DVDs:

	Thirteen Days (Infinifilm Edition) Shawn Driscoll, Kevin Costner New Line Home Video, 2001 average customer review:based on 244 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The film (and costar-coproducer Kevin Costner) drew criticism for fictionally enhancing the White House role of presidential aide Kenneth O'Donnell, but while Costner's Boston accent may be grating, his fine performance as O'Donnell offers expert witness to the crisis, its nerve-wracking escalation, and the efforts of John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and Robert F. Kennedy (Steven Culp) to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Russia. While Soviet missiles approach operational status in Cuba, director Roger Donaldson (who directed Costner in No Way Out) cuts to exciting U.S. Navy flights over the missile site, ramping up the tension that history itself provided. Donaldson's occasional use of black and white is self-consciously distracting, and he's further guilty of allowing a shrillness (along with repetitive, ominous shots of nuclear explosions) to invade the urgency of David Self's screenplay. Still, as Hollywood history lessons go, Thirteen Days is riveting stuff. You may find yourself wondering what might happen if reality presented a repeat scenario under less intelligent leadership. --Jeff Shannon

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Outstanding film

Historical and New England accent accuracies aside, this was a fabulous cinematic endeavor. I'm no Kennedy fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I am now a Roger Donaldson fan, so put that in your piece pipe and smoke it. Gripping drama. Check it.


13 Days

I'd never heard of this movie until 10 days ago. I'd worn a red CCCP tee to work and one of the guys asked me, "What's the deal with the shirt?" We'd started talking and I'd brought up the subject of the Cuban Missile Crisis. My friend kept mentioning "13 Days". I'd asked him what the movie was about and he told me "The Cuban Missile Crisis"

At he time of the event I was eight years old and I remember it as if it were yesterday. People were, to say the very least, extremely frightened. I remember a Nike missile being set up at the corner of Main and Center Streets in my little town.

I've just finished reading a book called "One Minute To Midnight" by Michael Dobbs (2008) which I'd found absolutely fascinating. Research materials for the book included the latest declassified materials concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis. Friend who served in the military at the time always hold their thumb and index finger about one-eighth of an inch apart while saying, "We were THIS close to global nuclear war."
After reading "One Minute To Midnight" I now say to them, while hold up my hand with my thumb and index finger touching, "No. We were THIS close to the extinction of life as we know it on planet Earth."

I found 13 Days an absolutely absorbing movie with great acting. Overall I find the movie to be historically accurate given research materials available at the time the movie was made. Reading "One Minute To Midnight" absolutely enhanced the viewing of the movie for me and I found that newly revealed details in the book did in no way diminish the events depicted in the movie.

Much has been said about Kevin Costner's character but I found that the character served as a vehicle to link much of the events depicted and to provide perspective. I would not only highly recommend this movie but the book "One Minute To Midnight" as well.

The only thing that I find would have mad the movie better would have been the inclusion of Krushchev and Castro, which would have provided an all-inclusive presentation of events that led the world to the brink of nuclear war.

As it stands the movie is a superb presentation of events that transpired on the American side when the Doomsday Clock was poised to strike midnight.Thirteen Days (Infinifilm Edition)

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Wish President & Congress All Saw This in 2003 Before Iraq II

I saw this film years ago before Iraq War II and was surprised at how well the story was told.

The story follows the crisis from the perspective (generally) of special assistant to the president, Kenneth O'Donnell. This helps us to see things from an "outsider" point of view; that is, we see things inside, but we are not thinking at the level of the President, for instance. It is meant to help us have empathy towards the situation. The storytelling, however, works. You end up getting a sense of urgency and of how important and quickly action and decisions need to be taken.

The pace is pretty fast and the lines are pretty good - and even educational. If you do not know that Defcon 5 means peace time and that Defcon 2 or Defcon 1 is mobilize for war, this movie explains that.

It is also surprisingly not political - or plain wrong and outrageous like Oliver Stone's JFK (also with Kevin Costner). The film tries to paint the historical perspective - which is that at the time, there were many in the US that did NOT like JFK (which most people forget in historical hindsight). The film tries to show the hawkish and antagonistic people vs. JFK and his administration. Yet the film defends those people's point of views as well and at times, shows the sneakiness of JFK and RFK in their own political gaming (intrigue) to keep it balanced and apolitical.

The key takeaway from the entire movie is JFK's desire to avoid a war - which, ultimately, I wish both President and Congress thought that way towards Iraq back in 2003.

There were some "cheesy" cinematic tricks used to try and tell the story - like switching to black and white before returning to color at certain points of the movie - to try and bring the viewer into the sense that this was a historical film. While it didn't take away from the film, I personally thought it wasn't wholly necessary.

But, if you like political history, if you like period films, and if you just like a good film with excellent pacing, this is a great film that can truly be enjoyed again and again.

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Faked Up, But So What?

The Bahston accents are atrocious. The facts are changed. The historical roles inflated. Still, this isn't a documentary. It's a drama, and as such, it's pretty good. The script is relatively intelligent, and although it drops into melodrama in the family scenes of Kenny O'Donnell, it's better than the reviews would indicate. Well worth a rent. Just don't let the kids think this is how it really happened.


reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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recommendations

Books and films I recomend to my IBO students:
War, Westerns, & Easterns: 80's and beyond
American History by Way of Media
MUST SEE MOVIES movies
WHO IS KAREN SHAUB?