Apollo 11: 50 Years Ago This Weekend

Now anyone that knows me well knows that I am a huge fan of good old 70 mm film. I still find  watching digital images in a movie theatre somewhat disconcerting, like watching a movie on your really good TV at home.

Brief but true story. About ten years ago I went to a Classics Series screening of Casablanca on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I wondered how they were able to get either such a good and clear film print of that 1942 classic. Or even if it had been on a then-new DLP hard drive, that would have been cool. The times...they are a-changin' and all that.

But no.

It was neither of the two.

Because the one guy who was presumably responsible for button-starting the 11 or 12 drives...oops I mean films was running late. And so what we got at the end of Casablanca was...a Blu-Ray menu.

"Shit...I could have watched this at home," one guy (not me) said.

Kinda kills the mood all right.

That's why I'm excited to be seeing Apollo 11 in IMAX, using meticulously preserved 70 mm film covering all aspects of the historic Apollo 11 mission that launched 50 years ago this weekend.

It seems nothing short of miraculous that director Todd Douglas Miller and CNN Films were able to find and put this footage together, and prepare it for IMAX exhibition with the help of teams of technicians.

What must it have been like to be part of a world captivated by wonder, watching the impossible exactly 50 years ago?

MTMG