Would You Believe? They Put A Man On The Moon

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. This has got many in a Moon-like editorial mood and of course from the film world, a retrospective of films that centers around movies made about la luna. The New York Times has a good piece on cinema centered around the film’s focusing on the Earth’s satellite, and the Criterion Collection obviously anticipated this forty-year anniversary months ago when they set a re-release of Al Reinert’s “For All Mankind” lunar documentary for July (July 14 to be exact was when the disc came out, blu-ray too. hopefully a review soon).

From Georges Méliès’ “A Trip To The Moon,” (which the Smashing Pumpkins appropriated for a music video thanks to “Little Miss Sunshine” directors Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris) to Duncan Jones’ more recent, “Moon,” with Sam Rockwell, there’s been myriad films devoted to this celestial body.

However, our favorite piece of “cinema” related to the moon might be this clip of Buzz Aldrin (the second person to set foot on the Moon) punching out some conspiracy theory loser who was harassing him. This clips is so sweet, we maintain it deserves its own screening or DVD. Good stuff (Aldrin was around 78 years of age when he popped this nerdlinger in the face, he’s 79 now) worth watching on repeat.

YouTube clip via InContention. Criterion has a clip of “For All Mankind,” on their website, a documentary that appropriately utilized much of the celestial music created by ambient godhead Brian Eno. He’s credited with an original score, but we wonder how much of that is music from his gorgeous 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (“For All Mankind” came out in 1989, we’ve never seen it to be honest, but we’ll have to rent it to trainspot the music).