The Old Negro Space Program (2004) User Reviews

Outstanding!

[junky_stuff69 · 10/10 · 8 June 2005]

This is probably one of the funniest and best crafted short films I've ever seen. The humor is clever, the production value is top notch (as good as any History Channel documentary) and overall "The Negro Space Program" can hold its own with any "Chappelle Show" sketch. That says a lot, given the top quality of the material Dave Chappelle and Co. forge each season.

Oh, and ILM should hire the guys who did the graphics/doctored "historic" photos, because it's some of the best composite & blending work I've ever seen. The photos look like they were lifted right from a history book.

Amazing job, just want to give kudos to the filmmakers!

Great Short Film

[horatio_gonzalez · 10/10 · 23 November 2005]

Absolutely hilarious. Great spoof of the baseball Negro League documentaries.

This film is available online at a web site by the same name as the title. It's well worth the time it takes to go watch it.

I don't know that the merchandise is very "wearable", because you'd lose the satirical aspect of the movie, and the movie is not known to a broad enough audience.

All in all, I hope to find more gems like this one. . . this movie proves that a huge budget is not required for quality film-making.

Please spread the word of this film to others who would like it. . . word of mouth seems to be the best way to get the word out. This might encourage more Internet independent films to be made by people with a real vision and talent for the task.

Funny and subversive...but I wonder how many believe this!!

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 23 February 2010]

This is an amazingly funny and insightful short film. It is a short mockumentary about a supposed Black-only space program in the US that was run parallel to the more famous NASA program. It's all done in such a dry manner--like the Ken Burns' films. The music, the tone, the style, the narration...everything make it look like another one of his documentaries. Now some might find this too dry--but the Burns documentaries were very dry and they had to make this comedy rather dry to imitate his style. Another potential problem is that I am sure on a planet of 5 billion (give or take 2347 trillion), there are MANY who see this film and actually believe it's all true!! This is a tribute to the film makers and a sad indictment on the gullibility (not to mention stupidity) of some people!

Clever, exceptionally well-made and entertaining, some of my favorite aspects of the film were the one commentator with his continual use of the phrases "...if I may" and "...if you will". I also loved the parody of the Sullivan Ballou letter. In the Burns film, it was written by a Union soldier before he died at at the Battle of Bull Run--here, it's a guy who's orbiting the Earth--worded almost exactly the same way, but with LOTS of expletives (making this not the best film for kids).

See this film.

NASA Negros

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 May 2016]

"The Old Negro Space Program" is a 10-minute short film from over 10 years ago written and directed by Andy Bobrow, who is these days a pretty prolific television filmmaker. It brings together two very unlikely groups of people: Nasa and black people back then during the age of space exploration. It is an attempt at comedy with some social commentary and as such I must say it was not successful unfortunately. I don't think it was a failure and there were definitely a couple solid moments, also mildly funny occasionally, but as a whole this attempt at being relevant in terms of race and discussing discrimination subtlety besides the comedy is what destroyed the film in the end. This is a shame as I certainly see Bobrow's comedy talent, but with this one here he tried to achieve more than he should have tried and it cost in the comedy department. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.