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Modern Marvels: Power Tools (2021)
Don't Waste Your Time
Remember when Modern Marvels presented educational content and competent narration with very little emotional inflection? Well, you're better off going back to the Modern Marvels of the past to get that because you'll find none of it here.
In this episode, your narrator is also your host, and speaks as if he's talking to a class of eight-year-olds. Furthermore, you're not five minutes into the show and it feels as if you mistakenly found an infomercial where a documentary was supposed to be. Although there are moments when some truly tasty bits of information are presented, it's there only to keep you interested so as they can continue to tell you about the fine job DeWalt does in the manufacturing of power tools.
Impossible Engineering: Dubai's Impossible Island (2020)
A Real Pity
This episode should have had the title "The Most Frivolous Use of Impossible Engineering"; making a man-made island to extend Dubai's beaches (and, by the looks of it, a whole 100 yards) whose sole purpose is to pander to the wealthy and create yet another "top this" tourist attraction. But I suppose when you have money to burn, there is "no limit to your freedom of thinking" as Mohammad al Mulla succinctly put it ( I almost died laughing hearing that his name was "all mula"). It is a shame that a lot of good engineering and construction went in to build something so incredibly pointless. It proves the point that, with enough money, you can do anything your wild imagination comes up with.
Without Remorse (2021)
Let's Take A Great Novel and Make a Crap Movie Out of It!!!
I really shouldn't write a review for this movie because I haven't watched nor will I. I read the synopsis both here and on Wikipedia and, with the exception of a few names and the fact that the main character is a SEAL, this movie is NOTHING like the book! I know because I'm currently finishing the last few pages of it and it is one of the best novels that Tom Clancy had ever written. Whatever possessed the idiots to convert a real gem into a piece of tinted glass is beyond me, and it is my opinion that these same idiots should be taken out and horse-whipped without remorse - they've earned it.
Mayday (2003)
Educational and Entertaining But ....
Overall, this series is well done; it plays out like murder mysteries (which, in many cases, is what aviation accidents are) but it isn't too hard to figure out where their budget went - special effects.
Some of the crashes depicted are quite spectacular and very well done but the fact that most of the money went into these, the acting and script writing were, more often than not, deplorable. And one would think that after twenty seasons (a clear indication that it had reached a large audience), it would have gotten better over time; not in this case.
Finally, just to give a clue about the script writing, one can anticipate the following key words to appear in almost every episode: "pressure", "fast", "answers", and "why".
The Anderson Tapes (1971)
Quincy Jones Laughed All The Way To The Bank!
I think I got about a half an hour into the movie when I finally had had enough of the soundtrack: beeps and boops and electronic garbage noise just became too much the distraction. I have no doubt that Quincy Jones had a big laugh doing that soundtrack.
Enterprise: Storm Front, Part II (2004)
A History of Errors
Clearly the writers of this episode knew more about science fiction than world history. Reed explains that Lenin was assassinated in 1916 and that it left a vacuum in leadership; that is quite unlikely as that Leon Trotsky most certainly would have stepped in to fill Lenin's shoes. Furthermore, Germany never really saw Russia as a threat (at least not a big one) even when Stalin was its leader. In fact, Germany saw Russia as a target; "Lebensraum" (living space) for the German people as per Hitler's "Mein Kampf" doctrine (they were eventually going to attack Russia no matter who was in charge).
Also, Reed mentions how Germany took over France, then Belgium and The Netherlands, before overrunning England. In reality, the French Maginot Line was a major obstacle to a German attack from the east and that's why Germany attacked The Netherlands and Belgium first (and in that order) so as to mount a much easier invasion of France from the north. In addition to which, Germany had already been concentrating on the west long before training its sights on Russia (who happened to be an ally at the time).
Finally, Germany was unable to invade Great Britain because they could neither attain air superiority nor mount a massive amphibious invasion force, and if the mere 21 to 350 miles of the English Channel posed as an insurmountable obstacle, crossing the 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean would have been next to impossible. But even if the impossible were possible, it is doubtful that the United States would have happily sat on its hands while Germany sailed across the Atlantic with conquest in mind. In short, even in "re-writing history", the writers of this episode managed to get it wrong.