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Marilyn Lovell, whose stoic comportment during the touch-and-go Apollo 13 flight accident gave the world hope that all would turn out well, died on August 27 in Lake Forest, Illinois, at 93. Her husband of 71 years, Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, was at her side.

Her husband named a small mountain on the moon Mount Marilyn in her honor during his Apollo 8 moon flight in 1968.

Marilyn Lillie Lovell was born on July 11, 1930, in Milwaukee, Wi. She was the youngest of five children. She graduated from Milwaukee’s Juneau High School, where she met her future husband, James A Lovell, Jr.

Marilyn attended George Washington University in Washington DC to be closer to him while he attended the U.S. Naval Academy. They married immediately following his graduation in Annapolis, MD.

She later was an active member of the original “Astronaut’s Wives Club,” promoting her husband’s NASA career.

She is survived by her husband,...

“Launch Control this is Houston. We are Go for launch.”

A harrowing moment in human history became an exhilarating cinematic event two decades ago when acclaimed director Ron Howard chronicled Nasa’s tense 1970 lunar mission crisis in the Oscar-nominated film Apollo 13.

To Nasa enthusiasts and Saturn V rocket experts, the launch sequence, along with James Horner’s emotional score, is the greatest in movie history.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment celebrates the unforgettable tale of courage and conviction with Apollo 13: 20th Anniversary Edition, coming to Blu-ray and Digital HD on June 2, 2015.

Newly restored and remastered using the original high-resolution 35mm film elements, the commemorative edition comes with an array of bonus features including “Apollo 13: Twenty Years Later,” an all-new retrospective featuring exclusive interviews with director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.

The restored version of Apollo 13 premieres on March 27 at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

Chicago – Universal Home Video is releasing an impressive wave of catalog titles in HD for the first time this month and we have a preview of them just for you, including a great 15th Anniversary Edition of “Apollo 13,” and HD transfers of four movies that have little in common but the studio that released them: “Dune,” “The Jackal,” “Out of Africa,” and “Traffic”. Mini-reviews, synopses, tech specs, and special features details follow.

Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition was released on Blu-Ray on April 13th, 2010.

Photo credit: Universal Home Video

“Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition”

Ron Howard’s best film is a perfect fit for Blu-ray in that its a film that needs to immerse you in quality audio to be most effective. The most powerful moments of “Apollo 13” transport the audience into that capsule with the astronauts fighting to make it back to solid ground and...

There is one thing concerning the USA that we can be proud of in recent history, one that we all should get excited about no matter what your politics are. If you are a flower child, heavy metal death rocker, goth, red-neck, square, sports fan, dweeb or whatever… Nasa and the United States space program deserve your attention and respect. Man’s progress in the pioneering of space is really the most exciting endeavor that humankind is involved with, and it is too often overlooked and even ignored. Cinema fans know one of the best films documenting the epic saga of American space flight is The Right Stuff (1983) that covered everything that we need to know about the early days of the space program from breaking the sound barrier to landing on the moon. Ten years later, filmmaker Ron Howard gave us a very special movie about the space program...