Apollo 11

I had the chance to see an advance screening of the movie in Vienna, during a meeting of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the word that best sums it all up is "WOW". It is wonderful to be able to witness all the work that went into a momentous achievement. There is the great moment we all know, the "one step for a man, a giant leap for mankind" moment. But this movie pays a much-deserved tribute to all those men and women who joined efforts to make this possible. Fantastic.

Should be mandatory watching for all the folks that have lost the feeling of global humanity. I remember it from 50 years ago and I feel proud of the world as it looked then and the can do attitudes. The grace and humility of Neil Armstrong and crew was amazing. I was excited at each event and the music was marvelous. You know they make it but the tension was intense. so much could have gone wrong. What was error 202 !!!

The film starts the morning of launch day July 16, 1969. There are no actors, no reenactments, no narrator. It is 100% restored archival footage and recorded audio, most of which I had never seen before. Opening footage of the crowds gathering around Kennedy Space Center gave you the sense it was apparent to everyone the magnitude of what was about to happen.

They had audio and video of (an issue I won't spoil, something during launch prep I had never heard of before). Obviously there is no external footage of the spacecraft from the time it leaves earth orbit until it arrived at the moon but the editing and coverage used are excellent and you never feel like you're in the dark or missing out.

There is no attempt made at politicizing the event or manipulating the viewer, it is raw, factual cinéma vérité. Although I did find Kennedy's speech moving, they made the excellent choice to NOT show the famous portion we've all heard about landing a man on the moon and returning him safely by the end of the decade. It was the rest of that speech, which I'm not sure I'd ever heard, that was astute, prophetic and even funny at one point.

My one very minor caution is that viewers who aren't already aware how critical/dangerous some maneuvers were could miss out on the gravity of the situation. The filmmakers do assist with this with the score, which is absolutely fantastic (and according to the credits, composed entirely with instruments available in July '69), and some minor on-screen graphics (e.g. FUEL 30 seconds, 1202 alarm). It's a trivial concern but viewers who are familiar with the space program in general, and this mission in particular, will get the most out of the experience.

The film wraps up after our astronauts are safely home and cleared from quarantine. During the credits there are a few more interesting shots of some of the celebrations.

"I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." Neil Armstrong looking on earth from the moon.

If somehow you missed Apollo 11's flight to the moon in 1969 (indeed you might not have been born yet), fear not: The perfect documentary about those three real superheroes is here. The titular doc stars Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins in nail biting suspense and no explosions save rocket propulsion.

The only part not of the original footage is the original synth drones' soundtrack by an inspired Matt Morton. The percussive beat has pomp like that of a thriller in which the president has a fleet of black SUV's rolling to its heart-beating energy, supporting a blockbuster that this time is for real.

Notwithstanding the deeply introspective First Man, starring Ryan Gosling as Armstrong, the real Armstrong comes through in this doc. As expected, he's like the straight arrow he is alleged to be-good guy, slightly nerdy, smart, evident even with as little face time as he has here.

Maybe that's the point: Without the sophisticated computers we have 50 years later, these astronauts and technicians work hard long hours together, no claims to glory, profit, or party loyalty. Their collaboration is worthy of any Marvel voyage; only it's real.

New images and sounds emerge despite the decades of depicting this event in multi-media. Some NASA shots have never been seen before. Although the images may not be as spectacular as the ones we've grown accustomed to, they represent the constantly renewable glory of mankind at its technological best, devoid of petty ego embellishments and full of human connections.

You'll find more dramatic renditions of this adventure, but you'll never find 93 minutes more perfectly capturing the grandeur of science and humanity working together to realize the impossible. This right stuff is right here in a grand documentary called, very simply, Apollo 11.

Todd Douglas Miller's documentary Apollo 11 is a rich buffet of restored footage, clever image juxtaposition, and ingenious lip reading. There is SO MUCH newly-released footage, one gets the impression that 1/4 of the mission weight must've been cameras and film! Where have these images been for fifty years? There's no narration... just sounds and voices from the mission, peppered with occasional contemporaneous commentary from Walter Cronkite's legendary broadcasts. The film is a beautiful, visceral thrill ride, lovingly constructed, without aggrandizement... yet emotions soar. This is what America once was, and what it could be again, and I absolutely do not mean that in any jingoistic sense. Truly our finest moment. See it in IMAX if you can - IT IS WORTH IT.