[Is my lipstick on straight? Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking first pics on the moon in Apollo 11. Houston, there's no Fotomat around here!]
From 2019: «Apollo 11». It’s the 50th anniversary, in case you hadn’t heard, of humans on the moon, so this is an appropriate thing to do. We missed it on IMAX back in March, but it’s still pretty awesome on a home UHF bigscreen.
The synopsis:
“A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.”
—TMDb
And CMP Michael Collins, it should be added.
It’s a magnificent bit of cinema and well-worth watching, especially on this day. It freshly reminds you of just exactly how incredible the achievement of half-a-billion people, represented by three men, was, in an incredibly difficult decade.
This one also stands out because of fresh, never-released footage and the filmmakers’ approach.
Sandra Hall «noted» its rejection of typical documentary or cinema techniques which would have landed it solidly in the middle of the pack of 50-year anniversary docs:
“Miller uses no voiceover. Nor are there contemporary interviews looking back on the mission and its legacy. Thanks to the vividness of the footage and some inspired editing, he has succeeded in recapturing the atmosphere of the time. The air of immediacy he’s conjured up entices you into accepting the illusion that the mission happened only yesterday. …
“Nor is there any of the heightened drama that fiction has bestowed on those crucial seconds as Armstrong finessed the touchdown, switching to manual control and straining to avoid the large boulders and the crater in their path.
“It was hair-raising and last year’s Armstrong biopic, The First Man, made the most of it by filling the scene with flashing red lights and a chorus of warning bleeps before a visibly rattled Ryan Gosling felt safe enough to smile.
“Yet this film tells us that the moment was remarkable only for its aura of unshakeable calm. The voices sound untroubled. The only sign of tension is the arrow on the fuel gauge as it moves inexorably towards the empty sign.”
—Sydney Morning Herald
An aside, because it’s 20-July: Why did Kennedy always seem to pronounce “decade” as “deh-KADE” instead of the usual “DECK-ade“? A Bahston chowduh thing? We’ll never know, but probably hear it every year of our lifetimes.
Best quote: Not, surprisingly, the obvious Armstrong first one, but:
“Beautiful view … Magnificent desolation.”
Buzz Aldrin
Apollo 11. 2019. Online. English. Todd Douglas Miller (d); Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Cliff Charlesworth, Michael Collins, Walter Cronkite, Charles Duke, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Gene Kranz, Jim Lovell, Bruce McCandless, Richard Nixon, Deke Slayton (p).