Tuned In

And Speaking of Iraq…

… did any Tuned Inlanders catch the last installment of HBO’s House of Saddam? Judging from the underwhelming response my review got, I’m guessing not. But maybe it was just the review. As I wrote then, I admired but was not especially captivated by the miniseries, partly because it simply dramatized a lot of events already familiar from the news, partly because I didn’t feel it shed much light on Saddam himself, other than some stabs at unhappy-childhood / pushy-mother psychologizing. 

But of the two nights, the second was the more interesting to me, because it focused on some of the less-hashed-over parts of his life–the period between the two wars with the U.S., and his exploits in hiding before he was pulled out of his spider hole. (Shame there was no chance for a Generation Kill cast cross-over.) Did anyone here stick it out, like him, to the bitter end?

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  • sulliclm

    James – I actually got sucked into this last night, partly b/c as you said the second half was a little interesting given how recent the events were. I’d agree with your review that they move pretty quickly given the time constraints and thus it tended to be more of a high level summary of things. I thought it was done pretty well, but maybe I’m alone here, but did you think it came off as a bit sympathetic to Saddam at the end? I know you need to humanize the subjects, but I thought they may have made a few people seem better than they were. I mean Qusay is portrayed as this reluctant entrant into his father’s world of violence, and in the end is shown as a loving father defending himself. From everything I’ve read the guy was just as bad as Saddam.

    On a lighter note that would’ve been great if there had been generation kill cross over. That would’ve been cool if the Godfather had met Saddam…

  • http://www.simonvinkenoog.nl/beeld/Yogi%20-%20Annelies%20Rigter.jpg yogi

    I thought it sounded pretty interesting, but alas, I don’t have HBO, so I’ll have to wait for it to come out on DVD. Although, I am curious, was this in English or Arabic. I think I’d enjoy it more if it was in Arabic with English subtitles, but that’d probably piss off illiterate America.

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