellent review - your blog is a great site.

 

[AmateisGal]

I gobbled it up when it came out and is likely from where I had a faint memory of Churchill, probably, helping Chanel. Excellent review - your blog is a great site.

Thank you! I need to post reviews more often. I have a large backlog of books waiting to be reviewed. Darn day job anyway!

 

[Babydoll]

Is the the one from the mid-1990s? If so, I LOVED this show. Wish it wouldn't have been canceled after only two seasons.

Yep. Search for Homefront 1991. I think the channel is tvnotondvd. Not the best quality, but good enough for me.

 

[1mach1]

Fall Guy. Season 3, Episodes 4 and 5.

 

[Touchofevil]

Fall Guy. Season 3, Episodes 4 and 5.

That guy cannot sing.