![]() But why not make room for some crud along with the classics? And what about the vast in-between list of titles, neither classics nor crud, exactly, but the stuff of so many hours of our collective moviegoing lives? Catching up with the ones you’ve managed to skip, by choice or by chance, shouldn’t only be a matter of scratching one received classic after another, though that’s a fine place to start. Laochra Uladh – A salute to Ireland's patriots from the "Border Campaign" era.You’ve all seen a few movies.Foundation for European Progressive Studies.Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses (Adrian Kavanagh).Paraffinalia: Ireland, Italy, politics, engineering, science, translation.Ooccasional links & commentary on economics, culture & society.Machine Nation (A Look Under the Nation’s Bonnet).God's Away on Business: Ireland and the World of Finance.One would almost have sympathy for the lions….Captain Michael Dunne, one of the dead of Knocknagoshel.Faint praise indeed (or even when it’s not about Sinn Féin, it’s about Sinn Féin).Tomboktu on What you want to say – 8th Mar… WorldbyStorm on Unbreakable bonds of Unio… I rarely say this, but it is one film that a remake might do justice to – and oddly, despite forty years passing, it would be possible to make it with near enough the same plot. And every once in a while one has the sense of a much better film emerging from it. It’s no classic, but there’s a lot to like. He later did Outland and later still 2010 (a tough gig that to follow up on one of the finest films of the 20th century). Hyams who directed it was renowned for his cinematography and in parts it looks remarkable. There’s action sequences, a not bad car-chase, helicopters pursuing fleeing astronauts, a pretty fine aerial chase which dovetail uneasily with other aspects of the film – part of the problem is it takes place over the best part of a year. Some other exchanges he is involved in with James Brolin are likewise superb. A speech by Hal Holbrook playing the head of NASA is downright excellent. ![]() Sam Waterstone (one of the few genuinely redeeming features of the News Room) and OJ Simpson (why, yes, OJ Simpson) offer little more than caricatures. Brenda Vacarro is excellent, but again oddly stilted, as the widow of an astronaut. Is this deliberate? Is this a 70s thing? Elliot Gould, for example, kind of dials in a persona familiar from the Long Goodbye. The script is witty but the delivery is often flat. ![]() The dialogue? Wooden – it’s not the words. Indeed the action is either ground based or aerial – not least a bizarrely late cameo from Telly Savages. Granted the focus on the space programme is different – and by the by although there are special effects none are space based (so to speak). Indeed watching it there is a curiously contemporary feel because many of the same complaints used to explain the rise of Trump are there, and in spades – a sense of a failing US, lack of idealism, etc, etc. It touches on Watergate and the general sense of cynicism on the part of the US public with elites, conspiracy… I could go on. That said it has a lot of that mid-70s sense of alienation, friend of journalist expresses concerns, friend of journalist is disappeared so comprehensively that a stranger is living in his apartment and the paper work indicates they’ve been there a year (it reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the same period), but then it also is oddly emotional. The plan is to fake the Mars landing and keep the astronauts at a remote base until the mission is over, but then investigative journalist Robert Caulfield starts to suspect something.Īnd the fact the initial premise is a twist which then about half way through the film has another twist imposed upon it makes for an oddly disjointed viewing experience. The head of the programme explains that the life support system was faulty and that NASA can’t afford the publicity of a scratched mission. Seconds before the launch, the entire team is pulled from the capsule and the rocket leaves earth unmanned much to Brubaker’s anger. It’s not an action film either though… well…Ĭharles Brubaker is the astronaut leading NASA’s first manned mission to Mars. It’s not exactly science fiction, not exactly a 70s conspiracy thriller – though bless its little heart it really wants to be. Now it’s odd, I must have seen it at least twice – though probably not in thirty odd years, but my memory of it was remarkably spotty. Riding the wave of Star Wars and science fiction themed films that broke in the mid to late 1970s. Picking up where I left off watching 1970s films – Capricorn One. Funny thing happened on the way to Mars.” – Capricorn One, 1977 FebruPosted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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