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PETERLOO (2018)

August 21, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Directed by Mike Leigh, PETERLOO (2018) is a British historical drama about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester, England, currently streaming on Amazon Prime. At nearly 2.5 hours in runtime, the film is powerful if bloated and challenging, particularly with its dense political speeches. Still, the history warranted this approach in my view. From the beautiful cinematography and detailed sets to the historical accuracy and importance of the subject matter, this was a terrific watch for me.

The film’s story plays out in two layers. The first is an average family of British laborers living in Manchester in England’s industrial north, struggling to get by in the economic slump following the Napoleonic Wars. The second is the machinations of radicals hoping to achieve parliamentary reform to give Manchester and the working class greater representation in government, and the utterly corrupt government officials fearing the kind of revolutionary fervor that overthrew the monarchy in France. These storylines come together in a mass rally where the famed radical orator Henry Hunt would give a speech to a crowd of 60,000 people, and the government’s horrific reaction.

The storylines work well together. The leaders of the radical movement clearly spell out the horrible conditions of the working class, greed of the capitalist factory owners, utter corruption of the government, and Britain’s democracy entirely tilted toward government by and for land owners. The family shows us what all this means on a daily basis. Meanwhile, we see the heavy-handedness of the government reaction behind the scenes, with brutal police tactics against dissent that are used to this day, and their willingness to use force to preserve the status quo.

The politics are important but laid on thick, as we see multiple speeches by various radical leaders and a whole lot of interactions between the radical leaders and government officials. Still, I imagine to many viewers this will start to feel like a slog after a while. Personally, I enjoyed the depth and open sentiments, clearly spelling out what was at stake for the average laborer. For our modern times, it provides a nice reminder that while social justice is important, a just economy is just as vital.

Check it out if you’re interested in a deep, fiery historical drama about a little known but very important event in British history, supported by a terrific cast including Rory Kinnear and Karl Johnson.

Filed Under: HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

THE DAYS

July 19, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Rivaling HBO’s CHERNOBYL in terms of raw drama, Netflix’s THE DAYS is a powerful story that cements the adage that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. In 2011, Japan suffered a triple whammy: a devastating earthquake, resulting 14-meter-tall tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster that rivaled Chernobyl in terms of danger. Sticking as close to the facts as possible, THE DAYS presents a gripping tale of the tragedy as experienced by the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

As for the disaster, it could have been even more devastating. The earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to the nuclear reactors, resulting in the workers being unable to cycle water to manage the reactor temperatures and resulting pressure. They couldn’t even use their instruments to monitor what was going on. As the fuel rods became exposed and melted down, they released radiation and triggered catastrophic explosions. In time, they threatened to spread radiation across Japan, making at least half the country uninhabitable for generations. Luckily for the world, they didn’t, though for days the reactors were almost fully out of control, and important mechanisms to fix the problem weren’t even approachable for humans due to high radiation levels.

The Japanese miniseries follows an ensemble cast of actors playing various workers, managers, and executives at the power company managing the plant, along with politicians and military personnel trying to stave off disaster. The script masterfully portrays people and institutions in crisis, showing them coming to grips with the disaster and working to solve unprecedented problems with ingenuity, only for cascading effects to thwart them and create new, even bigger problems. The politicians and company executives often get in the way, sometimes out of frustration for lack of information and other times for optics, until they realize what all of Japan is facing and pull out all the stops to help.

Similarly, the managers and workers at the plant slowly realize how hopeless their situation is and struggle emotionally to remain on duty and fight to the last possible second despite the odds and growing risks to dying horribly. One of the things that I loved about CHERNOBYL was the incredible heroism involved in preventing an incredible national and global disaster, and this is on full display in THE DAYS. Also the realism in depicting the reverse: the horror and despair, people cracking under the strain. In one scene, a nuclear expert watching an explosion erupt at the plant falls to his knees keening like a dying animal, and I think he was speaking for all of them, what was going on in their heads.

Overall, I loved this one. A disaster miniseries that is gripping, horrifying, inspiring, and true.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Film Shorts/TV, HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

DJINN Now Available for Pre-Order!

May 11, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I am excited to announce that DJINN, my supernatural military thriller, is now available for pre-order for Amazon Kindle. This novel reimagines the witch for the War on Terror era, taking the reader on a journey into the heart of darkness that is both human and supernatural.

Here’s the synopsis:

In the violent aftermath of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, a photojournalist arrives to learn the fate of the Witch Doctors, a fabled Army occult warfare unit. Holly believes her father, reported missing in action, ran this mysterious outfit that sought to weaponize black magic to win the War on Terror.

As the Taliban advances and the national government crumbles, Holly makes a harrowing journey into the deep desert to an abandoned base, which houses a terrifying secret. There, along with a group of American ex-soldiers, themselves cursed, she will face the ancient evil the Witch Doctors unleashed…

The terrors that live in the world of the djinn. The horrors that lurk in war itself.

DJINN releases June 16 in eBook and trade paperback exclusively through Amazon. Read by Garrett Michael Brown, the audiobook releases the same date.

You can get it here. I hope you’ll check it out. Thank you for reading!

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, Books, CRAIG'S WORK, Djinn, HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Other History, The Blog

THE WOMAN KING (2022)

February 19, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

THE WOMAN KING (2022) was a delightful surprise for me. While following many script conventions, it didn’t pander on them, focusing on character, empowerment, and heart in a story that delivers action while being packed with integrity.

In the West African kingdom of Dahomey in 1823 (located in what is now Benin), Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) is dragged to the palace by her father and given to the king, as her independent nature made her a poor match for the men courting her. There, she is inducted into the Agojie, an all-female element of the king’s army now preparing for war against the neighboring Oyo Empire, which has been supplied weapons and horses by Portuguese and other slavers. Dahomey has a religion of a male god and a female god, creating a religious precedent for female warriors and at times a female co-king. Nawi discovers what she’s made of in training and in her new relationships with comrades and the commander, General Nanisca (the remarkable Viola Davis). War and the romantic interest of a Portuguese man will put her to the ultimate test, while General Nanisca will have to face her past to become the great leader she is destined to be.

Historically, it’s roughly accurate, as there was an Agojie in the Kingdom of Dahomey, but the Dahomey in the movie is portrayed as rejecting slavery, when in reality they’d become rich on the slave trade and were only forced to stop by the British. I didn’t have a problem with this any more than I had a problem with BRAVEHEART basically inventing Scottish history out of whole cloth. This is clearly an historical epic with a modern sensibility, which is common with movies like these.

I’d mentioned before that the movie otherwise packs a lot of integrity, and I’d like to explain that. Viewers will recognize many conventions of coming-of-age and historical adventure stories, but nothing is annoyingly contrived, and everything rolls out fairly realistically and true to character. The characters are terrific and while many of the character types and travails will feel familiar, they are far more than one note, and the major characters are well developed. This high level of integrity also goes for the film’s themes, as there’s a strong and obvious emphasis on female empowerment, and it’s handled perfectly. Me, I have no problem with a feminist message and in fact applaud it, but as a viewer I want to be shown instead of repeatedly told what to think to cover up for bad scriptwriting. THE WOMAN KING shows us and then trusts us to think for ourselves, which is, in fact, empowering in itself.

Then there’s the action, which is just incredible. A problem with some female (and male too) ass-kickers in action movies is the fight scenes often look highly choreographed with bumbling idiots stumbling into perfect kicks. In THE WOMAN KING, every Agojie even at a glance looks like she will stomp you, and when they’re unleashed in combat, it’s absolutely maniacal while also being believable, as the bad guys look like they’re trying their best. The movie handles that aspect perfectly. And then things all come together for a pretty touching finale that stays focused on the core characters and relationships without anything else forced in to try to satisfy or surprise us.

Overall, THE WOMAN KING is just a terrific, fun, disciplined film with plenty of action and heart. I recommend it.

Filed Under: HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (2022)

February 3, 2023 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Part horror movie and part war movie, the first German adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s best-selling novel, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, is a devastating portrait of warfare in the Great War, in the process making a definitive antiwar statement.

The movie begins with an incredible sequence showing how the war has become a meat grinder, endlessly cycling young men through it. Back home, Paul, a student, hears the strident call to defend the fatherland from annihilation and eagerly signs up along with his friends. Soon, their romantic ideals about the war are shattered as they are forced to fight in muddy, rat-infested trenches and endless seesawing battles that employed new horrific weapons including tanks, howitzers, flamethrowers, and machine guns. As the war winds down, so does Paul’s circle, and we see him going from fighting to win to merely survive and then finally because there is nothing else, a hollowed-out man who lost faith he is ever going home.

The battle sequences are just incredible in this, more horror than war film. You can feel the hopeless resignation even before the whistles blow to charge, and then when things get going, it’s one horror after another until men are slashing each other hand to hand with trenching tools, showing a war in which industrialization stripped away the last vestiges of humanity in it, while also making it incredibly intimate–men killing each other looking into their eyes, feeling horror and remorse while they do it. This a war movie where the gore isn’t horrifying, it’s the meaning invested in it. How pointless it all was.

As an anti-war statement, it’s all here. The old goading the young into battle with romantic notions, the young losing their innocence in horror. The hubris of commanders who fail to see the soldiers as men but instead chess pieces exchanged for a final bit of national honor. The national humiliation at the end that some historians believe seeded the next war. The breakdown of hope and humanity to a level where the soldiers don’t feel like they will ever get home or will know how to go on living with themselves even if they do.

Overall, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is a distinct, powerful, and utterly savage movie providing a fresh reminder that war is hell.

Filed Under: APOCALYPTIC/HORROR, HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies, Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

SAS: ROGUE HEROES

December 19, 2022 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Based on the book by Ben Macintyre, Steven Knight’s SAS: ROGUE HEROES is a BBC historical drama series about the formation of the British Army Special Air Service during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. Infused with modern elements and plenty of energy, the series is a lot of fun, despite the lack of empathy I had for most of the characters.

In the early days of World War II, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, and one of the main theaters of the conflict was North Africa, where General Rommel outclassed the British at maneuver warfare and pushed them to Tobruk, now under siege. When British attempts to relieve the siege fail, British officer David Stirling conceives of a special commando unit that would fight in the enemy’s rear and disrupt supply lines through sabotage and general mayhem. An intelligence effort was underway to convince the Germans the British were doing just that, so populating a fictitious unit with real soldiers seemed a good way to make the intel operation stick. The thing is, the SAS fought well, assaulting multiple airbases and inflicting high losses, resulting in it being recognized as a very real regiment and given broad agency to accomplish its goals by whatever means necessary.

The series is set in a specific period of history, though it feels contemporary, particularly through the use of a heavy metal soundtrack that punches up the action and sets the tone. The war they fight feels lived in and real. The desert landscapes are stunning, the action scenes exciting. As for the soldiers, they’re recruited from among the most violent and cunning misfits the British Army had on hand, men who disparaged regulation and acted on their own initiative. These men were certainly daring, resourceful, cunning, and utterly committed to putting a hurt on Rommel. This makes them a fun bunch to watch in action, though with some reservations, notably that two of the main officers, Stirling and Paddy Mayne, are supposed to be larger than life personalities but act like self-pitying, petulant, and petty man-babies, and while they come across as great commandos, they’re horrible as commanders. Often, they seem to succeed despite trying to fail. Another issue I had with the series is history doesn’t always make great fiction, as characters die or other events happen that nail broadly true events but seem oddly placed in a story.

Overall, I liked the series a lot and look forward to Season 2, which unfortunately from what I hear may not come out until 2024. Mixing a lot of great elements, it offers a historical drama that feels fresh and fun. A perfect diversion after a hard day.

Filed Under: HISTORY, MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE, Movies & TV, Submarines & WW2, The Blog

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