Customer Reviews

10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America (History Channel)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love these documentaries. I don't quite understand the viewpoint of the other review. I work in the film industry and these docs are extremely well made by the best directors in documentary filmmaking.

They picked days in history that lead up to great events - turning points. They highlighted parts of our history that we rarely hear about in school or otherwise and I found them fascinating. My husband and I watched them together and would have wonderful discussions afterward. The subject matter was thought provoking and I felt showed how events from our past affect the future.

Each one was done in a different style with a different director. It seemed to me that content dictated the each style - very well executed. I highly recommend these films. Bravo!

I teach US History I & II and this 3-disc DVD set is a great supplement for my curriculum. The episodes are 30-40 minutes, which are a perfect lengths for my classes. The segments are age-appropriate and not too boring for high school students. This is a must-have whether you teach US I or II.

This is very well done. I was able to show my classes the McKinley Assassination after catching this epeisode on TV. The students found it interesting and it definitly kept their attention. The portrayal of the famous people are genuine and helps you understand the importance of the event. Recommended addition for the US History classroom.

As a high school teacher I was looking for a quality video to supplement my lecture and this fit the bill perfectly.Easy to follow and my students realy found each lesson enriching.

The segments are a great companion to embed into my US History class. I usually teach about the subject and use the visuals to re-teach. The HS students enjoy them.

I watched these documentaries on the History Channel, so my comments do not apply to any extra material on the DVDs.

Let me start by saying that I am a fan of the History Channel, and generally enjoy their presentations. I looked forward to "10 Days," and watched it each night. Despite the evocative title, and the exciting events they cover, these documentaries are the worst sort of pedestrian filmmaking I have seen on the History Channel.

The only episodes with any interesting content are those covering the McKinley assassination and Shay's Rebellion. These are interesting both for the relative obscurity of the events they cover, and for the presence of Sarah Vowell's comments in the former, and Bill Plympton's animation in the latter.

As for the others, anyone with any familiarity with the events depicted will learn nothing new from these films. They are dull and hackneyed, showing no filmmaking style, nothing but the most basic facts, and no insightful analysis. "Massacre at Mystic" was particularly poor, repeating every exhausted cliche about the noble American Indian and the rapacious English, and offering little information about the event itself. The others were little better.

This series was a great disappointment. The only person who could benefit from it would be someone who had never seen any historical documentaries, was utterly ignorant of American history, and who was willing to swallow a lot of tired and conventional analysis mixed with sparse presentation of fact.

I might be bias, but this show is very special to me. One of the 10 days featured in the series was my birthday, September 9th, 1956, so it was wonderful to have the era (and year) documented in such an outstanding and informative way. I've always told friends that that day would always be remembered for the Elvis appearance on Sullivan, though I never thought it would be lauded in such a historic way. I believe the entire series was informative and I'm glad I now have the DVD to pass on to family members.

I've only watched part of this tape so far, but enjoyed it very much. I think my students will enjoy watching it in class.

These movies are very interesting and broken up in great 'chapters'. They are not the event that you would think and you get a good glimpse at each historical event.

Only one really caught my attention in this series, the Antietam bit and the Gettysburg address. It was quite interesting, the pictures were good and the voice overs were spot on to what I would expect. The rest of the mini series had me scratching my head and turning off the show before it was over. It made no sense to me, totally off from what I was expecting. You wouldn't even see anything from what they were talking about, just the before and after. Like the Evlis bit, they talked about rock n roll before Elvis then after but they didn't show the moment that he changed tv and rock n roll. Everything seemed pointless, a waste of time.

Some of the topics make sense when it comes to changing the world and the people in it but the director and writers did such a piss poor job getting it through to us, it was like getting a tooth pulled just to watch it. If they want people to be interested in different things History related, make it a little more interesting, please!