enough violins already

In the last couple weeks, we've been watching From the Earth to the Moon on DVD.

The quality of the episodes really varies but there is a constant: the over-blown, histrionic, rah rah aren't we great & noble, punctuated by violins, melodrama.

Interspersed with rugged, strong men doing manly things like fishing and punching each other gently on the shoulder and glancing at each other out of slitted eyes, to convey a depth of emotion which we mere mortals can apparently only guess at. But they're all great heterosexual manly men! I hope you understand that! Better put in another scene where they're hunting or hiking....just so we understand that those men LOVE each other, yeah, they're like brothers, man, but not in a gay way. No way.

And the violins. Oh yes, just in case the audience is too stupid to figure out when something incredible is happening, cue the violins in a most maudlin, melodramatic way. We aren't talking Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings in Platoon - poignant, moving, appropriate, beautiful - we're talking excessive violins.

And people. It's GEM - IH - Nuy (to rhyme with guy) . It is not gem - ih - KNEE (I don't care if dictionary.com gives it as a possible pronounciation), and it definitely isn't JIM - IH - KNEE (as in cricket). Y'all sounded like NASA hicks.

Amelia loves the Apollo 12 episode and Pete Conrad. That episode does have the great Canadian Dave Foley and it is probably the most 'fun'. And for a change, these guys act like normal guys who like each other. It also has The Archies singing "Sugar Sugar" which the kids made me find on the web and have been playing on auto repeat for hours on end. Stark raving madness.

Roo really prefered some documentary versions which he taped from somewhere. They have real footage & contemporary interviews with Gene Kranz and he says by their vary sparsity, they were more dramatic than Tom's effort.

And just what is it with Tom's lips? Why do they always look so weird? Is he slipping the way of Robert Smith from the Cure, who never could figure out lipstick placement?

And by the time you've finished watching all the episodes you'll be very sick of JFK's speech: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...."

In our house, practically every decision is now spoofed.

"I choose to have apple juice. I choose to have apple juice not because it is easy, but because it is hard......"

But after all my complaints, and even though my eyes hurt from all the rolling, we have enjoyed it enough to have watched all the episodes several times through. How's that for a half-assed recommendation?