Displaying items by tag: For All Mankind

I’ve said many times now here on The Digital Bits how much I appreciate Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, and Ronald D. Moore’s For All Mankind.

As the series completes its fifth and penultimate season, the Apple TV Original has quietly become one of my all-time TV favorites, equaling Moore’s own rebooted Battlestar Galactica and even Star Trek, a franchise I love dearly but that—over the decades—has proven wildly uneven, and more recently has lost its way.

When I say this out loud, I’m typically greeted with two reactions. The first is surprise, as many viewers still either haven’t heard of the show, or haven’t yet given it serious consideration. But they should.

The second reaction—which I’m pleased to say is much more common today than in 2019, when the show first aired—is a kind of quiet understanding. Because if you know about the series… you know.

For All Mankind is, of course, an alt-history, science fiction ensemble drama that asks a simple question: What if the Soviet Union had beaten America to the Moon in 1969?

More broadly, it’s a series that attempts to realistically depict humanity’s slow, difficult, but hopefully inevitable climb out of Earth’s gravity well to become a spacefaring civilization.

Now… when I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, that outcome seemed like a foregone conclusion.

The first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok 1, happened six years before my birth. NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the Moon two years after it, which means I’m just old enough to remember watching the Apollo 17 astronauts leaving the Moon for the last time on TV in 1972—one of my earliest memories.

Soon after this, I discovered the original Star Trek, a series that fed my young imagination exactly what it craved at exactly the right time. And I watched each new NASA mission that followed with eager intensity: Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and the early Space Shuttle flights. [Read on here...]

We’re starting things off this week with several more new disc reviews and LOTS of announcement news! First up, those reviews...

Stephen has taken an in-depth look at John Carpenter’s supernatural horror classic The Fog (1980) in 4K Ultra HD from Scream Factory, and we have separate reviews for both the wide-release Collector’s Edition and the Steelbook version as well.

Stephen has also offered his thoughts on Taika Waititi’s latest MCU installment, Thor: Love and Thunder, in 4K Ultra HD from Marvel and Disney.

Meanwhile, Dennis has turned in his take on a pair of classic films on Blu-ray, including Sydney Salkow’s Twice Told Tales (1963) starring Vincent Price from Kino Lorber Studio Classics and also John Cromwell’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) from the Warner Archive Collection.

And Tim has delivered a look at Warner and DC’s long-awaited Deluxe Edition of the animated Batman: The Long Halloween (2021) as well as Random Space Media’s import 4K/Blu-ray 3D double feature of Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017).

As always, more reviews are on the way for tomorrow and all this week, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for them. [Read on here...]

We’re finishing the week with several new disc reviews today, including my joint review (with our old friend Todd Doogan) of Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss (1955) on 4K Ultra HD from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

Dennis has also turned in his thoughts on George Sidney’s The Three Musketeers (1948) on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection.

And Stephen has delivered a look at John Ford’s The Horse Soldiers (1959) on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics, along with a music title: The Prince and the Revolution: Live – Collector’s Edition, a 3-LP, 2-CD, and Blu-ray box set which is exclusive to the Paisley Park Records webstore.

As always, more reviews are on the way next week, so be sure to check back for them.

I also wanted to take a moment this afternoon to talk about For All Mankind, which returns today for the start of its terrific third season on Apple TV+. I’ve talked about the series here at The Bits before. It’s essentially an alternate history of the manned space program, which attempts to answer the question: What if the Soviets had beaten NASA to the Moon in 1969? [Read on here...]

All right, we have a few key items to discuss here at The Bits today...

First, Tim has posted his thoughts on Nico Mastorakis’ Death Has Blue Eyes (1976), newly-released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video. Do give it a look if you’re interested.

Also for those of you might be interested, I had the great pleasure of joining our friends Sam Posten & Brian Dobbs from the Home Theater Forum to talk Blu-ray, 4K, and the state of the home entertainment industry in general on their excellent Home Theater United podcast! The discussion was a lot of fun, and you longtime Bits readers especially should find it an interesting listen. We definitely get into the topic of where the industry is and where it’s going, so do give it a listen here. [Read on here...]

We’ve got some more new reviews for you today, and some interesting news as well. So let’s get to it.

First up, the reviews...

I’ve offered my thoughts on Luc Besson’s Anna on 4K Ultra HD from Summit and Lionsgate.

And Tim has turned in looks at Roy Ward Baker’s Scars of Dracula (1970) on Blu-ray, a Hammer title from Scream Factory, as well as Scream’s Humanoids from the Deep Steelbook Blu-ray.

With a little luck, we’ll have at least a couple more reviews tomorrow as well, so be sure to check back.

We’ve also got a street date update for you on a few titles: Look for Warner’s It: Chapter Two on BD, DVD, and 4K on 12/10. Lionsgate will release Red Heat on 4K on 10/8 (coming from Studio Canal in the UK). And Fox is expected to release The Art of Racing in the Rain on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K on 11/5. [Read on here...]

I had the pleasure last night of attending a press screening of Damien Chazelle’s new Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man. So let me give you my non-spoiler review…

A little background first: As someone who’s been a lifelong supporter and aficionado of the space program, I’ve seen every film there is on the subject, from Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff to the most obscure documentary. I’ve listened to most of the CAPCOM recordings, I have DVDs and Blu-rays containing almost every foot of archival footage shot by NASA and the astronauts during their missions. I’ve been to NASA facilities, I’ve seen launches, and I’m fortunate enough to even know a few astronauts. It’s with that lifetime of experience that I can say this: First Man is the single most realistic dramatic film about the subject yet made.

The level of detail exceeds even Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 and by a good measure. In Howard’s film, great as it is, there are a couple of things that just aren’t quite right. For example, the mission patch plaques on the wall of Mission Control are painted versions of the souvenir patches sold to the public, not the actual patches the astronauts wore. The NASA emblems on characters’ flight suits are modern, not period accurate. They’re little things, sure, but for the knowledgable, they can throw you out of the moment. But Chazelle and his team nail all of those little details, right down to the tiniest stitch. It’s as if First Man was actually shot in the 1960s, a level of verisimilitude and immersion that’s rare, even for a film of this type. [Read on here...]