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Hot Topics

HNN Hot Topics: Hollywood & the Movies

Commentary: Historians

  • Thomas Doherty: The Last Bow for 35mm Film (2-20-12)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: If History is Any Judge, the History Movie is a Big Winner at Oscar Time (2-20-12)
  • Bruce Chadwick: History Films Are Back at the Oscars (2-20-12)
  • Tom Engelhardt: How the Movies Saved My Life (11-17-11)
  • Wayne Federman: What Reagan Did for Hollywood (11-14-11)
  • James Shapiro: Hollywood Dishonors the Bard (10-16-11)
  • Albert Auster and Leonard Quart: Hollywood in Iraq (4-21-11)
  • Kiernan Bagge: Hollywood and Its Relationship with History (02-13-11)
  • Thomas Doherty: Hollywood’s Take on Islam (11-2-10)
  • Ron Radosh: Oliver Stone’s Latest Travesty (10-19-10)
  • James Livingston: Rummaging in The Hurt Locker for a Moral Equivalent of War (4-19-10)
  • Michael C. Scott: Hollywood’s Obsession with the Ancient Epics (3-22-10)
  • The Saga of the Warner Brothers, Hollywood's Studio Family (3-14-10)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: Punish Torture? Hollywood's Answer (4-27-09)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: Ronald Reagan and the Day the Earth Stood Still (12-29-08)
  • Paul Boyer: How Movies Help Elucidate U.S. Nuclear History (11-1-08)
  • Aaron Gerow: What Are Japanese Fantasy Films Telling Us? (2-26-06)
  • Gordon Arnold: The Strange Afterlife of the Vietnam War (8-19-06)
  • David McNeill: Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima (2-12-06)
  • Jeremy Black: What We Can Learn from James Bond? (1-24-06)
  • Jennifer Gaboury: Women Warriors Are the Rage in Hollywood--But What Was the Truth? (9-7-04)
  • Thomas Palaima: The Difference Between Hollywood's Troy and Homer's (5-18-04)
  • Rick Shenkman: How Hollywood Imagines American Presidents (10-22-03)

    • Film Reviews

  • Bruce Chadwick: Red Tails: World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen Fly Again in Film and on Stage but Much History is Ignored (1-30-12)
  • Lee P. Ruddin: The Devil's Double (10-11-11)
  • Lee P. Ruddin: Of Gods and Men (2-17-11)
  • Ron Briley: The Conspirator: Film and Historical Truth (2-6-11)
  • NYT: Finding the Humanity in the F.B.I.’s Feared Enforcer (11-8-11)
  • Salon: Made in Dagenham: A patronizing film about working-class feminism (11-18-10)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: What Happened to Our Money? Oliver Stone Returns to Wall Street (10-3-10)
  • Richard Bernstein: Sadism Gets a Pass at the Movies (a review of Inglorious Basterds) (9-9-09)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: W.: History and Psychology from Oliver Stone (10-26-08)
  • Anthony B. Toth: Disney's Hidalgo: A New Hollywood Low (3-31-08)
  • Jonathan Dresner: How True to History is Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai? (8-8-05)
  • Timothy R. Furnish: Kingdom of Heaven: What Parts Are Real? (5-16-05)
  • Tom Engelhardt: The Iraq War: The Movie (And Why It Is Such a Dud) (5-26-03)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: Why Gangs of New York Doesn't Deserve an Oscar (3-13-03)

    • History Movie/Movie History News

  • Meryl Streep film The Iron Lady is criticised by Margaret Thatcher's biographer (12-16-11)
  • Christian Bale defends 'Rape of Nanjing' film (12-12-11)
  • Lost Alfred Hitchcock film found in New Zealand (8-3-11)
  • Hollywood turns to history (7-22-11)
  • Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy (5-9-11)
  • Why is King John always the villian in movies? Because he really was awful, say historians (3-1-11)
  • World War II-Era Film in NLM Collection Named to National Film Registry (6-6-11)
  • Making Hollywood Films Was Brutal, Even for Fritz Lang (1-23-11)
  • The silence of the silent movies (7-8-10)
  • Portraits of Hollywood’s Founding Power Players (11-1-10)
  • The 10 most historically inaccurate movies (8-4-09)
  • Top 10 Movies About Academic Life (6-2-09)
  • High Noon, Godfather II, Grand Illusion, and 22 other indispensable movies for understanding war and diplomacy (5-4-09)
  • Nixon and the movies (1-23-09)
  • How the Movies Made a President (1-16-09)
  • Howard Zinn dismisses trivial in history movies (1-16-09)
  • Frost/Nixon critic: Movies no place to learn real history (12-2-08)
  • 10 most historically inaccurate movies (3-29-08)
  • Can movies teach us about African-American history? (2-7-08)
  • The Afterlife Is Expensive for Digital Movies (12-23-07)
  • The History of Surf Movies (6-1-07)
  • The day Hollywood sent James Stewart to a brothel to make a man of him (11-5-06)
  • AHA explains why film reviews have been suspended at the AHR (5-1-06)
  • How Ray Allen Billington Picks the Movies Listed as Historic by the Library of Congress (2-5-04)
  • Patrick Rael: Gods and Generals is Good Hollywood -- Don't Go See It (2-24-03)
  • Hollywood: 3 Top Movie Myths About Pearl Harbor (8-27-02)

    • Books

  • Jim Cullen: Review of Steven J. Ross's "Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics" (Oxford, 2011) (12-20-11
  • Ron Briley: Review of Jennifer Frost's "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism" (New York University Press, 2011) (7-13-11)
  • Andrew Feffer, Review of Robert Brent Toplin's "History by Hollywood" (University of Illinois Press, 2010) (6-27-10)