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Reviews
The Beginning or the End (1947)
Not bad for a docu-drama
For a 1947 release, it wasn't a bad film. Lots of propaganda, especially at the end, but until then it the film moves along.
Brian Donlevy plays a passable Gen. Groves although Donlevy was much trimmer than the real Groves.
Many technical inaccuracies, although they were probably intentional, such as the amount of fissionable material used and the size and shape of the Trinity unit and the "Fatman" bomb used on Hiroshima.
TiVO rating gave it three stars out of four, but I'd rank it just a shade below average because of the shmaltzy letter from the dead young husband at the end.
If you know your character actors, you'll love the film. They must have used every male character actor in Hollywood at the time. You'll recognize faces from such diverse roles as heavies in Three Stooges shorts to actors with recurring roles in Hopalong Cassidy films.
NTSB: The Crash of Flight 323 (2004)
This movie crashed and burned long before the plane went down
In the first 20 minutes, every cliche possible was trotted out by the hack writer and director. There was the NTSB primary investigator with the tortured family life; the politically-tortured NTSB board member played by [I can kill ANY TV] Ted McGinley; the tortured father of a crash victim; and the torturing sleazy ambulance-chasing lawyer.
Hollywood still has no concept of the fragility of aircraft. The crashed plane was a 737 and it was mostly sitting on the ground like a hippo who decided to take a nap. The first third of the fuselage was intact, the rear half of the plane was intact and the debris field showed no wings or engines. Most of the people should have walked away in light of how many people survived that plane that got shredded in Iowa after it lost its hydraulics. Most of this TV plane wasn't even burned.
It reminded me of the scene in "Air Force One" where the 747 hits the water and then skips along like it's made of inch-thick steel.
The show was so bad it was impossible to watch. Even my wife, who is more accepting than I, was commenting on technical flaws. What had me stunned was how this POS could ever get made. Are the producers of these things so used to clichés that they can't even recognize them? Somebody read this script and said: Yes, I want to spend a million bucks making this real. I wish I was the guy's next appointment. I have title to a wonderful bridge in New York that I'd sell cheap.