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Apollo 13

Apollo 13

List Price: $19.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Complete Musical Score for Apollo 13 in Dolby Digital
Review: It starts whenever you hit your 'Menu' button to bring up the main menu and will keep on playing all the way to the end. You can advance in the score by pressing the 'Skip' button on your remote control.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: well done
Review: I enjoyed watching this film, showcasing the troubles of the apollo flight to the moon. i dont think i can add much more than what others have said, but will just say that it skillfully combines a great story with suspense and deep characterizations.

Overall, well done.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Apollo 13
Review: I First Saw Apollo 13 In The Movie Theaters In 1995 And I Was The First To Get A Copy Of That Very Same Movie On Vhs But With Dvd Takeing Over It's Wirth It

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's All Been Already Said
Review: This is an incredible movie. I recommend the DVD as it has a nice section on the making of the movie (with Ron Howard) as well as an interview with Jame Lovell.

Of course the sound is fantastic with the DVD..........enjoy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Houston, We've Got A Problem..."
Review: Those words are the tag line for every fictionalized account of space exploration disaster, but the one time they were spoken in earnest makes all the fictionalized accounts wane like the setting moon.

APOLLO 13 is a great film. Tom Hanks, who plays Jim Lovell, spacecraft Commander of the aptly-named "Odyssey" really deserved an Academy Award for this one (and might have gotten it, had he not already won previously, two years running).

The film recounts the terrifying ordeal of astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), their families, and their ground-based support crew, after an oxygen tank explosion on the third lunar landing mission forces an abort. The three men have to reduce their spacecraft to barely livable conditions in order to survive a quarter-million miles from home.

Director Ron Howard captures the tension of the event perfectly, and also recaptures the ambience of NASA in 1970, a mixture of energy, technical competence, and frustration, when it seemed the American public had just about forgotten it's once lionized space program in the wake of moon missions so successful they seemed absolutely boring.

For anyone old enough to remember those fearsome days of Apollo 13, as I do, this movie sparks memories. For a moment in time, the planet was united: besides the Western Powers, the Soviets, the Red Chinese, the North Koreans and North Vietnamese set out rescue vessels to retreive the returning men.

With barely enough electricity to run a toaster, limited water, no heat, and hardly any oxygen, the three astronauts faced almost certain death. Ron Howard captures their understated emotion, as well as their phenomenal resilience and test-pilot cool, without making them seem miraculously superhuman or unassailably cold-blooded.

Bacon's Swigert, a last-minute replacement to the crew can't help but gloat over his good luck, and then becomes increasingly waspish as the disastrous mission winds on.

Gary Sinise, as Ken Mattingly, grounded for an illness he'd never contracted, is at first embittered, but later becomes an enthusiastic fourth crew member as he unstoppably tests out rescue scenario after rescue scenario in the NASA simulators.

Bill Paxton plays an increasingly ill Fred Haise with such conviction that the viewer shudders with compassionate sympathy as Fred's flu and fever make him both less able to contribute and less willing to give in to his sudden illness.

Kathleen Quinlan, as Marilyn Lovell, and Ed Harris, as Gene Krantz, both turn in true-to-life performances, both of which capture the hopes and fears not only of Mrs. Lovell and Flight Controller Krantz, but of the rest of the hundreds of people involved in the rescue effort on the ground.

Without becoming "documentary" the film uses clips of actual news broadcasts to underscore its reality. What's particularly surprising is the low-tech state of the Apollo; a digital wristwatch of today has more computing power than the entire Apollo space vehicle. This movie is also a very watchable, almost completely accurate history. There are a few moments of Directorial license in the telling of the tale, but not many. The story doesn't need additional drama. I recommend Jim Lovell's excellent book LOST MOON (or APOLLO 13), to sort out the occasional changes.

As it was, the technology of Apollo both failed and succeeded beyond reckoning. As spectacular an accomplishment as a moon landing is, it pales besides the importance of the human drama.

"I don't care what anything was designed to do," barks Krantz at one point, "I only want to know what it can do." It seems that Jim Lovell's mother has the answer: "If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."

APOLLO 13 is a great testament to the human spirit.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good and almost great
Review: Apollo 13 is a very good film and worthy of 3.5 stars, but there is no 3.5 stars on this rating device. The DVD release does deserve a 5 star. The movie still is a 3.5 movie though.

Apollo 13 follows the life of Jim Lovell and his crewmates as they prepare for the disaster mission, and it's very moving at times. It has great special effects. (Like when the Saturn V rocket launches off) It has great acting from every angle: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kevin Bacon. I especially think Ed Harris acting here is grand. It speaks volumes. Tom Hanks is good here, but his acting is better in Forrest Gump, Philadelphia and Saving Private Ryan. This is still good work. The writing is superb and the directing is very well. I especially like how much suspense is built on the radio silence moment. You know what's going to happen, but for a moment you can feel the emotions running in all the characters and get caught up in the "are they going to make it" mentality. That's how good this movie is at times. A good movie that almost stands as a great movie.

Along with the movie the DVD offers many special features that are worthy of checking out and looking into. Along with audio commentary is a documentary and a full version of the orginal soundtrack. Buy the DVD today.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Definitely a keeper!
Review: When I was just five years old, I remember my parents taking me to watch the launch of one of the Apollo rockets. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen, yet I never thought much about that event until I saw "Apollo 13." That's when I was reminded by my father that it was that particular moon-shot that I had seen so many years ago. This movie recounts the toils and tragedy of the ill-fated mission to the moon, but it also recalls the apathy with which the American people had begun to treat their space program.

Tom Hanks is terrific as Jim Lovell, the heroic leader of the mission whose resolve helped his crew survive. Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon are very good as his fellow astronauts, and Gary Sinise and Ed Harris are excellent as the ground crew struggling to bring their men home. Director Ron Howard has turned out a number of good movies during the last 25 years, but this has to rank as his best to date. This is definitely worth adding to your home viewing collection.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not as Great as is Should have been but it`s a fine film.
Review: When Three Men (Two-Time Oscar-Winner:Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton), who have been training to go in Space and Walk on the Moon. but it`s turns to be a Intense Journey, when they come close to Death. They have to find another way to get back to Earth and Going Back Home.

Directed by Oscar-Winner:Ron Howard (Williow, Far and Away, A Beautiful Mind) has made a well made film, which is Based on a True Story. Fine Performances by Hanks, Bacon, Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris(In a Oscar Nominated Role), and Kathleen Quinlan (In a Oscar Nominated Role). Director:Howard gives his Brother-Clint Howard a Small Memorable Role. Great Visual Effects by Digital Domain. Re-Release and Re-Edited for IMAX. Super 35. Grade:B+.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I believe this will be our finest hour
Review: APOLLO 13 is a unique adventure story that finds its magic in the history books. And although the film is more cinematic, the story it is based is easily more dangerous. It is also amazing that this story has faded from our psyche.
The unlucky 13th Mission was to be a moon landing, but after several mishaps beginning with a last minute crew change, a mechanical malfunction cripples the crew and the space capsule, changing its mission to one of survival. The lunar lander is used as a lifeboat, the only chance the astronauts have for survival.

Ron Howard put away his "Opie Taylor" fishing rod long enough to direct one of the richest human ensembles in awhile. Sure, Tom Hanks is excellent as astronaut Jim Lovell, but it is the people surrounding him that are the real treat. Kathleen Quinlan is wonderful as Jim Lovell's wife Marilyn. Her strength and humanity keeps this space adventure grounded on earth. And she shows exactly how difficult the situation is. She is extremely gifted in communicating sub-text. Her reaction watching the show-stoppng launch sends chills through the viewer. Gary Sinise is also wonderful as 'grounded' astronaut Ken Mattingly and helps add respect to the nuts and bolts mechanics that could easily have buried this film in the doldrums. Ed Harris puts in his finest performance yet as Gene Kranz, the head of ground control. His performance has some incredible nuances as he postpones his emotions for a time when they can be dealt with, after the crew was back on terra firma. Surprisingly, Ron's brother Clint also excels as one of the ground controllers. He is left with some very funny lines and does his brother proud.

The film was a major commercial success and it deserves to be, with wonderful special effects that actually serve the picture and a triumphant musical score by James Horner (TITANIC). Overall, this film delivers in spades and, along with the RIGHT STUFF and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, makes for a great rainy weekend marathon.

Watch for the real Jim Lovell saluting Hanks onboard the military carrier at the end of the film! The DVD has nice sound that will challenge your receiver and 2 extremely interesting commentaries as well as a making of documentary. This was an early DVD release so the video could use another remaster.

Houston, we have a problem.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: gem of American cinematography
Review: Definitely a must have masterpiece. Go find any other movie without blood-n-gore, violence, distortion of history and what else Hollywood is making most of their money.

A13 is different as it does not stray any far from facts as they happened and still keeps you busy watching, admiring and participating.

Those who ask for "more action" disgust me. Like blasting up and away at the speeds beyond your imagination locked in a metal can less than your average bedroom, riding on tons of flamables to another celestial body, and all by us Americans you can actually meet and talk to - that's not enough action? Yean, no bad aliens shooting "that green sh$t(TM)", no damsels in distress to be rescued, no swashbucking swordfights, no human limbs flying around like tree leaves in the fall that's no action to someone. Maybe only for someone who routinely does not do more action than chewing on popcorn and keeping the eyes half open.


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