Documentary: Harry Potter Kids: Biography

Harry Potter Kids: Biography: Reveal the Magic Behind the Success of the Harry Potter Stars A&E  2008.

This is a good documentary to say where the Harry Potter Kids are from, but I was hoping for something about where they are now.  In this I was disappointed.  I guess I should have realized this from the elongated title; and also from the date the movie came out.  It predates the finish of the Harry Potter series.   However, only Daniel Radcliffe had previous movie acting experience.  He had portrayed the young David Copperfield in a movie made the year previous to harry Potter.  Emma Watson and Rupert Grint had stage experience, at school and community theater, but had never been in movies prior to Harry Potter.  It interviewed each of the three about getting the parts.  Looking back now, these three are the characters, harry Potter, Hermione and Ron Weasley.  So in the end, a good bit of data about how they were cast, and nothing of their life after Harry Potter.

Documentary Review: Haunted History: Tombstone

This is a 2000 presentation from the History Channel, A&E.
In learning about the ghosts of a community, you also learn about the stories behind the ghosts.  Tombstone was a short lived town in terms of its heyday.  Now it is a tourist town living on the history of those few years in the 1880s.  Of course the most famous incident was the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  This set  a group of spirits, some who do not want to go away.  However there were also jilted lovers, one who shot his girlfriend, and then killed himself.  He had worked for nine months making money so as to marry his girl, and when he returned she had a different boy.  She was only 17 at the time.  He thought he had inflicted a mortal wound to the girlfriend, but she recovered.
Another was a jilted lover, who knew her man was having a fling with another woman.  She worked in a show, but would get away and check on her man.  One day she caught the other woman on his lap.  She said, I am going to cut your heart out, and took a knife and attempted to do just that.  She inflicted a mortal wound to the girl, stabbing her in the heart.  There is a boarding house which was for men only.  It still is not advised that women sleep in this residence because of the animosity of the male spirits.  And then finally an opera house, which produces plays today.  They deal with almost daily mischief from the ghostly visitors.  On one occasion a malevelant ghost went after the owner by choking him.  However usually the ghosts are harmless.

Biographical Documentary Review: Thurgood Marshall Justice For All

Thurgood Marshall Justice For All, 2010. A&E Biography

This film was produced for the biography series.  Contrary to Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall was a champion of civil rights in the courts.  He had attended black schools throughout his life, including law school.  He attended Howard University Law School and graduated top of his class. 

After graduating he became associated with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  He represented them as their lawyer.  In this role, he was able to influence the courts to rule against segregation.  One of his major goals was to end segregation in schools, arguing there is no such thing as “separate but equal.”  He did eventually accomplish this.  However, after the adoption of desegregation he had to convince people to obey the law.  Eventually President Eisenhower had to call out the National Guard to help in this regard. 

President Kennedy nominated Marshall for appointment as a federal judge.  President Johnson would nominate him as the first African American Justice on the Supreme Court.  His nomination was supported broadly, however he was a very liberal voice on the court, believing the constitution to be a living and faulty document with need of amendment to promote civil rights and the freedoms first envisioned.