I know it may seem strange to get all nostalgic over a movie that was released during the 1990's (wow, can you believe Apollo 13 came out nearly 10 years ago?), but the truth is they just don't make movies like this anymore. Yes, it sounds crazy, but stick with me here for a minute.

In less than a decade the major studios' insistance upon labeling movies so they can organize them in clean little categories and release them like cogs off a conveyer belt has completely overwhelmed Hollywood, and I'm afraid a film like Apollo 13 woudldn't make it to screen these days as it did back during Christmas of 1995. When you consider what a great, tightly written movie it is, that's a real shame.


Recently, it seems that the majority of movies must either be full-out art films or big blockbusters, and most of the material in-between gets pushed one way or the other. Apollo 13 is an amazing movie because it has a great premise and is chalk full of themes about hope, perserverance, and how working together as a team can accomplish incredible or nearly impossible feats (the kind of stuff that audience-inspiring blockbusters are made of), but director Ron Howard doesn't push it to the limit; in fact, he demonstrates considerable restraint in his choice to simply allow the story to tell itself. A good director knows that more often than not he can be his own worst enemy.

Apollo 13 in 2005 would almost certainly have some other angle to it (even if it is based on a true story); perhaps it would overwhelm us with shots of the astronaut's family in a forced attempt to bring audiences to tears, or maybe it would simply provide us with CGI-enhanced zooming camera angles around the space craft as it goes twirling out of control. I'm not trying to imply that every movie made over the past few years has succumbed to relying on such methods, but a great number of them have. Put simply, the 90's were about telling a story, while so far the first decade of this millenium has been as much about how a story is told as what story is told.

Tom Hanks, Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris and Bill Paxton are all excellent and no one tries to steal the show (in a very appropriate team spirit); the movie is on a huge scale but Howard pulls it back and makes the whole thing feel deeply intimate; and while it was eventually nominated for Best Picture and several other Academy Awards, you never get the feeling that the filmmakers were posturing for awards. I think that's why I like it so much and felt nostalgic after seeing it again; Apollo 13 is the perfect example of what we've been missing in recent years.

(On a follow-up note, The 2-Disc Anniversary Edition DVD is a great addition to your collection. Not only has the movie held up extremely well since its initial release, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is great. You see all of those zero gravity shots and take them for granted, but they had to put those actors in a situation to produce them, which really makes the production all-the-more impressive.)

Posted March 22, 2005 | link | 0 comments