The Dish

This film was extremely hard for me to get into, but once I got interested, I couldn't turn away. The performances were great the story was pleasantly refreshing. After I had seen the small town Irish comedy WAKING NED DEVINE, I was in the mood for feel-good comedies. THE DISH was the next best thing. But, as it turns out, I liked THE DISH far better.

It is a small town comedy set in a rural Australian town during the days preceeding the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, it brought everyone on the Earth together. This film gives an idea as to what it must have been like to see that experience.

The film was a greatly pleasant movie and I was totally delighted to have a film as heartwarming and truly great as this. Sam Neill (JURASSIC PARK) and Patrick Warburton (SCREAM 3, BIG TROUBLE) who I feel are both very good actors take the leading roles of this delightful movie experience. Surely a film that you will want to watch over and over again. I recommend OCTOBER SKY and WAKING NED DEVINE.

THE DISH: 5/5.

Most of us who were over 5 years old at the time, remember where they were when Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. This monumentally emotional moment for mankind, albeit thoroughly superfluous scientific achievement, is the background for this beautifully constructed film.

The thing that makes this film so special is the fact that there isn't a character that appears on screen that you don't care about, regardless how small the role. That takes true writing and directing talent!

The entire small town of Parks, New South Wales, Australia is all atwitter, because their radio observatory dish has been chosen to be NASA's official link to the Apollo 11 mission in the southern hemisphere. The mayor's wife comments, while serving her joint of lamb, that man being moments away from landing on the moon makes their problems seem mundane... That's the beauty of the film, you care so much about these people; their problems are anything but mundane - you cheer-on the techno-nerd asking the town beauty to go out with him; you ache inside because the head of the observatory lost his wife a year ago and she can't be there to revel in his glory; you love the fact that the out-of-place NASA official is the only one who realizes that all the mayor's rebellious teenage daughter really needs to chill-out is an ounce of respect.

This is the best kind of feel-good film. An absolute jewel that you'll want to watch more than just once.

The Dish delivers the way some of Michael Crichton's best novels do : Take a true story and build fiction around it so you can entertain the reader/viewer with technical accuracy and focus on the fictional characters, and the role they play. And boy, does The Dish entertain.

First credit must go to Rob Sitch's absolutely brilliant direction. On one hand it comes as no surprise that part of the old "D-Generation" line-up (Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy) wrote a comedy full of sharp wit in the tradition of the infamous "Late Show" that ran on the ABC (Ch 2) in 1992-1993. Glen's (Tom Long) question "Who's the guy ?", when Al (Patrick Warburton) volunteers his admiration for Neil Armstrong and that he'll be walking on the moon is on a par with the Late Show "It's academic" 1993 sketch where the Santo/Rob/Tom Ivanhoe College team is faced with the challenge : "How much change do you receive from 7 Dollars if you purchase 7 items at 98 Cents each ?" - Rob's answer " What are the items ? " is unforgettable.

That same team performed at its best yet when The Dish's script was written. The Dish is also quite unique as a movie that can be watched over and over again without the need to skip many parts of the story. This could mainly be attributed to the story's characters, and how we are compelled to care about each and every one of them, no matter how insignificant they might seem.

The core of The Dish revolves around Neil Armstrong's first historic steps on the Moon at 12:56 PM, Monday 21 July 1969 AEST. When 600 Million people (1/5th of mankind at that time) tuned in and witnessed the TV pictures from the Eagle Lunar Module, 3 tracking stations were receiving these signals simultaneously. They were CSIRO's Parkes Radio Telescope, Honeysuckle Creek tracking Station near Canberra and NASA's Goldstone station in California. During the first 9 minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated between these 3 stations. When they switched to the Parkes pictures, they were of such superior quality that NASA remained with them for the rest of the 2 1/2 hour Moonwalk. Of course the audience knows the good outcome to the events, so the writers can fully focus on the fictional part of the story and remind us how human nature can marvel by putting a man on the moon and safely return him home.

The Dish is so refreshing because it doesn't need to resort to adult themes, violence or excessive profanity to flag your attention to the townfolk of Parkes, their involvement in the mission and how they are "over the moon" about it.

The film accurately portrays the spirit of Aussie people in 1969. I found the camerawork simply stunning at times, capturing the beauty of Parkes : the dusty road to the Telescope, the farmer with dog and sheep, the (empty) Fuel station and Parkes' sleepy shops. The wonderful soundtrack attends to the "missing pieces" with songs like "Good morning Star shine" and "Come on". Dramatization is resourcefully completed by Edmund Choi's composition and direction of The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (under Jane Kennedy's guidance).

The Dish succeeds in a non-pretentious and honest way to convey its great emotion and charm to the viewer. Working Dog excelled itself and surely must face great difficulty to surpass this masterpiece. "Frontline" and "The Castle" were very clever indeed, but The Dish is perceived by me as the best Australian Movie ever made, a priceless moment in Aussie Cine history.

Charles "Bud" Tingwell's cameo appearance as the Priest is the icing on the cake. The amount of research to realize the Dish must have been extensive, to adhere for example to the 2.2825 GHz Apollo 11 frequency, the solid minus 90 dBM signals etc. in the script.

It is worthwhile to note that NASA delayed the Parkes pictures by 6 seconds before its worldwide broadcast, in the event of an accident. Australian viewers saw mankind's giant leap 6.3 seconds earlier than the rest of the world !! (A 300 mS delay for the INTELSAT satellite link from Sydney,Australia to Houston,USA was incurred).

I still watch The Dish regularly and the movie, if nothing, conveys greater emotion than it first did. Highly recommended : great acting across the entire cast, almost flawless camerawork, fantastic soundtrack, fast paced yet non-engaging script, witty comedy. A treat for the whole family. 9.5 out of 10 !!!

At a time when the comedy genre is saturated with the crude, lewd and unsophisticated toilet humour of the U.S ('See Spot Run', 'The Animal', 'Say It Isn't So'), it's encouraging to watch a film that really makes you laugh out loud without wanting to cringe at the same time. Like it's antipodean predecessor 'Priscilla...', 'The Dish' takes the best aspects of Australian culture and the Aussie persona and uses them to create the finest comedy of the year so far. Much of the humour is brutally honest, delivered in the kind of relaxed, conversational style which has become an Aussie trademark. Paired with a homegrown cast (headed by a wonderfully understated Sam Neill) and filmed on location at the satellite receiver station in South Australia, the film feels refreshingly natural and unconstructed.

This sense of cultural identity gives 'The Dish' a surprising depth for such an uncomplicated film. Rather than resorting to the contrived, exaggerated Australian image of Paul Hogan, it revels in its roots without a hint of self-consciousness or compromise. Such an intense warmth towards its small-town location and everyman characters is shown that it is impossible not to share it, and from that grows a wonderful sense of intimacy. Despite the global importance of Apollo 11's mission, a real sense of the importance of it to the community and the individuals therein is present throughout. An American film may have made this subservient to the moon landings - here, the two are intertwined on an equal footing, and you care equally about each.

And in that lies the secret of why 'The Dish' is such a damn good film. It's not the well-paced, extremely funny and well-delivered script, nor the quality of the acting, nor the great location or period soundtrack. It's because the film has a real sense of soul. It makes you want to care about it and it's characters. In mainstream film, that's a rare achievement indeed. Let's hope the Farrelly brothers are watching...

8.5/10

I am a die-hard movie buff and I had never heard of this movie until my brother brought it to Thanksgiving. After watching it I was very pleased. A very fun movie with a great story and a delightfully quirky cast. The movie is worth watching just for Rudi, the security guard. Enjoy.