Dogs Bark

Epic Fail - - Ben-Hur (1959, USA, Color, 212 min) - - 17 April 2019, a TCM Big Screen Classic

An essential - - Back from the 10th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival where once again, it astonishes how better it is seeing these pictures projected . . . not pixilated. But there’s a limit. Although Ben-Hur resonates in memory only for my childhood confusion of Biblical geography and terror of leprosy, the chariot scene does remain and doesn’t disappoint. Seeing it in big-screen splendor - - bodies tumbling, ass over teacups and ground under the pounding hooves - - this top-ten stunt montage is appreciated best without your remote control. Sadly, the race is only a tenth of this 3.5-hour movie. Most of the story is a leaden Sunday-school lesson. Shocking . . . given director William Wyler’s well-known subtlety. The internet documents screenwriter Gore Vidal's public slapfest with Charlton Heston over a gay subtext to Messala’s sudden hatred of Ben-Hur. Whilst both seem unreliable narrators, rejecting Vidal leaves a glaring character discontinuity. A heartbreak makes more sense.

Some Assembly Required - - Apollo 11 (2019, USA, Color & B/W, 93 min) - - 5 April 2019

Strongly recommended. Apollo 11 is an excellent example of how far film restoration has come in the twenty-first century. Many of us remember the grainy, vague images sent back of Neil Armstrong’s legendary ‘small step for a man.’ If this was your experience - - or if you’ve just seen the reruns - - be prepared for an out-of-this-world spectacle. After NASA released Panavision negatives of the launch preparation and 11,000 hours of audio, a small army of film technicians, audio engineers and scientists worked on improving the quality of the footage to piece together Apollo 11. Documentary auteur Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) compiles this story so masterfully that no narration was required. Lander skipper Armstrong’s right stuff becomes clear when an error light pops on and the computer starts shutting down and rebooting; he has to shift to manual control. We all know the ending, but in 1969 . . . the drama was real.