The Dish (2000) — PICK
In the Shadow of the Moon (2007) — PICK
Moon (2009) — PICK
What are some lunar-themed home-video options? Apollo 13, of course, but what else? Here are three worth your time.
The Dish stars Sam Neill in a charming, low-key, loosely fact-based Australian comedy about the biggest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere — located in a sheep field — and how its attendants and their small-town neighbors briefly play a crucial role in the Apollo 11 moon mission when NASA needs communications support “Down Under.”
In the Shadow of the Moon offers a splendid documentary look at the Apollo program, with interviews of 10 of the 11 then-surviving Apollo astronauts (not including, of course, Neil Armstrong).
Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, is smart, modest, cerebral sci-fi with shades of 2001, Blade Runner and Solaris, among others. Rockwell plays a contractor working alone on a mining base on the far side of the moon, where all is not as it seems.
Caveat Spectator: The Dish: Some crass language and profanity. Teens and up. In the Shadow of the Moon: Some language; footage of wartime bombings; a mild body-function reference. Kids and up. Moon: Recurring profane and obscene language; bloody injuries; violent illness; brief bedroom imagery (nothing explicit); brief rear nudity. Mature audiences.