Way Too Late at the Movies: Fat Man and Little Boy

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, bombs called Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seventy-eight years later, I work from home in my basement in Ammon, Idaho, USA, on a job that's still cleaning up the mess made from the creation of those bombs. There's ample work to do; likely to retirement and beyond.

It seems wrong, to earn a living from this destructive force, unleashed needlessly. But, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, "and so it goes."

Today I watched for the first time Fat Man and Little Boy, from 1989. I haven't seen Oppenheimer, put out last year. But this one is enough for me.

This is my favorite scene from the film -- though it's aporchyphal whether part of the Nutcracker Suite was playing during the test -- some report remembering hearing the Star-Spangled Banner being played instead. Part of me thinks that if the story were made up, the teller would have picked a more ominous or forboding piece of music for the tale.

The best aspect of the film overall is the presence of Dwight Schultz, who at the time was much more known for his role in the A-Team.

For a comic actor, he disappears into this more serious role.

Much credit to the screenwriters Bruce Robinson and Roland Joffe, who kept the story moving briskly and didn't dive too much into the minutia. And who knew Ennio Morricone did the soundtrack? Certainly a different style of western for him to consider.