Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Untold History Of The United States

I love Oliver Stone movies. Love them. NATURAL BORN KILLERS is one of my favourite movies. I posted a few days ago we had re-watched JFK after watching a doc on Jimmy Hoffa. And then a comment on that post saying "I wouldn't trust Stone for my view of history" is one I thought..."of course not, he's not for history, he's for profound character study within fiction. Right, I get that". I had noticed that Oliver Stone had a series on Showtime. I for some reason....just assumed it was a conspiracy show or something and that I wouldn't be interested. This is weird I thought that since I love his movies...but I just didn't put it into my queue. So....after my post the other day I thought..."hey maybe I should see what that Showtime Oliver Stone series is about....." Well, it's hardboiled brilliantly edited stone cold "untold history of United States" ZOWIE! It's fucking awesome! I love the pace, the juxtaposition of images going into events and their timing. The series begins with WW2. I'm on episode 4....just after the bomb has been dropped and the Cold War is pounding away within the paranoid minds of United States culture. Fascinating. I had no idea that Truman was such an unqualified weasel! He probably shouldn't have even been President! And he was brought to office by a cabal similar to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and Koch Brothers. Wow! Stone massively rejects David McCullam's biography. (and the Gary Sinise HBO series based on that book) . This series is like the movie SYRIANA...and I can't believe it was allowed to be made and the producers weren't assassinated. I thought when Stone rejected the mainstream version of Trumans presidency I thought my head would explode. I really am impressed by the style and format and pace of the series...as well as it's radical focus on connections and childhood wounds played out by adults. This is a must see series along the lines of Howard Zinn's masterpiece "A People's History Of The United States".

Some reviews:

1) NYTs

2) Daily Beast

3) The Guardian
generated by sloganizer.net