We watched two very good movies recently, so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

In the Shadow of the Moon is a documentary by Ron Howard about the NASA moon landings. It contains a number of interviews with nine of the living astronauts who landed on the Moon in the 1969-1972. The video footage was worth seeing, much of it I hadn’t seen before. But the stories are all very familiar if you have seen Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon.

Disappointingly, Neil Armstrong did not participate. I worry that we might never hear his story in his own words, which would be a real tragedy. This film did contain a line (by Alan Bean, if I recall correctly) saying that it is very hard to be Neil Armstrong simply because he can never live up to the expectations.

The other film we saw was Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the sequel to the 1998 film Elizabeth. Eileen is a fan of this period of English history and was eager to see it. This film is visually stunning and quite dramatic although the storyline doesn’t really come together very tightly. The script also took a few small liberties with the historical facts, which was also disappointing. However the visuals are worth overlooking these small foibles.

Seen any great (or bad) movies recently?