Apollo 11 Is the Pick of the Week

I am not a scientist. The math was always too difficult for me. I intentionally steered away from the sciences in college for that very reason. However, I am constantly amazed at what science is able to do and to understand. This is no more true than in space travel. The vastness of the universe boggles the mind. That we have managed to send crafts and humans into space is nothing short of awesome. That we landed men on the moon with less technology that what I carry around in my pocket blows me away.

Yet we did. There are many reasons I wish I was alive in the 1960s but the main one is to have been around when Apollo 11 landed. Alas, I was not there. I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye. The next best thing maybe is this new documentary simply titled Apollo 11. It uses nothing but newly discovered archive footage to tell the story of that fated mission and the men and women who made it happen. I wasn’t lucky enough to have seen in on the big screen but I’m thrilled it is finally coming to Blu-ray.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

House of Games (Criterion Collection): David Mamet’s twisty con film gets the Criterion treatment. I haven’t seen it in years, but I remember loving it. I think it may be time to revisit.

Cold Pursuit: Liam Neeson stars in this action flick about a snowplow driver seeking revenge against the drug dealers who killed his son. It’s based on the 2014 Norwegian film, In Order of Disappearance. Read Gordon S. Miller’s review.

Birds of Passage: Spanish-language crime film about the early days of the illegal drug trade in Columbia.

Yakuza Law: Arrow Video brings this late 1960s gangster revenge flick from Terri Ishii. It tells three stories spanning multiple decades of Japanese life in the Yakuza.

Funny Games (Criterion Collection): Michael Haneke’s dark thriller has two young men hold a family hostage in their home and play sadistic games with them. Haneke uses this set-up to play with audience expectations asking them why we so often root for violence in films. I’ve not seen this original Germany version, only the American remake, so it will be interesting to see how they compare.

Happy Death Day 2U: Sequel to Happy Death Day, which once again finds Tree Gelbman reliving the same day over and over again and she is repeatedly killed by a psycho on the loose.