I just watched a film called Apollo 11. If you lived through Apollo 11's mission and you have any interest this is absolutely worth the effort.
It's kind of a documentary but without interviews or narrative, just using footage and archived communications from the mission.
There was plenty of footage that I had never seen before.
IMDB details....
www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/
|
|
Noted for watching as and when available !
|
|
Did you see "First Man". A different take on the same subject.
|
|
No, I was put off by the trailers which made it all seem a bit too "Hollywood". Was I wrong?
|
Yes you were wrong, funnily enough watched it last night.
It was about the man, not at all hollywood, for example never showed the placement of the US flag on the moon, but also managed to get in some impressive but not over the top cgi
|
I enjoyed it it too. The human story portrayed was as interesting as that of the technology. Trump didn't like it apparently which is endorsement enough for me
|
The trailer of "First Man", for information;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSoRx87OO6k
Not really my sort of thing, I don't think. but I'm sure it's very good.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 5 May 19 at 19:47
|
|
First Man now available on Amazon Prime for £1.99 instead of £4.99
|
That popular, huh.
I read the reviews on IMDB and the overwhelming comment from quite a number of people was "boring". So I've bumped it down the list somewhat.
|
For what little it's worth, we went to see First Man at the cinema when it premiered. We loved it.
Perhaps it's "slow" if you have a modern young person's attention span, hence the reviews, but it worked for us. Other "slow" films we've very much enjoyed have been things like Frost v Nixon, or the excellent "The Dish".
|
The trailer for "Apollo 11"...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpLrp0SW8yg
But I found it far more interesting than the trailer might have suggested. Which probably means I should revisit "First Man".
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 5 May 19 at 19:47
|
There is something very special indeed about to hit screens. Chernobyl.
A docu drama, apparently its very very scary and shocking.
Its due on Sky shortly
|
|
Yep. Set to record. Very good review on the radio the other night.
|
>> There is something very special indeed about to hit screens. Chernobyl.
>>
>> A docu drama, apparently its very very scary and shocking.
>>
>> Its due on Sky shortly
>>
Looking forward to that as well. It got a very good review on the BBC.
|
|
It's a TV Miniseries of five episodes; May 6, May 13, May 20, May 27 and June 3 on Sky Atlantic in the UK and HBO elsewhere.
|
|
Watched the first episode last night, excellent. Looking forward to the next one.
|
|
Beautifully and frighteningly put together. I read (or heard somewhere ) that this was available in 4k..no idea how to access it though.
|
Best I can currently obtain post air date is 1080 HD.
Which I have of course as I dint have sky
|
>>
>> Looking forward to that as well. It got a very good review on the BBC.
>>
The review was interesting.
Not a spoiler as it's apparently not in the film, but the writer commented on the radiation dose meters for clean up workers used a scale up to 24 and if they reached 24 the worker were sent away.
The meters were rigged so that they didn't go past 23!
Sickening and strangely understandable.
|
|
I winder whether the whole series will be available in one go.
|
Thoroughly enjoyed it. I've always been fascinated by the Chernobyl disaster from both a technical and Soviet cultural point of view. Very much looking forward to the next one.
What still amazes me, even after having read this several times in other accounts, is how the management were more ready to believe that their staff were hallucinating or 'seeing things', and that multiple dosimeters were defective, than they were prepared to entertain the idea that a Soviet reactor could have failed in this way.
The whole disaster was entirely avoidable, and only happened because an entirely unnecessary "test" that had been under way at the time fell foul of a flaw in the RMBK reactor's design, and itself required multiple safety systems and warnings to be disabled. The characteristics that led to the explosion would never be revealed under normal reactor operating conditions, illustrated by the remaining RBMK reactors that were installed all over the former Eastern Bloc running without incident for decades. Someone made an arbitrary decision to do something for the sake of it, and the minions carried it out.
This unquestioning following of orders, and the society and culture behind it are still fascinating to me.
Last edited by: DP on Wed 8 May 19 at 12:39
|
|
Read up about the Windscale fire, you think Chernoble was avoidable, check out our own home grown incompetence.
|
Don't remember fire, before my time. I do though remember the cooling towers over the original piles. Regular sight from top of various Lakeland fells and we drove past them daily for a week while holidaying near Wasdale c1967.
Distant memory of parents telling of Mr Grave, who's farm in Newlands Valley we used to stay on when I was kid having to throw milk away because of possible contamination.
|
|
I've recorded the first part of Chernobyl so I'll watch it this weekend. My wife (everyone at her school) was taking medication after the fallout. Not sure what or whether it really might prevent sickness, I must ask her.
|
>>My wife (everyone at her school) was taking medication after the fallout. Not sure what or whether it really might prevent sickness
Not my field of expertise but I think iodine (sodium ioadate?) tablets are given to overload the thyroid quickly so it doesn't absorb highly radioactive iodine in the fallout.
In theory at least it should reduce the risk of thyroid cancer in the future.
Edit: in the US they use potassium iodide
emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp
Last edited by: Lygonos on Fri 10 May 19 at 13:52
|
>> Don't remember fire, before my time. I do though remember the cooling towers over the
>> original piles. Regular sight from top of various Lakeland fells and we drove past them
>> daily for a week while holidaying near Wasdale c1967.
>>
>> Distant memory of parents telling of Mr Grave, who's farm in Newlands Valley we used
>> to stay on when I was kid having to throw milk away because of possible
>> contamination.
Interesting to read that the filters above the chimneys were an afterthought that probably saved much of the area being contaminated.
Ex colleagues father was involved in the fire and died shortly afterwards. The family were never able to find out what he was doing there as they lived in Berkshire.
|
>> Ex colleagues father was involved in the fire and died shortly afterwards. The family were
>> never able to find out what he was doing there as they lived in Berkshire.
I can enlighten you, AWE (Atomic weapons establishment) was in Berkshire, Winscale was supposed to be a power station, but in fact was built to produce fissionable material for weapons.
I'l let you join the dots.
|
|
Third season of the excellent series "Sneaky Pete" started last night on Amazon (free of course to Prime subscribers).
|
>>I'l let you join the dots.
Had got that far.
He was an engineer / scientist and should have been office / lab based.
Went there in full health in the prime of life, got very ill and died of cancer within a matter of months.
|
I just watched the first episode.
Well made and I'm sure it's full of facts and accurate, but damn it's tediously slow. Tedious and boring.
5 episodes at this pace? No, I think I'll have to give that a miss.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 15 May 19 at 23:31
|
>> Well made and I'm sure it's full of facts and accurate, but damn it's tediously
>> slow. Tedious and boring.
>> 5 episodes at this pace? No, I think I'll have to give that a miss.
I thought the same as you, but stick with it. It does get better. There are a few witty one liners that start to creep in as well. "the dosimeter is only giving 3.6 roentgens, nothing to worry about". "Err, the dosimeter only goes up to 3.6 though".
|
I really enjoyed it, especially the scientist who's played by the chap from The Crown. Looking forward to the next episode.
I guess now you mention it is a little bit like a documentary, but then it's right up my street how very little is left out. I don't know if it's accurate, but I would think it is. You don't really need to dramatise a real life nuclear reactor explosion, there's plenty of things happening to work with.
Aside from that I was impressed with all the soviet era vehicles, I mean where do you get 70s/80s soviet fire trucks from?
Last edited by: sooty123 on Thu 16 May 19 at 05:17
|
>> Aside from that I was impressed with all the soviet era vehicles, I mean where
>> do you get 70s/80s soviet fire trucks from?
Anywhere you like in the previous soviet countries, there were a gazzilion of them, and they were all the same. Some of them are still being used in original form.
|
I too thought it was a little slow and ponderous, great insight into the soviet thought processes tho.
"Its impossible RBMK reactors can't blow up - you are mistaken"
I found a link to a BBC documentary about the fire at Winscale.
Now this is scary stuff
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcsyMvQtlKs
|
> Anywhere you like in the previous soviet countries, there were a gazzilion of them, and
>> they were all the same. Some of them are still being used in original form.
>>
>>
I guess so. I know it's their job to do it with props etc but I did think it was a good effort at dressing it up to be the early eighties. That as well as shooting it in that dulled down colour style.
I guess it was shot somewhere in eastern europe
|
>> I did think it was a good effort at dressing it up to be the
>> early eighties. That as well as shooting it in that dulled down colour style.
The "dulled down colour style" is artistic license. Its designed to impart a sense of evil, oppression, I mean logically, was the sun and light duller in sovet controlled Ukraine? Colour less colourful?
No of course it wasnt.
They have managed to impart the one thing that is different, the sense of enforced conformity, In dress, architecture, culture, and thought.
|
|
Second episode was truly scary (in a factual sense) when Gorbachev described the effects of a melt down on the rest of Europe and the facts about the amount of fall-out were described. No doubt we've all been affected by that incident.
|
The "dulled down colour style" is artistic license. Its designed to impart a sense of
>> evil, oppression, I mean logically, was the sun and light duller in sovet controlled Ukraine?
>> Colour less colourful?
>>
>> No of course it wasnt.
>
I know that, I was just commenting on it.
|
I found it gripping and looking forward to part 3. Wonderful cinematography. Course it's shot with colour saturation, so was Private Ryan, a golden French beach in June.
I like the slow pace and I like how they showed the explosion, a couple of miles away from a high-rise window. The concussion a few seconds after the flash. That's all I needed to get a grip on how big it had been. None of that Hollywood crap with men shooting 20 metres in the air. None of the comical Russian accents either.
"...I think iodine (sodium ioadate?) tablets are given to overload the thyroid quickly so it doesn't absorb highly radioactive iodine in the fallout."
Wifey says yes, that was what they had to take in tablet form and also a dark brown liquid. Certainly not Guinness, they couldn't get that til '88.
|
Not new, but I hadn't seen it before.
As an overview it covers the arrest and trial of Rudolf Abel defended by James Donovan (Tom Hanks) and his later exchange with Gary Powers and Frederic Pryor.
Really good. If you haven't seen it, make a point of it.
|
|
Yes saw it when it came out, very good film indeed.
|
|
Beautifully crafted. Saw it at the cinema, may now re-visit.
|
As seen, [but not on TV] - Apollo 11 - R.P.
