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.