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This week the movie "Veronica Guerin" hits theaters across the country. It's the story of an Irish reporter who, through assiduous reporting and extraordinary courage, tracked down and exposed the drug lords who were turning Dublin into a war zone in the mid 1990s. But veteran Irish journalist Ed Moloney tells Brooke that it was Guerin's murder in 1996, rather than her years of a crusading journalism, that spurred Ireland to crack down on the drug trade.
In yet another attempt to hold the attention of the flitting remote-controllers, NBC is inserting original programming into its commercial breaks this fall. The "mini-movies" will be chopped into 30-second halves that will air at separate times throughout the night. Paris Barclay co-produced the shorts, and joins Bob to discuss them.
Twenty-five years ago this month, a ground-breaking mini-series about the Holocaust was broadcast on network television. Since then, numerous movies have been made about the Holocaust, but their treatments of the subject have varied widely. WNYC's Sara Fishko traces the evolution of the Holocaust film over the past quarter-century.
At the same time that events on the battlefields of WWII were being documented by newspapers and radio, Hollywood was re-framing the wartime sentiments of the homefront. In his recent memoir - "Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip"- film critic Richard Schickel examines the myths that wartime America built for itself on the silver screen. He goes over some of his favorite clips with Brooke.
Two weeks before bombs started falling on Baghdad, documentary filmmaker Jon Alpert recorded a real-time conversation between a group of young Americans and their peers in Iraq. The result was "Bridge to Baghdad," a rare glimpse into the lives of regular Iraqis. Bob talks with Alpert about the production, and about why the film isn't being shown in the U.S.
When a couple of Dutch filmmakers set out to make a documentary about North Korea, they were able to gain access to the country only by posing as part of a scientific delegation eager to see the glories of Pyongyang. The trip footage these "tourists" brought back reveals little about the reality of this impoverished nation…but then there's the narration. Director Peter Tetteroo tells Brooke about the clash of words and images in his film "Welcome to North Korea."
Nearly five decades since he first stomped across the silver screen, the rampaging reptile is still going strong. This winter, to the delight of a select number of film enthusiasts, the 26th Godzilla movie opened in Tokyo. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports on the remarkable persistence of the Godzilla franchise.
The Oscars are just around the corner, but for those filmmakers with more independent proclivities, the year's biggest soiree is already history. Screenwriter Cami Dalavigne arrived at this year's Sundance Film Festival with a movie to screen, a script to pitch….and a tape recorder. She brings us this report from the storied valleys of Park City, Utah.
