Movie Review- Monuments Men

Turning historical books into movies is down right dangerous. History nuts are bound to see the movie, and that is great for the box office returns, but not always great for us history nuts.  Usually two camps form when those of us who love history see movie trailers for histo-flicks. One camp is book first. The other, movie first.  Usually, I profess reading the book before seeing a movie, but there are some inherent risks with this approach. One risk is that the movie is better than the book (gasp!). The second is worst than the first; the movie takes a completely different direction than the book. Monuments Men is one of those movies.  Get this straight, it was a fair movie (I will save my remarks for later), but for those us (meaning me) who took the book first route, it was a bit painful.  

Book Review- The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter

Always a fan of reading the book before the movie, I hurriedly read The Monuments Men recently. Honestly, it is one of the few books I have ever finished in the allotted time from the library

Movie Review- 42

Robinson Won Rookie Of The Year in 1947

To be honest, I had my doubts about this movie.  When I saw its impending release way back when, my first reaction was it would go one of two ways.  One: yet another glorified rah-rah about someone was far but.  Hollywood would wash it clean of any facts or blow out of proportion a few of the more tasty morsels.  Two: An overly dramatic account of something that by nature was pretty dramatic.  After watching it, I concluded that it was neither. Reviewing 42 might best be done by breaking it down into a couple of different areas.  After all it is a film trying to big things.

Bigger Than The Game: Cool Runnings

Happy Birthday Bob!

In honor of Robert Nesta Marley’s birthday and the opening ceremonies for the Sochi Olympics tonight (in the US), I thought I might post a brief history of Jamaica’s sole contribution to world of arctic sports. Bobsledding. If you are a certain age, you are likely familiar with John Candy coaching to Doug E. Doug, Leon, and Rawle D. Lewis to Olympic…..defeat, but the team’s history has been marked by reasonable success.

The team was initially founded by American businessmen George Fitch  (now mayor of Warrenton, Virginia) and William Maloney. Originally interested in Jamaica's push-cart culture, the two recognized that the nation’s sprinters would serve valuable speed in the bobsled’s push starts. The 1988 team finished dead last at the Calgary games, but gained attention as the game's underdogs story.

Amiri Baraka

The modern poetry world lost one of its most divisive and beloved yesterday as Amiri Baraka died at the age of 79. Known as the father of the Black Arts movement, Baraka was a controversial figure who helped birth the Black Art movement of the late 1960’s and 70’s. Educated at Howard University, drummed out of the Air Force in 1954 for his communist leanings, Baraka went on to publish Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg at his Totem Publishing house in the Greenwich Village.

As a publisher, poet, and jazz critic, he was a leading figure in the Beat Generation. His works were widely read in the traditionally high brow, New York literary world as the equal of Kerouac and Ginsberg. After the assignation of Malcolm X, Baraka moved quickly away from the Beat poetry that he was publishing at Totem into the growing Black Nationalism movement. There he firmly embedded himself as its poet laureate. Many of his poems centered on urban life in Harlem during the 1960’s and 70’s focusing on the growing frustrations of African Americans. It was during this period that some of his most controversial poems were published

Series Launch: Shaken To Its Core

It goes without saying that Great Depression brought about a dramatic change in the American landscape. President Franklin Roosevelt pressed through Congress a series of strikingly liberal legislation know as the New Deal ushering into the American political culture the notion that the public’s welfare was in fact the government’s responsibility. Roosevelt intentionally used his soothing firesides chats, careful manipulation of the media and overtly personable wife as a proxy to create, at least on the surface, a culture of calm. Americans were encouraged to pray, stick together, and most importantly have faith in institutions of government. Yet, the Great Depression was a time wrought with political, spiritual, economic and cultural upheaval. The cocksuredness of the 1920’s was replaced by a radicalism never before seen and an overarching tension that could, and did, erupt into utter chaos. Radical political parties, firebrand personalities, and riots left only a thin veneer of a nation recovering through self reliance and determination. Over the next three posts, The History Podcast will highlight some of the lesser known elements of the Great Depression as we look at the rise of radical political parties, Father Charles Coughlin who Franklin Roosevelt is reportedly to have said to be “the most dangerous man in American” and the food riots that increasingly became common in American cities.

The History Podcast #16 - Sneakers

The History Podcast #16

Download Podcast - Sneakers


In this History Podcast Mr. Lincoln gets a new pair of sneakers. We argue and debate whether sneaker fashion is a culture or a fad. Mr. Lincoln explains how sneakers became an important statement in the urban areas. Mr. Jackson thinks it's all stupid and loses it.