September 13, 20178 yr comment_774458 Ken Burns' 10-part, 18-hour The Vietnam War begins to air this Sunday, so don't forget to set your DVRs! http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/ The early buzz is that it is outstanding. I'm more excited for it than I have been for anything on television this year. Soundtrack by Reznor and Atticus Ross should be interesting as well. - The New Yorker did a nice profile on Ken Burns ahead of the series premier that is also worth reading. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/ken-burns-american-canon Report
September 14, 20178 yr comment_774521 I like everything Ken Burns does. Thanks for the heads up. Looking forward to it. Report
September 18, 20178 yr comment_774737 Just to point out that the PBS Video app has all 10 episodes up now, in both the broadcast version, and the explicit language version.The Colonel Kurtz quote seems appropriate. Report
September 18, 20178 yr comment_774740 I've been waiting for this for months. Loved most of his other Docs and PBS Newshour has been hyping me up about it for the last few weeks. Report
September 25, 20178 yr Author comment_775157 I'm caught up now through episode 6 which aired last night and covered the Tet Offensive and the first half of 1968. Boy, it took a few episodes but the series has really grabbed me. I went to bed last night feeling ashamed to be an American. 1968 really was a terrible year. The futility and waste of everything that had happened up to that point coupled with the realization that the war still has another FIVE YEARS left to run is pretty crushing. I feel terrible for the suffering of the people of South Vietnam. Edited September 25, 20178 yr by TMoney Report
September 29, 20178 yr Author comment_775463 I finished the final episode last night. Wow, that was some powerful stuff. The discussion of the Vietnam Memorial in particular is as emotional as anything I've seen on TV in quite a while. Have the tissue-box ready. Bravo to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Really outstanding work. I especially enjoyed how personal the interviews were, particularly the interviews with the Vietnamese. A lot of the most poignant moments of the documentary are theirs, and the documentary is so much richer with their participation that it would have been without it. The other real standout for me is seeing the color video that accompanied the most iconic photographs of the war. It is often as shocking and unsettling to see the video for the first time as it was to see the photos in the first place. My parents, who were both born in 1955 and were old enough to remember but young enough to have not gone/protested tell me the documentary has been quite hard for them to watch. Report
September 29, 20178 yr comment_775478 Impressive that you got through it already. Isn't it 18 hours total? I'm on episode 4, so it'll be awhile before I finish. Report
September 30, 20178 yr comment_775497 Same here (ep 4 I think), and I too agree with your assessment regarding what we put the Vietnamese people thru... fucked up. Report
October 22, 20178 yr comment_776927 Ah...well.....those Vietcong, there was once a beautiful Saigon, and now it is just another 3rd world country HCM city....what a shame Report
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