The Dish

Starring: Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long, et al.

It's the biggest event since sheep invented wool! Apollo 11's astronauts will walk on the moon -- and the 1,000-ton satellite dish in tiny, sheep-farming Parkes, Australia, will beam that historic first step around the globe. But as giddy citizens prepare for the moment when the entire world will depend on them, the dish flatlines. And its unconventional Aussie crew and its by-the-book NASA supervisor from the U.S. have very different ideas about how to fix it. A culture clash of cosmic proportions erupts in this fact-based tale of how the biggest televised event in history was almost not televised. The Dish, with Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Patrick Warburton (Seinfeld) and others in a skilled ensemble portraying a spirited array of techies and townies, "will send you to the moon and back laughing" (Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun).

• Format: DVD
• Language: English
• UPC: 085392124923
• Release Date: May 2003
• Rating: PG-13
• Publisher: Warner Home Video
• Director: Rob Sitch
• Starring: Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long, Patrick Warburton, Genevieve Mooy, Tayler Kane, Bille Brown, Roy Billing, Andrew S. Gilbert, Lenka Kripac
• Runtime: 1 hour, 44 minutes
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

A cute movie in the vein of Waking Ed Devine.

The back storyline is of the use of the huge receiving antenna (dish) in Parkes, in New South Wales, Australia, to pick up the transmission from the first astronauts on the moon. This is supposed to be a real story, but it is as real as Donald Duck is. This is really about people finding out about themselves and others through the trials and tribulations of making ancient technology work under adverse conditions. The story is told as one big flashback through Cliff Buxton’s (Sam Neill) eyes. We see a love lost and found story, young lovers that are the tongue-tied story, a “you are not so bad for a snot” story, and many more stories of interaction. The long shots that are of the reallocation and nearby are quite beautiful. Besides, whoever picked the background music to match the time of the story made some great choices.