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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Warner Bros.
Salesrank: 19514
Released: June 22, 2009 |
| Our Price: $18.95 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Oscar and Golden Globe-winner Robert Duvall ("Falling Down," "A Civil Action") and Oscar and Golden Globe-nominee James Caan ("The Godfather," "Misery") star in this science fiction thriller about the international race to put the first man on the moon. When an American lands and finds a wrecked Russian space ship, he begins a race against time, realizing that he must find shelter, or perish. Co-starring Michael Murphy ("Manhattan") and Ted Knight ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Too Close for Comfort").
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Countdown Reviews:
A Great Film - a Great DVD 
2009-10-11 - Countdown has been a long time favourite of mine - and like Marooned or the BBC series Moonbase 3 - one of the few attempts to present a realistic portrayal not only of the actual mechanics of space flight, but its politics as well. I've waited for Countdown to appear on DVD for years, and finally thanks to the Warner Brothers Archive imprint, it has finally happened. The menus are basic but perfectly functional, and the quality of the amamorphic widescreen transfer is well up to standard. All I hope is that this is a sign of things to come and that other studios begin to offer other titles which are wanted but not in sufficient numbers to justify a full scale DVD realise to market.
Countdown has ended
2009-09-19 - Many thanks to Warner Brothers for releasing these older and perhaps obscure movies in limited or on-demand DVD-R releases. I now have several of these films now which would otherwise not have been released. As someone who has been a video junkie since the late 70's and spent a small fortune on the pursuit of higher and higher quality copies of film and television materials, twenty or so dollars to purchase a near perfect quality dvd is one of the few modern miracles out there. For anybody sitting on the fence wondering about these relaeses, go for it! Thanks again!
An underrated adventure story. 
2009-07-04 - Countdown, an early directorial effort by the legendary Robert Altman, is a solid little adventure story that is much better than most critics would have you believe. Top billed Robert Duvall and James Caan are astronauts preparing for a flight to the moon. They must deal with intense training, the inherent hazards of the mission and the concerns of their families. The plot is a familiar one and the attendant melodrama is old hat, yet this film, by virtue of its visual appeal and deliberate pacing, manages to build quite a head of steam before the final fadeout. Altman uses the panavision screen effectively, and the special effects are good for their time. Look for many familiar faces in the cast, including Ted Knight and Charles Aidman.
