I’ve always worried that something was missing from my small-town education.
Now I know: Our teachers never told us about the Revolutionary War’s airport battles.
Donald Trump did. Reading his 4th of July address from a Teleprompter, he praised our revolutionary soldiers: “Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports.” Read more…
As moon-landing films fill our TV screens, something becomes clear:
The world has changed profoundly in the past 50 years. These documentaries show a 1969 when:
— Americans obsessed on the Soviet threat. It “really was kind of war by another means,” said Robert Stone, whose three-night film starts Monday (July 8) on PBS.
— The space program was all-white. It went 23 years before having a black man in space.
— And it was virtually all-male (as shown in this celebration photo). You can ask Poppy Northcutt, who was then the lone woman at Mission Control. Read more…
1) “The Movies” debut, 9 p.m. ET, CNN (barring breaking news), rerunning at midnight. This is like the former Disney World ride that zipped us through Hollywood history — fast and fun, but never really staying anywhere for long. The opener takes us through the 1980s. It has fresh interviews with the great filmmakers – Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Rob Reiner, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, the late John Singleton – and a few actors, critics and historians. It has a few insights — Tom Hanks calls “Roger Rabbit” (shown here) the most difficult filmmaking ever — and lots of quick, fun clips. Read more…
