The Dish - A small Australian town, for a brief time becomes one of the most important places on Earth

Introduction -

An overlooked feelgood Aussie charmer from 2000.

Name of film - The Dish

Director - Rob Sitch

Year - 2000

Official Poster

Trailer

Review

Apollo 11 is on its way to the moon in 1969 with Neil Armstrong heading the three man crew. At one point due to Earth's position, the Northern Hemisphere and NASA could not pick up all the signals and communications from the rocket. Instead, sleepy town Parkes, in New South Wales Australia, is the only place that can capture the images on their radio telescope, and it becomes Parkes' task to relay the images around the globe.
So the satellite dish, at a vital point in the historic journey, will be earth’s only communications link with Apollo. Adding to the pressure, Parkes will also be responsible for beaming live pictures of the touchdown across the world. Tempers in the small town are fraught and set to fray even more.
Performances by a largely unknown cast, create a sense that this is a town more than just a little out of its depth - a tiny and yet for a blip in time, vital part of the huge American NASA machine.
But this small, heart-warming and charming film plays as a comedy, an affectionate look at the three men who run the dish, Australian actor Sam Neill, his two oddball scientific sidekicks and the Parkes’ town folk – all desperately wanting everything to go just so - against mounting odds – and the humour is gentle, tongue in cheek and ironic.
Along the way the dish breaks down, the men lose track of Apollo, an unexpected turn in the weather, threatens to wreck transmission altogether, all of which NASA, and their on site representative must know nothing about. And Neill is calm and understated as the good-natured boss of the station who wants to perform a genuinely heroic feat before his imminent retirement. The film won awards for its rousing music soundtrack and was critically acclaimed. In looking at the different cultural attitudes between Australia and the U.S. while revisiting one of the greatest events in history, The Dish stands out as being beautifully made, feelgood and lovely.

My favorite scene - Moving the Dish

**Number of SUBs - 7 out of 10 **

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