BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

evening1 Who knew that practically everything the lunar astronauts did, both in and outside of the spaceship, was captured on film -- including, in at least one subtle sequence, defecating into a plastic bag? And there is plenty of voice-over here from the courageous space pioneers themselves, as they talk about the rigors and wonders of traveling a quarter-million miles to our nearest neighbor in space.The images in this pastiche-style documentary are dazzling -- no wonder the astronauts say they spent much of their time simply gazing at Mother Earth. And some of their statements really make you think. Can you imagine traveling all that distance and seeing nothing between Earth and its satellite but the blackest void? The cosmic travelers contemplate the emptiness of space and the mysticism of conducting an unprecedented experiment for mankind.Most of us won't live long or get rich enough to become space tourists, but perhaps this cosmic travelogue is the next best thing.

Cosmoeticadotcom An aspect of this film that lends it uniqueness, is that it is, in a sense, a pure documentary- just the images and words of those involved. It has no political nor philosophical; agenda. Too much agitprop has infected documentaries of recent years. A Certain Kind Of Death is perhaps the only recent documentary I can think of that trusts its audience to this extent. Susan Korda, the film's editor, also deserves notice. It is truly rare that in any film (fictive or documentary) editing plays such a key role, but this is one, and it is not in the length of the particular scenes and how they are edited, but in which images and scenes are in the film, and what other ones (and words- culled from hours of astronaut interviews) they are juxtaposed with. A really great job, and not a wasted second in the film, right from the opening shot of President John F. Kennedy's tossing down of the gauntlet in a speech at Baylor University to the final shots of the missions in flight. Brian Eno's score is also noteworthy.Of course, the only negative thing concerning this film is nothing of its own doing; it is the waste of decades since. Cernan, in the commentary, speaks of sometimes feeling that President Kennedy actually reached into this century, and forcefully willed NASA to the moon decades ahead of time, and I am forced to agree. The tepidity of the public to intellectual and artistic pursuits is only emphasized by witnessing folk, from not too long ago, who treated such ideas as ideals to be cherished and nourished, not dismissed. The moon landing is one of those rare instances where a single act literally changed mankind's view of itself, yet, it did not change enough of it to fundamentally better us all. That fault is society's, not the men and women who achieved this monumental thing. And hats off to Al Reinert for taking up a task even NASA did not feel a need doing, and doing it so well. Simply put, whether a fan of Criterion, documentaries, history, or science, this DVD is one of the few essential films to treasure and explore. If only those political hacks who fund NASA understood exploration and the value of knowledge, perhaps we'd already have had our Martian Apollos and Armstrong. One can still dream little boy dreams now and again, eh?

crash21 I typically enjoy documentaries about the original moon missions, but I was quite disappointed when I watched "For All Mankind." I have to ask, "where is the documentary aspect?" Most of this film was nothing but slow, boring video shot by the original astronauts with annoying music playing in the background. They don't explain anything, the closest they come to narrating any of this is every five minutes or so, someone makes a short 15 second comment, but that's basically it.I think the History Channel did a much better job with their documentary "Failure Is Not An Option", it was 100 times better than this, simply because they combined the video from the moon missions with good narration and interviews with the original astronauts and mission control staff.In my opinion, "For All Mankind" was nothing more than a collection of the moon astronaut's home videos and it has the quality of a homemade film.

Pete-230 Watched it again last night, on the 35th anniversary of man's first walk on the moon. No need to reiterate what others have said here - it's simply a masterpiece, one of the finest, most moving documentaries ever made (especially compared to the half-witted hysterical polemics that pass for the form these days).It's sobering to think that the deeds recounted in this film are almost forgotten now. The Apollo program is arguably the pinnacle of human achievement, yet yesterday's anniversary passed with hardly a rememberance. I mentioned it to my wife, and she expressed skepticism that the moon landings ever took place! (to her credit, she watched the documentary with me). I consider myself fortunate to have lived in this time and in this place, and had the chance to watch as my countrymen, on behalf of all mankind, took our first, tentative steps on another world.