Rating: 
Summary: If Oliver Stone had directed Apollo 13....
Review: The first men on mars meet no little green men, see no alien cities or other wonders when they step out of their tin-foil covered landing module and fall on the porous rock of the martian surface. Nobody comes out to greet them as they stick their flags into the soil and make their speeches. Skeptics know this because there is no life on Mars. But the paranoid skeptics know the same for a different reason - the mission is a sham.With interest flagging in spaceflight, NASA knows that any mistake will doom the entire manned space program. However, knowing how many corners were cut, the chiefs are assured only of failure. So they cut the biggest corner of all and relocate the landing module, the command module - essentially everything but the Saturn V booster (a real Mars-ship would need a considerably larger booster ofcourse...) - into the hangars of a deserted air force base (Roswell, probably), and work video magic. The crew, completely innocent but convinced to exit their ship at the last minute, is horrified to learn the sham they are perpetrating. "You'd be dead in 6 weeks" the grim NASA chief assures them. Reluctant at first, the crew agrees to carry on the charade, mostly because the country needs them, but also because NASA needs them (when you invite the President to your launching, and the Veep shows up instead, you know you've got problems). And if they're still not convinced, a shadowy cabal of bureaucratic and corporate types (the guys responsible for the screwed up equipment in the first place) will kill them and their families.
Accidents do happen, slowly but surely cluing in an investigative reporter (Elliot Gould). People dissappear, falling into mysterious holes that also suck in their entire identities. The first victim, a NASA engineer who can't understand why the signals from Capricorn One aren't taking long to reach Earth given its purported distance. Gould is great - tenacious, but never so big a charachter that he wouldn't slip through the cabal's rapacious grip.
Capricorn One is fun because it runs two plots well - besides Gould, we have the pilots growing uneasy and fearful of their safety - eageraly leaving clues of the sham to their families through frequent communiques. When an escape doesn;t completely succeed, the astronauts find themselves on truly alien ground - and have to pull every trick they know to survive.
Capricorn One is also fun because of the TV stars who pop up - making the movie look less like a movie and more like TV, like David Doyle as Gould's boss, and future Hill Street Blues alums Barbara Bosson and James Sikking. Even Telly Savalas shows up as a cropduster who teaches us all a lesson in baragining - ("you said $200 too fast, you can afford $300!")
But most of all, this movie preserves that special paranoia, kept on ice until he X-files, created in the 1970's by movies like "All The President's Men" and "Parralax View". With Jerry Goldsmith's creepy score, "Capricorn One" is probably what "Apollo 13" would have looked like if shot by Oliver Stone.
Rating: 
Summary: Funky Sci-Fi!
Review: What a great flick. Elliot Gould looking his 70's best. Pre-trial OJ being a hero. Amazing! The premise of the movie is a little off, though. I mean, if the astronauts who never went to the moon kept quiet, certainly these guys who never went to Mars would too, right?
If you're into 70's cheesey Sci-Fi, this is the movie for you! Get Hangar 18 and make it a double feature!
Rating:
Summary: Fun movie
Review: I first saw this movie as a kid and it still remains one of my favorites. I've realized now as an adult that the script is a little weak in spots and the repetetive theme music gets kind of corny after a while, but overall this film is still very entertaining. Sam Waterston, Elliot Gould, Telly Savalas, and David Doyle (Bosley from "Charlie's Angels") provide some great comic relief from the very serious nature of the film, and James Brolin's performance was terrific. The quality of the DVD is average; might be worth it to buy this on VHS instead.
Rating: 
Summary: This should be a cult classic !
Review: I love this flick ! from 1978, it's a thriller that stands up to many, many viewings, and it gets you thinking...could something like this ever happen ? It's a great one for "Conspiracy theorists", "Enquiring minds", or just plain old folks like me who distrust "The System".
It boasts a cast of actors that never quite made it big, all turning in excellent performances: Elliott Gould, James Brolin, Brenda Vaccaro, Sam Waterston, Hal Holbrook, Karen Black, Telly Savalas, you even get O.J. Simpson in one of his finest minutes.
I get a big kick out of films made in the '70's. The mens fashions were priceless. Those wonderful suits, ties, and haircuts ! What a hoot it all was.
A favorite scene is the one with Sam Waterston on the cliff, and the crop-dusting plane chase is fabulous. The Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack is terrific, as is Bill Butler's cinematography. Though there are lapses in the script, I give this five stars for being one of the most entertaining and best B movies out there.
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Summary: Capricorn One/"Friends" Trivia
Review: So great that so many folks caught the significance of the climax where Streisand's first husband saves Streisand's current husband from the villains. But of course now there's another trivia connection with "Friends": in the scene where reporter Elliott Gould interviews astronaut wife Brenda Vaccaro, it's Ross & Monica Geller's Dad interviewing Joey Tribbiani's Mom!
Rating:
Summary: Story of our Moon Landing.
Review: This is a good movie about the USA government attempting to hoax the world with a staged manned space flight to Mars. The film keeps us in our seats with moving action and suspense as the three astronauts attempt to escape their captors and reveal to the world what was really going on.
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Summary: Must be a mix-up!
Review: Wide Screen's review of this DVD must belong to "Highlander" and then it would be too generous. The picture and sound on this DVD actually are quite good. My laser copy is pan-and-scan, so it makes a big difference seeing this film in the 2:35 aspect ratio. The sound is listed as Dolby 5.1 and is more than adequate for a film of its age.
