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FILM CRITIQUE:
"The Dish" is a quirky Australian import that tries to do two things at once and fails at both due to the fact
that the movie is unable to successfully mix the dramatic tension of a failing satellite radio dish station during the 1969
Apollo moon landing with the comedic elements of the over-the-top Australian personalities who live and work in the Outback
town of Parkes, New South Wales.
The movie is filled with a bunch of lovable characters revolving around the three local scientists and the one guard working
at the radio satellite dish station. The problem is that the movie and the characters in it are so relentlessly sweet that
all hope for dramatic tension is lost and the attempts to resurrect this drama during the electronic failure of this radio
receiving station two days before the scheduled moon walk (at a time when all the dignitaries have gathered to celebrate its
success) falls flat on its face. Not that I have anything against sweetness, but I would like my cinematic personalities to
be a little more fleshed out than the one-dimensional characterizations presented in this movie.
Dramatic movies can be immeasurably enhanced by comedic overtones. Conversely, comedies can also be enhanced by dramatic
overtones that lend weight and substance to the humorous story line. But tying the two elements together in a plausible story
is the tricky part and many movies fail to make the marriage work as doing so is much more of an art than a science.
The heart of "The Dish" is in the right place and many movie lovers (and most movie critics apparently from
the rave reviews about this movie) will find this movie to be a pleasant diversion from the standard cinema fare. But in my
opinion it has been reduced to a mere trifle entirely lacking in any depth or substance.
"The Dish" purports to tell the story of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing from the perspective of a few Australian
scientists manning a distant Outback radar station that just happens to be on the opposite side of the Earth from the American
NASA station and because of this fact immediately assumes tremendous strategic importance in that it can pick up the signals
sent from Apollo 11 during those times when the moon is on the far side of the Earth and the California station is unable
to receive them.
The story of the Apollo 11 voyage and Man's first steps on the Moon has to be one of the most incredible and riveting
stories of the Twentieth century, if not of the Second Millennium. Looking back on those moments from the perspective of another
30 years of experience and, hopefully, a little more wisdom, I am astonished that we made it there at all and even more astonished
that the crew made a successful trip back.
This was during an era where computers had less power than an adding machine today and slide rulers were the tool of choice
for making complex mathematical calculations. So there is an amazing story there which "The Dish", to its credit,
touched on, but didn't delve into to the point where I was made to feel like visual partner in this grand experiment.
Then there is the common Australian comedic dependency on throwing a few quirky, but lovable, characters into the stew
and then stirring the pot to see what happens. There is the farseeing Mayor Bob MacIntyre (Roy Billings) of Parkes, who had
earlier wangled enough money out of Sydney to pay for this monstrosity that all of a sudden has become important to just about
everybody in the whole world, especially NASA, when its strategic location becomes known.
The mayor and his loving wife have a high school-aged daughter who is rebellious and mature beyond her years, thus earning
her the unwanted and uninvited attention of the gonzo, but clueless, ROTCC cadet next door. Throw into this pot a boozing
Australian Prime Minister, a senile U.S. Ambassador, and other oddball visitors in for the moon landing festivities.
At the nearby dish station Sam Neill plays the role of Dr. Cliff Buxton, the lead scientist on this project, and his constant
professorial fiddling with his pipe only adds to his gravitas in the face of the two fresh-faced mathematical whizzes working
with him at the dish station.
One of them is a shy, socially inept young lad, Glen Latham (Tom Long), who is deeply attracted to Professor Buxton's
very lovely daughter. She herself is mutually attracted to him and spends the entire movie trying to get him to voice the
words that seem to be forever locked in his lovelorn heart.
The other scientist and dish mover, Ross "Mitch" Mitchell (Kevin Harrington), spends much of his time trying
to fend off the questions of the perennially worried, stolid and humorless American NASA official, Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton).
(Warburton was Elaine's boyfriend "Puddy" from "Seinfeld" and with his glasses and his soft-spoken demeanor
he is hardly recognizable from that former tv role.)
Rounding out the set of characters inside the dish building is a guard who seems to believe that an attack is somehow
imminent from something other than the sheep that are pastorally grazing about this isolated building miles from anywhere.
A couple of bricks short of a load, he marches through his radio walkie-talkie security clearance paces with everybody and
anybody who approaches the facility no matter how well known they are to him.
So high marks for charm, sweetness, oddball characters who don't do very much, and the visual joy of the giant radio telescopic
dish rotating slowly about to catch the distant Apollo 11 signals like a sunflower following the sunshine. Unfortunately,
low marks to the four writers who couldn't add more depth to their stable of quirky characters and totally failed at creating
a story that was able to blend artfully its dramatic and comedic elements.
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