Moon landing, fake vs. real

In the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (which, as I was 12 years at the time, I vividly remember), here are two movies that have related content. Capricorn One was playing in Columbus in June of 1978. I always think of this as a fake moon landing movie but it's actually a fake Mars landing movie. But really, at heart, it's a fake moon landing movie, built to appeal to those conspiracy theorists who thought man was incapable of reaching the moon. (A more recent film, Operation Avalanche, was about a "real" fake moon landing.) Of course, we did get to the moon, but I admit there is an appeal in a story that we didn't. I re-watched it last night and it has plotholes galore and it's about a half an hour too long. But it has 2 of Barbra Streisand's husbands in it--James Brolin and Elliott Gould.

In 1990, a documentary, For All Mankind, was playing--the ad below is from its Los Angeles engagement. It's got some good footage, but it combines film from all the moon missions, not differentiating between them, or telling us which astronauts are speaking, so it's less than ideal as a historical document. The current Apollo 11 film is much better and visually dazzling.