Charlie Chaplin died Christmas Day.So it makes an
odd kind of sense that Walter Cronkite, "the most trusted man in
America," would die during the 40th Anniversary weekend of the moon
landing in 1969. After all, his was the voice that guided us through
that epic-- though now, almost quaint -- adventure.
One
of the earliest films ever made was the Melies brothers, "A Trip to the
Moon," in which a rocket socked a pie-like Man in the Moon right in the
eye.
Later film visits wouldn't be so fanciful; the two most famous movies related to our lunar aspirations are "The Right Stuff," in which Tom Wolfe portrayed our earliest astronauts as somewhat, well, stiff and Boy Scout-ish (before stiff and Boy Scout-ish became "in" again) and "Apollo 13," Ron Howard's nail-biting recreation of a mission gone wrong, starring Tom Hanks.
If you're feeling truly looney over our moon program, your best bet would be For All Mankind, a newly-released DVD of a 1989 documentary about all things lunar, including interviews with the astronauts.
Or you could go looney the other way and rent "Capricorn One," about a faked space mission that lists among its stars a pre-trial O.J. Simpson.
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