A quick-hit recap of NASA's Apollo missions in the late '60s and early '70s, as remembered by eight of the men to actually reach the moon. Neil Armstrong's absence is conspicuous and disappointing, as his words upon first setting foot on the lunar surface have become so synonymous with the triumphs of the program, but his peers offer plenty of insight and more than a few fascinating tidbits about the hours leading up to their days in history. As always, the astronauts' testimony is honest and revealing - in their twilight years, these guys have nothing to hide - and proves just how risky the idea of space travel really was in that era. The archival footage of each mission is still amazing, beautiful, silencing material, but almost all of that has been seen ad infinitum by this point and the few scraps of unseen film that were dug up for the production aren't anything worth writing home about. It's a subject I'll never tire of, and hearing the story of its inception told from the men who lived it is a rare opportunity. I just wish it were more in-depth and probing, because in the end it's basically reshuffling a very familiar story in a slightly original way.
Review of In the Shadow of the Moon
