The Dish (2000)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Rob Sitch

Writers:

Santo Cilauro (conceived and written by) &
Tom Gleisner (conceived and written by) ...

Release Date:

27 April 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Man's first step on the moon nearly stumbled on earth

Plot:

A remote Australian antenna, populated by quirky characters, plays a key role in the first Apollo moon landing.

Plot Keywords:

NASA | Satellite Dish | Australia | Moon Walk | Space

Awards:

3 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Sam Neill	...	Cliff Buxton
Billy Mitchell	...	Cameron
Roz Hammond	...	Miss Nolan
Christopher-Robin Street	...	Damien
Luke Keltie	...	Graeme
Naomi Wright	...	Melanie
Ben Wright-Smith	...	Nicholas
Beverley Dunn	...	Secretary (voice)
Grant Thompson	...	Mr. Callen
Bille Brown	...	Prime Minister
Bernard Curry	...	Newspaper Reporter
Kevin Harrington	...	Ross 'Mitch' Mitchell
Tom Long	...	Glenn Latham
Patrick Warburton	...	Al Burnett
Roy Billing	...	Mayor Robert 'Bob' McIntyre

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

Runtime:

101 min | France:97 min (DVD)

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | Netherlands:12 | Italy:T | Australia:M | Chile:TE | France:U | Germany:6 | Spain:T | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Crawford Productions, Box Hill, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company:

Working Dog

Trivia:

The film is set in the town of Parkes, in New South Wales, Aus., but was actually filmed in Forbes, which is a neighboring town a few miles down the road. The reason for the re-filming is because Parkes has changed over the last 30 years, but Forbes hasn't changed as much - Forbes still looked like a 1960s town, like Parkes did 30 years before.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): On the blackboard showing calculations for finding where Apollo 11 is the word parallax is spelled "parrallax".

Quotes:

Cliff Buxton: My wife said something. She said, "Failure is never quite so frightening as regret".
Glenn Latham: Oh, that's good advice.
Cliff Buxton: Pretty good.
Glenn Latham: I wish somebody'd tell me that.

Movie Connections:

References "Hawaii Five-O" (1968)

Soundtrack:

Something In The Air

One small step for man, one giant leap for Parkes.

"The Dish" tells of a small group of people who operated a giant radio telescope in Parkes, NSW, Australia which captured the weak signals from the Apollo 11 1969 lunar landing and moon walk with its behemoth parabolic reflector. A light hearted and fun romp involving the scientists and the townsfolk, all buoyed by pride over their big dish and involvement with the historical NASA mission, "The Dish" relies heavily on the viewers sense of awe and nostalgia as the "...Giant leap for mankind" is taken. A easy-going and somewhat austere film which manages a subtle and lovely sense of humor and heart, "The Dish" will have broad appeal but should play best with those who remember July 20, 1969. (B)