posted 09-09-2007 01:40 AM            

It was shown outdoors at the Celestial Cinema, under the stars, and went on after a great windsurfing movie. A lot of people including kids, young adults and some older folks stayed for the 11:30 PM showing.

Many of the young ones passed out, but the rest of us who stayed up (til almost 1 AM), were treated to a fabulous visual experience.

The movie was extremely well done. It's a great story. Much of the footage looked stunning on the big screen. It too was given a round of applause at the end.

posted 09-09-2007 02:19 AM            

Also mentioned in the article:

Sington said more video from the astronaut interviews will be added to the DVD version of "In the Shadow of the Moon," and the whole 60 hours will be archived for future distribution.

Sington is also working on a documentary TV series for the Discovery Science Channel, provisionally titled "Moon Machines," that will extend the "Shadow" approach to the engineers behind NASA's space effort.

posted 09-09-2007 03:29 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Youskauskas:
"Sington is also working on a documentary TV series for the Discovery Science Channel, provisionally titled "Moon Machines," that will extend the "Shadow" approach to the engineers behind NASA's space effort."

---

Now, *that's* interesting.

posted 09-09-2007 08:48 PM               

Even with any issues with the footage that are detailed above- it is a must see for any space program fan.

posted 09-11-2007 07:06 AM               

We sat in a cramped auditorium full of engineering students. They loved it. I was sitting with Don Eyles and Norm Sears from Draper Labs. Dr Seamans was sitting in the row in front.

Aside from the usual stock footage mistakes like the S-IVB separation from the S-IIC used as TLI and the Apollo 14 lunar surface liftoff, the film flowed very smoothly. Listening to Mike Collins was a joy. Charlie, Edgar, Buzz were their usual great selves. Dave Scott appeared proper. Al Bean was really good. Everybody in the flim kept referring to Neil Armstrong in the past tense and the directors were called on it by the audience later.

Don and I made the usual jokes about the Apollo footage being filmed in at Paramount during the 1960's.

It is like for "For All Mankind," but instead of just showing footage, they showed the faces of the men who went to the Moon.

There was a Q&A afterward that included the two directors, Jeff Hoffman and Dr. Robert Seamens. What impressed me was Dr. Seamens, who is 89 years old and in excellent shape. He was discussing his meetings with JFK, LBJ and Webb during the planning stages of the May 25, 1961 special state of the nation speech. Now that was listening to history.

The directors do plan a series TV programs called "Moon Machines." They were interviewing the engineers at Draper earlier in the day. They will probably get Dr. Seamens to do an interview too.

Then we all went out to dinner. Talked with David Sington for quite awhile and he is a very nice down to earth guy.

posted 09-19-2007 11:54 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by robsouth:
Is Armstrong one of the astronauts interviewed? If not, why does he turn down such offers to tell the Apollo story?

---

posted 09-20-2007 01:53 AM            

It was a great Q+A with Jim - he's a great speaker, if you have never caught him before now - and the moderator of course had fun with the fact that Colin Burgess and I have a book out with the same name as the movie, with many of the same flights covered and people interviewed. All good-natured, of course, because we're hoping both book and movie are independently great successes. This movie certainly deserves to be.

It was hard for me, of course, to watch the movie from an outside perspective - like most at CollectSpace, I'm much closer to the subject than the general moviegoing audience this film will now be screening for. So, while watching and enjoying it for myself, I tried to gauge audience reaction and imagine an outsider viewpoint.

I believe this movie 100% fulfilled what it set out to do - they nailed their objective. For outsiders, they simplified the Apollo moon effort with a simple summary of flights that went to the moon, which landed, which didn't, and that there were some other 'test' flights. They added in a splash, but not too much, of outside color - turbulent events of the 1960s, Vietnam, Kennedy - but keeping the words with the astronauts so the focus did not waver. And while I can see why others would disagree, I liked the over-the-credits quick final words laughing away moon hoax theories, ending with the last shot of the movie - Cernan looking the audience piercingly in the eye as if to say "don't even THINK of saying I never went there..."

To bring up the subject in the main body of the movie might have been too much. Over the credits, like some movies do with "bloopers," it laughed it away very nicely.

I loved the way that the movie didn't fall into the pitfalls that some make (I'm not referring to any other specific piece here). There was no sense of pushing for the ultimate "what did it feel like to walk on the moon" or "how did it change you, because it must have, profoundly" answers that moon walkers often are prodded for (and which miss the point). If these subjects came up (and they did), they seemed part of the natural flow of their experiences, answers that were not forced out of them.

In the same way, there seemed to be no forced attempt to put the guys on a pedestal, to worship them - they simply were who they were, and their words and accompanying footage were enough to wow the audience and grow a true appreciation of the people and events.

Instead, the movie seemed to let the guys be who they are - unforced, not squeezed into someone else's visions of those events - simply their words, their lives. You saw very down-to-earth guys talk about extraordinary events, in ways that let you know they too found them extraordinary.

To make something look that casual, that easy and natural, is I am sure extraordinarily hard to do. I am sure a huge amount of editing, of footage-finding, creating music for mood etc. went into making something that had such an easy, natural flow to it. There were some great moments, for example, where quite different-than-usual music was chosen to accompany a launch. It would have been easy to have taken a lazy option and cued up the usual "space launch music," but they didn't. It was doubtless all very careful, but all seemed effortless - as many great movies do. Beautifully done.

Armstrong's absence to the project, rather than being a negative, was explained by the other guys in a way that it would almost have felt odd if he were included. You learned a lot about him by his not being there.

Similarly, the more animated, engaging, lively astronauts rightly gained far more screen time, keeping the focus on the human experience very fresh and lively. Bean and Lovell did this admirably as ever, but Charlie Duke and Mike Collins just sprung from the movie as the natural storytellers they are.

As someone that generally dislikes projects that focus only the 12 who landed, not the 24 who journeyed to the moon, this movie did a great job at keeping things even. Collins' star turn was a large part of that, but Jim Lovell's inclusion and also the focus on Duke as Apollo 11 landing CapCom kept things very varied in this way - it worked well.

I've been a fan of "For All Mankind" for many, many years, and so my thoughts while watching this movie were often ones of comparison. I have to say, I still love the earlier movie for the atmosphere, personal comments and sheer sense of beautiful oddity that traveling to the moon could be.

posted 09-21-2007 08:35 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
He has maintained that in his opinion, his experience is not what is important to history, but rather the accomplishments of Apollo as a program.

---

posted 09-23-2007 04:34 AM              

The film is important because it does a terrific job at telling the stories that most of us already know in a way that people who are less familiar with the Apollo program can appreciate.

posted 09-30-2007 06:08 AM               

I had been afraid that they might have overdosed after we watched "For All Mankind" and most of "Apollo 13" during the week. (I figured out the sections of "Apollo 13" that showed important events and DON'T have Haise saying "**** " 50 times.) But while I thought the structure was somewhat similar to "FAM" (only with the astronauts talking a lot more afterwards and being shown doing so) there was plenty of material new to the students.

For example, when several gigantic Atlas test explosions were shown, the students were slightly horrified, and I had to whisper, "There weren't astronauts in those! They were tests!"

I had shown them my photograph of Groups 1 and 2 together, with the pre-printed signatures and John Glenn's real autograph. So it was neat to see film footage of that photo session. A girl next to me said, "Mr. Smith, that's the picture you have!" and I heard a boy two rows back say "Mr. Smith has that picture with fake signatures!"

They LOVED seeing the big sheets of ice buildup falling off during the lauch.

They also thought the crash of the LLTV was amazing. Also, most of the astronauts came across as interesting or funny, but Collins was their favorite. With his wide eyes he really conveyed how "amazing to the point of bizarre" some of their experiences were.

They actually liked the footage on the moon shown in "FAM" more than in this movie- the singing and hopping, the feather and hammer, etc.

posted 10-02-2007 03:38 AM               

And sometimes it's the kid who doesn't seem all that interested who you may later find out became a real space fan a few years later.

posted 10-02-2007 11:02 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wehaveliftoff:
I'm interested in what poster sizes and how the posters look for this movie promotion. Anyone have any info they'd like to share about this?

---

posted 10-02-2007 10:01 PM            

Any idea if this is coming to a cinema in Australia anytime soon?

posted 10-06-2007 01:39 PM               

Most were impressed with the insights, the humor, and the use of rarer (though not 'unseen') footage. Several of us thought Mike Collins stole the show, with Charlie Duke a close second in the 'best stories told' category.

posted 10-06-2007 09:50 PM               

Also, after seeing that footage of Neil from a pre-launch press conference, I was thinking if Ron Howard were about 25 years younger, he might have been perfect to cast in the role of Neil Armstrong in a movie as Neil looked quite a lot like Ron during his late Happy Days years.

BTW, the screening I saw was not that well attended, but the audience did clap at the end as well. I was also captivated by one other bit as there was a family sitting behind me with three pre-teen girls. Early on they were fidgeting. But, when the footage around the moon started to air and the astronauts described their experiences, they clammed up really fast and just watched, captivated by what they saw.

I also love Charlie Duke's response to the Moon Hoax claims:

"We went to the moon nine times. If we faked it, why did we fake it NINE TIMES?!"