The new Apollo 11 documentary that premiered at Sundance in January opens in a fairly good number of theatres on Friday. I’ll be seeing it Saturday night.
Wide release for new Apollo 11 documentary
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It may be a “wide release” but ain’t wide enough!!! Poor old Brit’s look like we’ll have to wait a bit longer, but thanks for keeping us posted. Sure it will be worth the wait.
Still no UK release date as far as I can tell. I quite enjoyed it, and hadn’t seen a good portion of the footage. After all the talk about the synching of Mission Control audio recordings and footage, the process for which was made to sound exhaustive, I was a little disappointed to see just a handful of brief examples of that in the film – mostly of Charlie Duke, I think.
After the screening, a friend along for the ride had a couple dozen questions for me in the Uber back to Harvard Square, where we’d parked cheaply and dined afterward at the fantastic Border Cafe. The Uber driver was fascinated, too, and thanked me for all the things he had just learned as we exited the vehicle. My friend has just started watching the six-part “Moon Machines” series as a sort of primer before I loan him “From the Earth to the Moon”.
One thing I noticed at this screening and at the 70mm 2001 showing some months ago is that my two TVs have far better contrast than theatres. I watched 2001 at home again shortly after seeing the 70mm re-release in the IMAX theatre. My main telly is just 50″, but in a visual sense, it was much better, with more appropriate contrast, darker blacks, and a general crispness that I just don’t see in the theatre. It’s not like the theatres I went to had bad equipment, because they’re both good cinemas.
I saw the same difference, which is definitely not trivial, when I viewed the Apollo 11 trailer on the TV again right after seeing the film. I think the digital release is going to be a noticeably better experience for me. I got notice the other day from Amazon that the Apollo 11 Blu-ray I pre-ordered is now scheduled for US release on 14 May.
I contacted the Odeon chain of cinemas a few days ago, which I believe controls the Imax cinemas in the UK. Their ‘chatline’ operator said he could find nothing on their system for future showings of “Apollo 11”. He said that he believed it at been shown for one single day some weeks ago. Ugh!
As you continue to seek the film out in the UK, be aware that an edited-down, 45-minute IMAX version called “Apollo 11: First Steps” is also going to be released – looks like it’s mainly for museum screenings, but some distributors might fail to mention that Reader’s Digest length. I’d hold out for the 93-minute version.
Looks like a UK release date of 28 June has been announced in the last few days – today’s the first time a Google for “Apollo 11” film UK release has given an answer in a box.
Also, I found out this morning that the HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon” is set for Blu-ray release 16 July. The date is the only thing known – no details on extras or whether they’ll use the original series 4:3 aspect ratio or the cropped 16:9 they used in the later “Signature” DVD edition.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, search for Alpha Industries Apollo jacket, which has been out for more than a year. It’s pretty nifty – except perhaps for the “Remove Before Flight” tag, which I removed before it was out of the box. Be aware that the MA-1 version (meant for 14 to 50F/-10 to 10C weather) is cut fuller while the LB-2 (50F/10C and higher) is a good amount smaller than the same size MA-1 (inches difference shoulder to shoulder). Think “slim fit” for the LB-2.
Even here the IMAX release was just for a week – ending the day after I found out it had been released, so I missed it – and then only general cinemas after that.