Watergate

Yesterday for history I watched a movie called All the Presidents Men which is about the Watergate scandal. I had never really learned that much about Watergate so it was a good way to learn about it. The movie was very well made and the actors were great. It had a very interesting style but it worked for the movie. Anyway Watergate was the event when people were paid by the government to break into the Watergate hotel and bug the rooms that were being used by high up democrats. Once they were caught there was a huge rush to cover it up, a rush that involved the president of the united states, Richard Nixon. Lots of people initially denied any affiliation with the Watergate scandal but eventually people started talking and the truth came out. When the facts were released President Nixon was forced to resign his place in the White House.

Book Review - Parallel Journeys

I found this book really interesting and very enjoyable. It was the story of World War 2 told from the perspective of the two different authors, Alfons Heck and Helen Waterford. Alfons Heck was a young German lad during the war and he was very active in the Hitler Youth program. He was extremely supportive of Hitler and was caught up in all the anti Semitic propaganda. He believed that Germans truly were a superior race and deserved to have what they wanted. Helen on the other hand was a Jew who was just trying to escape the war safely with her husband and daughter. They moved to Holland and they were safe there for a little while. But the impending doom coming from the Germans forced Helen and her husband to send their daughter Doris to live with a dutch family where she would be safe. Over the course of the book we follow the paths of each character and get to see the effects of the war from two different points of view. Eventually both of the authors ended up meeting in America and traveled around telling their stories and ultimately writing a book. However the fact that they now know each other invalidates the title of this book, if they have a meeting point, their paths can not truly be parallel. That's my only complaint.

Movie Review - Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is a historical war film that takes place in 1944 after the allied Invasion of Normandy. It is considered to be one of the best, most accurate war films ever made. I would have to agree with that statement, it was truly stunning. Another thing this movie has going for it is a big name cast, Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Vin Diesel and many other sensational actors. Saving Private Ryan was nominated for 11 academy awards and was able to win 5 of those. Along with those awards, Saving Private Ryan sneaks just inside the top 30 films according to IMDB. I would categorize this film as a work of art. From the acting, to the scenery, as well as the story line and music. Everything tied together to really make this one of the best films ever made.

Movie Review - Hidden Figures

This movie will definitely be one that is remembered for a long time. Hidden Figures is a film, directed by Theodore Melfi, about 3 black women named Katherine Johnson (Taraji P Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), who were extremely instrumental to NASA in the space race. Katherine Johnson was a calculator genius that did all the complex mathematics for the program and help figure out landing zones, reentry points and other extremely important information. Dorothy Vaughan was the supervisor of the colored woman division of NASA and she eventually became the head of the computer program. She taught herself how to work the new IBM machine and made herself and the other colored women irreplaceable. Mary Jackson helped in the wind tunnels of NASA with a man named Kazimierz Czarnecki, he encouraged her to take night classes so that she could qualify for an engineer position at NASA. The only place that offered those was an all white high school, but Mary Jackson was able to get a petition to be allowed into the school, and she would go on to be the first black female engineer at NASA. All around this was a very inspiring movie about going above and beyond what people expect from you and the potential people see in you.  This film was a excellent balance of an engaging story line, humor, tension, historic accuracy and a bit of cinimatic extra plot.
 

Movie Review - Dirty Dozen

This movie is definitely a classic of the cinema world. The plot of the movie is that there is a very strict army Major that has been tasked with the job of commanding a group of no-good deadbeat, bad soldiers. All 12 of his soldiers have been charged with crimes in the army and have either been sentenced to hanging or life in prison. The only way they can get out of their sentence is to cooperate for the Major. Throughout the movie they overcome challenges such as some of the people wanting to run away, demanding warm water for shaving, and other instances of entitlement. But the dirty dozen, as they are called by everyone else in the army, start to come together and soon become one of the best groups in the army. I really enjoyed this movie, everyone loves a good underdog story. There was a lot of character development as the 12 men learned to trust the Major and to trust each other.

A Boys War - David Michell

This book was about the Weihsien Concentration Camp. It was mostly told from the perspective of David Michell who was a survivor of the camp. David Michell was 11 when he was captured along with everyone at the mission school he was attending. In the book David Michell talked about how he and his school friends were huge fans of the Olympic runner Eric Liddell, which is a cool detail because later in the book Eric Liddell ended up in the Weihsien Camp. He was like a father/uncle to all the young children there. Sadly Eric Liddell didn't make it out of the Weihsien Camp. He passed away in 1945, only 5 months before the camp was liberated. He wrote to his wife and said that he had a nervous breakdown due to over work. But actually he had a brain tumor that couldn't be operated on. And his death was hastened by the amount of work he was doing. I found this book really interesting in the way it told about the lifestyle of the camp, how they people survived and how they were able to maintain and strengthen their great faith through it all.

Movie Review: The Right Stuff

Last week I watched a movie called The Right Stuff. It was about the original 7 astronauts of NASA. The movie started out with Charles (Chuck) Yeager breaking the sound barrier. Which was the most advanced feat of airplanes at that time. We learned more about the test pilots that risked their lives every day to push the limits of how fast, high, and far humans can go. Then a new challenge came for the airmen, space travel. Russia had successfully launched the first ship into space and America quickly started a program to get humans ready to be launched into orbit. Men from all over the country were put through test of physical, emotional, and metal stress to see who would be up to the challenge of going to outer space. Finally NASA chose their seven men. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Those members did many things for NASA, the went up to space in many different classes of rocket. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle. The movie did a really good job of showing how big of a deal this all was to the United States at the time. And they did exceptionally well on how taxing of a lifestyle it was for those families.