r/500moviesorbust

2026-305 / Zedd MAP: 82.30

Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection

Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.

Mrs. Lady Zedd: Dude, ((sigh)) do you remember telling me you were going to “go easy” on the write-ups? Not go all high concept, or maybe just not Zeddblidd so hard… remember?

Zedd: ((blink-blink)) It’s not my…

MLZ: … your fault?

Listen, it’s just I get to thinking… it’s a big movie, Ron Howard’s career is in the stratosphere, Tom Hanks is shifting his career from the carefully crafted “Hanks Brand” comedy to cinematic prestige dramas, 9 Oscar nods, and the critics… oh boy, they’re trotting out words like:

Masterful / Solid / Powerful / Year’s Best / Remarkable / … Hell of a Ride

((Shrug)) cool.

It’s not a film that needs to be dragged on - it’s certainly a compelling story, based on Jim Lovell’s, “that was me out there being abstractly fucked in space”, firsthand account - helped along (clarified, amplified, stakes-intensified) by Jeffrey Kluger, Editor at large of Time Magazine, once writer and editor for Discover Magazine, The New York Times, Family Circle, and Science Digest. I’m not saying there’s anything done wrong or deceptive, mind you - I’m just saying these are some incredibly brainy guys - Kluger has numerous books published - he knows how to massage a good story to greatness.

This is before Hollywood even gets ahold of it and works that magic into the script. Just saying… if you don’t mind me taking poetic license, the stars aligned for this production.

MLZ: Here we go…

Zedd: Here’s the thing… I was just thinking ((cough))… why then?

MLZ: Why what when?

…why did that story - a long-ago close scrape in space - come to the surface (stars aligned) at just that moment in time? No disrespect to Ron Howard’s direction, Tom Hanks’ performance, or any other matter of production, only limiting my attention to just that moment in time - why did this 1970 space debacle suddenly make sense for a 1995 $50m+ lavish Hollywood treatment?

We were around, paying attention back then. I tried to pull up my memories… the Soviet Collapse, the end of the Cold War, the closure of military bases. NASA got tossed on the chopping block ((shrug)) no foreign space race rival, no need for expensive space programs. Jobs were getting cut. A new Faster, Better, Cheaper philosophy was implemented (with mixed results)… the thing is: hot war wins generate parades, troop returns, “post-war honeymoon” prosperity. Winning a cold war brought America (um) job loss and muddled cultural drift?

Enter Apollo 13 - right when we needed it most (/s) - a loving infusion of remember when, sprinkled with a pinch of even when we fail, America wins! John Wayne might have been dead but Ron Howard’s here to remind us all - This is America, damn it, and we got grit… I say grit, sir!

Or at least… we did.

This may come as a complete surprise to some of you ((looks around shiftily)) if America was looking for Proof of Grit (PoG) in 1995, why were we watching a film set in 1969/70? Wouldn’t that suggest 1970 was grit-full? It’s confusing, but the prevailing winds whisper, “When the chips are down, the USA USA crowd usually turns from forward-facing progress to rear-facing remember when.”

But it’s more than that.

It’s more than the honeysuckle-sweet lullaby of nostalgia… that peaceful, yet powerfully unconsidered longing for the past. Strictly speaking - I’m not a huge fan. This feels different - it’s more akin to a haunting! The grey ghost… the specter of mid-century promise manifesting in the 90s - and if we’re being honest (more or less) on regular repeat since then.

I wonder about this constant longing for past glories - that’s kept our culture sluggishly walking a circle for decades - the Ghost of America’s Great Past that keeps slipping behind the veil, only to reappear a little while later.

Why?

That past made big promises - we were going to “the final frontier”, we were building the future, we were going to the stars! Science, technology, and a bit of elbow grease was going to make The American Dream - better than ever.

((Looks around))

Dude - where’s my flying car?

Frankly, I don’t think the ghost of mid-century greatness can rest until we face the loss of the dreams of the future we were promised, that never arrived.

Think on it this way - it’s 1970 and your parents are dragging you on one errand after another, it’s hot and work and you’re getting fussy sitting behind dad in the Vista Cruiser wagon (why does the AC never make it to the backseat?) and then - they make the offer: keep up the good work, we’ll be done soon, then… how about going for some delicious ICE CREAM!

Now it’s 1995, you’re in a crowded movie theater watching Ron Howard’s Oscar-bait darling: Ice Cream ‘70. You watch a family in a stylishly modern Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon (party in the front, family in the back) and Tom Hanks, looking fresh and air conditioned, charmingly says, “Keep up the good work kid, and we’re all getting ice cream.” As the family approaches the ice cream shop (31 flavors and I’m getting vanilla, plain) the family is distracted by a huge factory fire on the other side of the freeway. They drive right by the shop - roll credits.

You sit in your theater seat and lean over to your spouse in the rising theater lights and say, “Remember the delicious ice cream we never got to eat.”

Your wife says, “Wasn’t it the best?”

“Probably.” You say with ice cream dreams dancing behind your eyes.

MLZ: Damn Zedd - fucking factory fire!

Zedd: Right? The worst part - nobody got ice cream, why are people clapping?!?

(Why is nobody pissed off?)

Even now, when the neo space race has turned corporate (rather than government sponsored), the same ghostly mid-century talking points show up, on cue: we’re going to travel the stars, colonize Mars!

How we getting there?? On a SpaceX Starship! Because we built this city, we built this city on (hard work and sacrifice now / promise of future continually unfulfilled later).

All things considered, I might not have hit on this way of seeing things until just now but I’ve felt the effects my entire life. I don’t get excited for the promised future like I used to, I admit it. The dreams rich men and politicians sell always seem to run out of gas before the fruition becomes real. Naming a “coming soon” moonbase Artemis (sister of Apollo) doesn’t bring back the old magic but who knows.

Maybe this time it’ll all work out. The ghost of lost futures will be sated by an actual future - one that includes the big pay off for all of us.

Ice cream for everyone, no distracting factory fires.

Golly - I wrote a pretty dark write-up for such a feel good movie huh? Hey - you guys wanna switch tracks and use the same thinking to explore how the neon candy colored, synth-soaked craze in movies and tv of the last 10 years is really just the ghost of 80s lost future… when thinking computers were friendly and times were good because ((shrug)) no social media to mix the message?!?

MLZ: Zedd… honey - no.

Maybe next time ((wink-wink)) until then we’ll just Movie On.

I bet that ice cream is good.

(Probably).

2026-301 / Zedd MAP: 98.57 / MLZ MAP: 97.31 / Score Gap: 1.26 - Gold Star, all the way

Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection

Country of Origin: Japan

From IMDb: Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, and he gathers six other samurai to join him.

Despondent samurai, high contrast (downright harsh) shadows, elements and atmospheric conditions used deepen the gritty realism of the desperate situation, fatalism baked right in… a win that really is no win at all… I’m just going to call it like I see it - man, this is film-noir, translated into a 16th century Japanese farming village.

Is Samurai-Noir a thing?

I think so but then ((shrug)) what do I know?

“It’s just such a classic…” Mrs. Lady Zedd chimes in, “…and maybe that’s how you can tell if a film or its maker is truly great.”

When I asked her to elaborate, she hmmm’ed and haaaawww’ed and said, “I don’t know man - it’s Kurosawa, he’s OG dude… his films endure the test of time. Seven Samurai has been copied over-and-over for a reason.”

All things considered, this time around, I was watching and thinking about Star Wars. Lucas pulling the broken promise of the roaming ronin into the Jedi - right down to the relative crudeness of the guns used to blast people vs. the elegance of skilled swordplay.

Kurosawa places the village on hills and the bandit’s horses swooping down from high ground before zipping past the camera gives the feeling of great speed and motion… Lucas used the same tricks with Tie Fighters taking aim at, charging, and over-flying the Millennium Falcon before being undone by a farm-boy turned warrior (yes - another striking similarity with this film).

What can I say - the more we watch, the more we know - and isn’t that what makes our shared hobby so much fun? We both find the more we understand the machinery of storytelling, the richer our enjoyment of the films that use those pieces-parts particularly well.

r/500moviesorbust

Hayden Panettiere’s Death: No Signs of ‘Foul Play or Suspicious Circumstances,’ Police Say

It bother anyone else when the spines on a series box set don’t line up?

Asteroid City (2023)

Apollo 13 (1995)… then ICE CREAM!

Seven Samurai (1954)

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)