Hollywood seems to really be into this Apollo series. First was the Ron Howard directed, Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise and Bill Paxton. Then a collaboration with Ron Howard and Tom Hanks for the HBO mini-series, “From the Earth to the Moon.” Now Hollywood has a new documentary being released that looks like it could be the best yet.

     In the Shadow of the Moon brings together, for the first time (and maybe the last), all the surviving astronauts of the Apollo moon mission to discuss their experiences, thoughts and dreams on what it was like and what it meant to themselves and indeed the world to visit our nearest neighbor, la luna.

     As much as I love Apollo 13, the best thing about it is the included commentary track by the real Jim Lovell and his wife on the DVD. Hearing their thoughts on the experience is interesting as hell and still the best commentary track I’ve yet to see. “From the Earth to the Moon” was a little on the slow side and a little too drawn out for me, but it was decent.

     What makes this particular film look so inviting, is to hear the stories straight “from the horse’s mouth” so to speak. When you hear the voices of the actual guys who really did it, it is ten times more fascinating and heartfelt than a bunch of Hollywood super-stars. With newly restored, remastered and never before seen, archival footage from the entire Apollo era, this film looks unbelievably brilliant and emotionally stunning. A rare case of a documentary really having me excited. If ever I want to pay double movie prices for the IMAX experience, this film is it.

check out the embedded trailer below, or see it here in glorious Quicktime.

     A few weeks back I was listening to Kevin Smith’s SModcast (where they just talk about whatever - it’s really great) and he started talking about this Jaws documentary that he saw in which EVERYTHING is covered. A movie where they interview everyone still alive even remotely involved with the making of the film: from Spielberg to the guy who painted the original poster to the crew that let them use their boat for the movie. I missed what the movie was called or when I could see it, but he mentioned that he had sort of a “secret” copy that he was going to lend to his co-host so he could see it.

     Well, now I just found the trailer for the film he was talking about (I think this is it). It’s called The Shark Still Works: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws. It has yet to find a distributor, but when it does, I’ll personally be checking this out. I’m not a huge fan of the Jaws phenomenon and I like it quite it bit. A without it, we’d probably not have a Spielberg library as extensive as we do. So anyway, here’s the trailer for the doc. I think it looks pretty cool.

     Ah yes, now I see why Smith was hyping the film. He’s IN the damn thing. Well, still it looks pretty cool.

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