A film from the mid ‘90s will launch itself into The Athena Cinema for one night.
The Athena, 20 S. Court St., will screen Apollo 13 on Tuesday at 7 p.m. as part of its Science on Screen series. The event is free for all who attend.
When the spacecraft Apollo 13 suffers from internal damage, NASA devises a plan to return the passengers safely to Earth. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris and the late Bill Paxton star in the movie.
Apollo 13 was released in 1995 and was directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1996, including Best Picture and won two for Best Film Editing and Best Sound categories.
The film is based on true events that took place in 1970. The mission helped coin the phrase “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
After the screening, Dennis Irwin, dean of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, will talk about the politics, technology and society as a whole during the time period of the film. Irwin has supported the Science on Screen series since its conception five years ago and the theater has collaborated with the Russ College on several occasions, Alexandra Kamody, the director of the Athena, said.
“We were really thrilled that Dean Irwin wanted to do one so we decided to work on picking out what we thought would work best with his area of expertise,” Kamody said. “He had interest in Apollo 13.”
Alyssa Battaglia, a freshman studying biological sciences pre-professional, said she would attend the screening but would probably not attend the lecture following the film.
Battaglia likes the idea of bringing older movies back to theaters because she grew up watching '80s movies with her mom and said “going back and watching it with friends is a new experience.”
Sydney Vest, a freshman studying child and family studies, is interested in the event because it is close to campus and the movie quality would be better in a theater. She also likes space movies, she said.
“I just enjoy watching movies and just the idea of space is really cool,” Vest said.
