On 1 July 2009, Public Enemies was released on 3,336 movie screens across America. The notable actress of this 1930s era gangsters vs. cops movie is Academy Award Winner Marion Cotillard. Ms. Cotillard deserves infamy for these negative comments she previously uttered on TV:"Did a man really walk on the moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."
Ms. Cotillard unwittingly became a public voice for a minority of skeptical Europeans and that persistent anti-moon landing/lunar landing hoax crowd across the globe. She also displayed her gigantic ignorance of history which is ironic for an actress tapped to play historic figures like Billie Frechette and Edith Piaf from La Mome/La vie en rose. Even as her historical fiction flick plays out on the silver screen, interesting events with impact plays out in the real world.
17 July 2009, much to the chagrin of Ms. Cotillard and her dubious company, NASA posted images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of Apollo landing sites, such as Apollo 11's Tranquility Base. Picture quality is bound to improve as the LRO settles into its assigned orbit of 31 miles (50 kms). LRO ought to effectively carry out its mission to provide enhance image maps of the moon's surface, measure radiation levels and seek lunar resources. LRO will provide very useful and critical information for U.S. moon missions by 2020 and a permament human research presence like one in earthly Antarctica.
20 July 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of a historic occasion when the first humans set foot upon the surface of the moon. This event is more likely to generate widespread media coverage than there was for Public Enemies. A few generations still ponder and are capitvated by this daring act of manned spaceflight even more than a mediocre flick that captures the exploits of 1930s gangster. For instance, on Sunday 19 July, 100s of people of all ages stood on line for hours at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC to get autographed copies of books by Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin (2nd man on the lunar surface). Media from European outlets and local Fox 5 news covered this event to honor a spectacular space achievement. At any one time tens of people crowded near the autograph line to snap pics or catch a glimpse of those legendary space explorers.
More people know about Apollo 11 than Ms. Cotillard who thinks she is more popular than this historic space mission. Facts tend to show otherwise. Sure she is lauded for her acting skills and earned her spot in Dior model ads, but the 80th Academy Awards had its worst American viewership in 2008, with a mere 21.1 million homes or a total of 32 million viewers. Public Enemies earns 17% of its revenues from abroad, so her name may be just enough to draw in European audiences to help this film meet or slightly exceed its $100 million budget.
By the time the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 occurs in 2019, NASA will be readying its astronaut crews to explore the moon. An Academy Award winning actress like Ms. Cotillard may see her relevance dim as time goes by unlike the inspirational Apollo lunar missions of yesterday and the ones set to echo throughout the decades to be.
