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American Experience: Hawaii's Last Queen (1997)
Another indigenous culture is consumed by U.S. colonial expansion.
This is a very sad story of how the United States stole the Hawaiian Islands from their people. The actions taken by Americans in Hawaii and in the US Government might have seemed acceptable during the period of imperialism and colonialism, but today those events seem reprehensible to me.
I had read and heard a few things about the events leading to the U.S. annexation of Hawaii, but this movie put it into perspective.
Think of this movie as the opposite of Anna and the King - The queen was not able to save her country and her people from foreign colonization.
Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death (2003)
If you studied Latin, you may like this...
This drama documentary was included as a DVD extra on Pompeii: The Last Day (2003) TV. I started watching it with little expectations and actually ended up liking it better than the main movie on the DVD.
One of the main reasons I enjoyed Coloseum: A Gladiator's Story is that the spoken dialog was in Latin. I studied Latin in High School, but have never heard it spoken on screen before. I think the movie would be understandable to someone who did not study Latin, as the narration is in English.
I liked the references to Martial (who I have not read) and Seutoneus (who I am just starting to read).
This story was not just about Gladiators, but about the political climate of the time and the reasons for building the Flavian Amphitheatre (known today as the Colosseum).