Assignment - Shoot the Moon

Assignment: Shoot the Moon. What if you had to take a close-up picture of a caramel apple being held by a woman on a spinning carnival ride, while you were moving around on another ride? This is the metaphor shown in this 1967 NASA film for photographing the moon close-up, in order to plan for a landing site for a manned mission. This is less bombastic than most other NASA films, and it’s chock-full of information about the unmanned lunar probes that were sent before Apollo 11 to photograph the moon. It’s mostly pretty straightforward, with some interesting imagery, and lots of historical interest, as it was made just before Apollo 11, so you get an idea of what scientists were thinking on the eve of that historic mission.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Anatomy of a Triumph

Anatomy of a Triumph. It’s MAN again, discovering flight and conquering the skies! Will he never stop in his quest for manliness? This early 70s government film starts off bombastically, then settles down to document the history of flight from Kitty Hawk to Apollo 11. We get to see the usual wacky early films of failed attempts at flight at the beginning, which I always find amusing. Then it’s on to working airplanes, Lindbergh, World Wars I and II, and the first rockets, which were invented by Nazis. But who cares about that? This is about MAN’s conquest of space, by golly! The Russians have launched Sputnik, so now the race is on! We get to see more embarrassing footage of the U.S.’s first failed attempts at space flight, and then the final success of the Apollo II mission. Richard Nixon ends the film with congratulatory messages, the film being blissfully ignorant of his embarrassments to come.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Better Reading

Better Reading . Teenager Harold Wilson has a problem—he can’t read for (expletive deleted). So he has to spend all his free time studying ...