As we close up another week together on Planet Earth, I thought you might like to hear about dramatic Netflix productions highlighting two of the worst things that ever happened on our shared planet: (1) the Holocaust, and (2) the asteroid collision that caused the extinction of almost all of the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A two-and-a-half-hour movie starring Russell Crowe as the Nazi second-in-command and war criminal Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, and Rami Malek as the US Army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, tasked with analyzing him to confirm he would be fit to stand trial at the Nuremburg Trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was educational and heartbreaking. Despite the hype around Crowe’s performance implying otherwise, the story is Dr. Kelley’s. In order to get Goering to trust him, Kelley spent thousands of hours interviewing him, finding ways to connect and empathize with him – arguably one of the most evil persons in the history of mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of the acting was outstanding. But even more important was the educational element. I especially appreciated the cuts to actual footage from the Nuremburg Trials, demonstrating that they had staged it accurately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The educational element may have slowed down the story a bit, especially given its length, so Wiki’s classification as a “psychological thriller historical drama film” may be a little generous. It’s definitely the second half of that description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our household rating: \ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 4-episode docuseries narrated by Morgan Freeman. Do you even need more than that? How about “produced by Stephen Spielberg”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, this series was visually stunning. The live-footage landscapes were breathtaking. The CGI elements, other than the dinosaurs and their contemporaries, included Flora, representations of major extinction-level Earth events, and a neat signal of the passage of time where the episodes used different “camera angle” (not a real camera, lol) strategies to imply that the Earth was spinning at warp speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was also incredibly educational and engaging. For comparison, I love David Attenborough nature documentaries, but I can zone them out and focus on, say, writing a blog post with it playing in the background. Freeman’s voice is no less soothing than Attenborough’s, but the content was so interesting that I had a hard time looking away from the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc4d\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e\ud83d\udc3e Another 4-thumbs-8-paws-up rating from us. The doggies would have raised more paws if they had them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We highly recommend both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As we close up another week together on Planet Earth, I thought you might like to hear about dramatic Netflix productions highlighting two of the worst things that ever happened on our shared planet: (1) the Holocaust, and (2) the asteroid collision that caused the extinction of almost all of the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n