Filmmaking, especially good filmmaking, can be incredibly powerful, especially because for every person that reads a book about Pearl Harbor, for example, many thousands will watch the film. (I don’t actually regard Pearl Harbor as being that bad, historically, it’s not my cup-of-tea but I can see its popular appeal.)

I agree. PH wasn’t supposed to be any more than it was:a romance set against an actual event. Hardly new, it’s been done many, many times before. Even the overly revered Battle of Britain had a romance of sorts…but the WAAF would rather watch the bombing than go to bed with her husband (and I thought English women were a bit more romantic than that.. 🙂 ).
I do get tired of people complaing about it…yes, it wasn’t The World at War, (and Yes, the Spits were mis-marked, etc, etc. ) but it hopefully taught some people something about the war that otherwise they wouldn’t have known. No harm in that.

I do worry a bit about films like JFK, and the people (especially outside the U.S.) who don’t do the research… It’s one thing to make a honest mistake (or necessary technical error…Merlin powered Bf-109s) but to go out of your way to twist facts and not give any other viewpoints or lable it as “one wackjob’s theory” goes a bit too far.
But then again…it’s a free country. 😀

And I gave up waiting on a UK, French or USSR/Russian version of Dr. Strangelove a long time ago…it seems most countries don’t go out of their way to bash their government and policies on film like Hollywood does.…