First Man (2018)

[Shannon L.]

I know this didn't do well at the box office, but I really liked it.  I wonder if it would have done better if they marketed it better? 

Neil Armstrong, in real life, was a very quiet person-- a man of few words, who never boasted--so as a character, he was never not going to be very exciting.  Because of that, I don't see any acting nominations for this movie, but, imo, the directing was fantastic. 

When compared to Apollo 13 (which I thought was excellent), this movie made that one look all shiny and pretty and, while their situation was dire, I never got the feel of the kind of danger they were in.

In First Man, however, Damien Chazelle, got the feel of the movie just right.  I felt how cramped they were in the capsule waiting to take off.  Listening to the scraping, groaning and rattling of the metal during take off had my mom and I tensing up.  When Neil stepped out of the lunar module on the moon, the silence was not only deafening, but almost took my breath away.   Chazelle did use the hand held camera a lot with a number of close ups and I'm not crazy about that, but it did help the keep up the tension and, while it took a while to get used to, I do like that he used a grainy film, because it made it feel like it was something filmed back in the 60s.  My mom and I remarked afterward how crazy it was that even though we knew how it all turned out, we still got tense watching it, hoping they'd make it.  I think his efforts are worthy of a directing nomination.

It's not a movie I could sit through again, but I'm glad I saw it.  It's one that should be seen on a big screen, imo, so if you are wavering about whether or not you want to see it, maybe go to on a discounted day/time. 

[AimingforYoko]

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

Because of that, I don't see any acting nominations for this movie,

Possible supporting for Claire Foy.

This was definitely in Gosling's wheelhouse, he does the man of few words well. But this was more for the technical aspects and the visuals, which were stunning, especially the part on the moon.

[anna0852]

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I saw Apollo 13 and a love the HBO mini-series from the Earth to the Moon but this just fell flat for me. And not just because Armstrong himself is taciturn, but because if I hadn't previously paid attention to the space program or had researched it on my own I wouldn't have known what was going on half the time. It took me forever to figure out which character was which due to the lack of names. Technically it was very well done but ultimately I found it to be a rather dull movie.

[partofme]

I was dragged to this the weekend it opened, I wanted to be open minded about it particularly because of some criticism if heard of it, but I had a hard time staying awake during it. 

[Danny Franks]

Just got back from seeing this, and I thought it was really good. Yes, there were some flaws - notably disjointed in parts, where Chazelle clearly wanted to cover too much ground, too quickly. And it was strangely dispassionate when dealing with things like the death of Elliot See and then the deaths of the three intended Apollo 1 astronauts. I also thought that Chazelle's decision to shoot so many of the family scenes in extreme close up was a little claustrophobic, but he may have intended them to feel that way, to emphasise Neil's emotional distance.

But the flaws were minor, when taking the movie as a whole. I did like Chazelle's decision to shoot using different film types, to create a stark difference between those claustrophobic family scenes, which had a warmth to them, then the more clinical NASA-set stuff, and then the gorgeous, expansive shots of space and the Moon.

I thought Ryan Gosling was good. Taciturn and reserved, definitely. Inscrutable in nearly every scene, other than when he was alone. And I guess the real man was like that too. But Claire Foy was tremendous. I can absolutely see why she's getting Oscar buzz (presumably for supporting actress, rather than leading). She's so restrained and subtle, eschewing the histrionics that often come with being 'wife of the big hero man'. You can see and feel the pressure building up in her, throughout the movie. As Neil never talks about their daughter, as he dismisses the dangers of his job, as he cuts her out of his inner life, and then she finally explodes when he's planning to leave for the mission without even saying goodbye to his sons.

The supporting cast are great too. Kyle Chandler as another paragon of stoic virtue (something he plays so well), Jason Clark as a big, gruff but caring buddy, Corey Stoll, playing Buzz Aldrin very unsympathetically. I mean, haven't we all known that jackass who says something terrible, then follows it up with "I'm just saying what we're all thinking"? Neil's response to that is perfect. "... Don't."

They really boiled space travel down to the terrifying reality of sitting on a huge, controlled explosion, in a tin can, and blasting off into the deadly unknown. There was no glamour, and no sense that these men were at all comfortable with the profiles that being an astronaut was giving them (except Aldrin, who has embraced the public life ever since). I also appreciated that they kept the rah-rah, pomp and circumstance, 'ain't America grand' stuff to a minimum, throughout the film. I know Fox News pretended to be offended about the movie not showing the planting of the flag, but the flag is there, shown clearly. And the key parts of the Moon Landing are included - Neil's "the Eagle has landed", mission control telling him "you've got people turning blue down here", and then Neil's most famous words, as he sets foot on the moon.

I did actually get choked up, funnily enough, when they showed the footage of John F Kennedy's speech, about going to the Moon because "we choose to". It really does feel like something from another age.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Danny Franks

[Shannon L.]

@Danny Franks , you stated it all so much more eloquently than I could.  I agree with everything you wrote.  And, I agree with you and @AimingforYoko about Claire Foy's performance and a possible Oscar nomination for it.  I wasn't thinking about her character when I opened the thread.   My mom gave me the Life magazine that she bought for me that day (I was 5 weeks old) and, in the section about Neil, it said that his nature made him, by all accounts, easy to live with, but I can imagine that him being so calm about something so dangerous could be a bit frustrating as well.  Claire made that quite evident in her portrayal.

[Steph J]

On 10/25/2018 at 11:29 AM, Shannon L. said:

I know this didn't do well at the box office, but I really liked it.  I wonder if it would have done better if they marketed it better? 

I sort of wonder if the manufactured controversy about the flag has anything to do with it.  My awareness of the film before it's release was due almost entirely to stories about people being "outraged" that the film doesn't show the American flag being planted on the moon, even though the film shows the flag being on the moon.

Anyway, I liked it, too.  Gosling is great and I thought Claire Foy did a lot with a character type that tends to be pretty thankless.  That scene where she finally just loses it on him (with good reason - dude, you're going to go to the moon and you're not even going to say goodbye to your kids just to avoid having to deal with the emotional fallout?) was so good.

I was also really impressed by the two kids who played Rick Armstrong at different ages.  That scene with the younger one, where they're at his sister's funeral and he asks Neil to come play with him and then just sort of sadly nods when Neil declines, absolutely broke my heart.

[vavera4ka]

Saw it yesterday.

score is GORGEOUS! if it doesn't get the Oscar idk what will.

shaky camera made me sick. literally. it took me about an hr to quiet down the nausea. I understand and appreciate the loud and shaky filming DURING the training or the mission, but at the kitchen table???

I understand why it was done, and IMAX views on the moon were amazing, but... When Wizard of Oz did similar technique, the majority of the movie was in better quality, not 10 minutes out of 2.5 hrs...

Edited October 31, 2018 by vavera4ka

[proserpina65]

Finally saw this last night.  I'll preface my thoughts on the film by saying that Neil Armstrong has been my personal hero since I was a child, and I've read a lot about him over the years, which did greatly color my viewing experience.

I don't believe the movie did him justice.  He came across more cold, distant, and downright brooding in moments, rather than just quiet and reserved.  And I think it failed to get across just how brilliant a pilot he was so that the moment when he took over flying the LEM and manually landed it didn't have the resonance I felt it needed.

Plus, Ryan Gosling was miscast.  I don't mean he did a bad job acting-wise; any problems I had with his portrayal really belong to the director and the writer.  But he looked nothing like Armstrong other than being a medium-sized white guy.  Gosling is all movie-star handsome angles, and Neil Armstrong was the epitome of a round-faced Midwestern farm boy.  I'll admit that probably didn't bother most viewers, and it shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it took me out of the film a lot.

Claire Foy was fine with what she was given to do, but any number of American actresses could've done just as well, so I'm not sure why they had to go with a British actress.

 

Now to the things I greatly enjoyed:

- The supporting cast was mostly wonderful, from brashness of Buzz Aldrin to the quiet understatement of Ed White to the utter perfection that was Kyle Chandler as Deke Slayton.  And I didn't realize until the credits that Michael Collins was played by Lukas Haas.  Man, has it been that long since Witness?

- All the space scenes were fantastic.  Oscar nominations for visual effects, editing, sound/sound editing and cinematography had better be forthcoming.

- The music was also extremely good.

 

Overall, I liked it but didn't love it.  I think if I'd known less about the subject, I'd have appreciated the movie more.

[snickers]

Well as someone who didn’t know much on the subject matter, I quite enjoyed this. I think Chazelle is a pretty good director and this movie proved he’s got the range with consistency. I loved Ryan G. in this, I actually cried during “the scene” on the moon and I hardly ever cry during movies...no tears were shed during a Star is born or beautiful boy....yet I cried for this lol...

 

just like with all movies based on real people I’m sure it had its inaccuracies...but I thought this movie was really solid and had good performances

 

 but I gotta say I thought Claire foy was just ok....but critics are talking Oscar????

[thuganomics85]

I enjoyed it, but I can certainly see why it isn't for everyone and has been underwhelming at the box office, because it being called a slow burn is the understatement of the century, to put it mildly.  I thought it worked for the most part personally, but there were even a few scenes where I wanted to be like "I get it, Damien Chazelle, but you can move on now, buddy."  I can also see why Ryan Gosling's performance has been polarizing as well, because he might have been a bit too stiff and emotionless for his own good at times, but, again, personally, I thought he showed enough small ticks through his acting that I got a sense of who Neil Armstrong is as a man and an astronaut, so it worked for me.

All the scenes in space were fantastic and the actual moon landing was truly marvelous.  And while there was obviously no singing or dance numbers in this one, I like that music once again played a big part in a Chazelle film, as I thought the score really amped up those scenes, and made it even more intense and dramatic.  Overall, even if this ends up being considered a disappointment, I'm glad that Chazelle is willing to try new things, and I continue to think he's going to go down as one of the greats if he keeps this up.

Loved all the familiar faces that popped up her.  Jason Clarke, Ciaran Hinds, Shea Whigham, Pablo Schreider (although I didn't realize he was Jim Lovell, until the credits.  Did a solid job, but I guess going back in time and getting 90s Tom Hanks was out of the question!), Corey Michael Smith, Brian d'Arcy James, Patrick Fugit, and, of course, the always excellent Kyle Chandler.  My favorite though was Corey Stoll as Buzz.  He was clearly having a ball in his scenes.

Claire Foy certainly took a role that could have easily been paper thin, and made it something much better.  The scene when Janet confronted Neil over trying to leave without having a discussion with his sons, was easily the best acting moment for me.  Still crazy that I remember first seeing her in that silly show, Crossbones (where John Malkovich played Blackbeard of all things), years ago, and now she's on her way to being a pretty huge star.

Overall, Apollo 13 is still my personal favorite NASA movie, but I still really enjoyed this, and I liked the insight it brought into what it took for the USA to win the Space Race, the sacrifices that went with it (the way they shot the deadly accident with Apollo 1 was subtle, but still powerful and sad), and the mindset it takes to be an astronaut, and put your life on the line like they do.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Golden Globe nomination:

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture: Claire Foy
Best Original Score – Motion Picture: Justin Hurwitz

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Congratulations to First Man for winning a Golden Globe! 

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Justin Hurwitz, "First Man"

[ElectricBoogaloo]

First Man won two Critics' Choice Awards tonight!

Best Editing: Tom Cross

Best Score: Justin Hurwitz

[Simon Boccanegra]

This is the Heaven's Gate of space-exploration movies. I don't mean that it was on that level as a financial failure (its returns were disappointing but not catastrophic), or it caused a studio to go out of business, or it was critically reviled (its Rotten Tomatoes is a robust 88%), or it ruined anyone's career. I mean that it fails artistically in the same way.

Every once in a while, a young director has a big success and then he gets his didacticism on. He's going to demystify some genre, or show something the way it really was...which usually means telling us what we already knew (or could have guessed, and would have liked to see as no more than a garnish to the more compelling parts of the story) in painstaking detail. He lays all his ideas on too thick. Cimino bankrupted a studio and took up hours of his audience's time to challenge Hollywood prettification of the West, when Altman had done this on a shoestring a decade earlier in McCabe & Mrs Miller. Now Chazelle gives us The Right Stiff. Space pioneering wasn't wondrous or thrilling, his film seems to be telling us; it was damned scary! And the people who participated in it were anxious and morose, and their marriages suffered, and everyone walked around with a case of the glums! 

I had loved Whiplash and really liked La La Land. Whatever I was expecting a Damian Chazelle-directed film on this subject to be, with this appealing cast, this wasn't it. (However, I note that he directed someone else's script this time. ) I tried to take it on its own rather cold and dour terms, but I wasn't even very impressed with the visual effects. Whether we're on earth or in space, we're usually locked into a tight one-shot of someone from the mid-sternum up. It's a space film that makes so little of space. Great expense and effort seemed to have gone into making everything constricted and drab.  

The flag controversy may have hurt the box office with some segments, but I really think poor word of mouth after the first weekend was the fatal blow.  

Edited January 26, 2019 by Simon Boccanegra

[roughing it]

I saw this on DVD last weekend and I really liked it.  I teared up at the death of Neil's daughter, and really felt the continuing pain which never goes away (maybe experiencing a few recent family deaths makes me more vulnerable).  I actually found myself holding my breath during the lunar flight and moon landing.  I was blown away by the understatedness of the movie and got lost in it for its duration.

[VCRTracking]

After watching this for the recently I had to Google "Did Neil Armstrong really leave his dead daughter's bracelet on the moon". Alas, it was conjucture but as far as Hollywood mythmaking goes it worked for me.

Wow, the Agena spin sequence was harrowing and intense. I've never heard of it I would guess the way Neil handled it made him the best choice for Apollo 11.

The Apollo 1 tragedy I have heard of, and the depiction was just as horrifying as can be.

Man, who knew Buzz Aldrin was such an asshole?

The score as they're approaching the moon was beautiful. Should have been nominated for an Oscar. We know they obviously land safely but they still manage to make it suspenseful.

When I heard that Claire Foy was I lamented another great actress relegated to playing just the supportive wife to the male protagonist but she really had an  important role. They made great use of Foy's "barely contained rage underneath a stoic exterior" she perfected so  much as Queen Elizabeth II on The Crown!

I've read some criticisms that the movie focused so much on Armstrong's personal life and not on the overall significance of such major achievement in human history. I can see that, but so far we landed and that was it. We went up there a few more times and then that was it. We didn't build a base or colony up there. It did become a footnote, so the movie being mainly about the man didn't bother me IMO.

[Sharpie66]

I can highly recommend seeing the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon if you are interested in the Gemini and Apollo programs. 

Portrayals of Buzz are pretty consistent of his being a real PITA. I think the most sympathetic version of him I have seen was when James Marsters played him in Moonshot. As for the real Buzz, I will always admire hm for the time he had a Flat Earther in his face trying to get him to “confess” to the “moon hoax,” and Buzz just decked him. 

[VCRTracking]

I saw a tweet saying the movies The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Hidden Figures, and First Man could all make up a "Cinematic NASA Universe"!

[proserpina65]

On ‎09‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 6:02 PM, VCRTracking said:

Man, who knew Buzz Aldrin was such an asshole?

Apparently anyone who ever worked with Buzz Aldrin.  Everything I've read about him or seen in related documentaries implied that, while he is a brilliant guy, he's also abrasive and brusque, and more than a little egotistical.  Michael Collins once described him as that guy you hope you don't have to sit next to at dinner.  That said, all those former coworkers also praised his intelligence and focus.  Hell, even his ex-wives like him, although they were glad to not still be married to him.

[proserpina65]

On ‎01‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 8:39 AM, Simon Boccanegra said:

 Now Chazelle gives us The Right Stiff. Space pioneering wasn't wondrous or thrilling, his film seems to be telling us; it was damned scary! And the people who participated in it were anxious and morose, and their marriages suffered, and everyone walked around with a case of the glums! 

That actually was true, for a lot of the time.  Actually the parts of the film which dealt with the actual science/exploration was fairly accurate, and even the idea that a lot of astronauts' marriages were pretty bad, at least for the wives, was accurate too.

On ‎09‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 9:59 PM, Sharpie66 said:

can highly recommend seeing the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon if you are interested in the Gemini and Apollo programs. 

They're not a bad place to start, but try hunting out some of the documentary programs created for the 50th anniversary, especially Apollo 11 by Todd Douglas Miller, because even excellent recreations pale next to actual NASA footage.

[Sharpie66]

IIRC, the divorce rate amongst the astronauts is pretty high, not surprising considering the stress of the job and associated pressures from NASA to “maintain an even strain,” to quote The Right Stuff. 

What I like about From the Earth to the Moon is the behinds-the-scenes stuff, like the pain shared by everyone involved with Apollo 1, the construction of the LEM (Spider might be my favorite ep), and the focus on Dave Foley’s Al Bean in the Apollo 12 ep (he’s the only moonwalker I have met). Oh, and the focus on science in the Apollo 15 ep. Actually, each ep has a different style and focus, something I really appreciate.

[proserpina65]

16 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

the construction of the LEM (Spider might be my favorite ep),

I did really enjoy that episode.  Who knew I could invest so much emotion into whether or not an inanimate object would work correctly?

(You weren't recently on Jeopardy, were you?  A contestant from this week talked about meeting Alan Bean.)

16 hours ago, Sharpie66 said:

IIRC, the divorce rate amongst the astronauts is pretty high, not surprising considering the stress of the job and associated pressures from NASA to “maintain an even strain,” to quote The Right Stuff. 

Yeah, it is.  I think, in Neil Armstrong's case at least, you could say that space was the other woman.  Now, in Don Eisele's case, it was one of the ubiquitous Cape Cookies.

[Sharpie66]

(oh, I WISH I was on Jeopardy! Definitely on my bucket list.)

I met Al Bean at a book convention, where he was signing prints of his artwork. I’ll have to dig in my closet to see if I still have it...

Edited September 13, 2019 by Sharpie66

[Dejana]

I really liked this movie a lot, but it really is a portrait of an introvert struggling to cope with unbearable grief by throwing himself into a life-threatening job, which brings even more loss and tragedy with it. I get why the general public did not view this as a good time at the movies. Too bad that Ryan Gosling's work here was seen as more of the same from him.

I was impressed with Claire Foy and took forever to recognize Patrick Fugit and Lukas Haas. The woman who played Ed White's wife, Pat, made a strong impression on me in a small role, so I looked her up. It's Olivia Hamilton and she's married to Damien Chazelle. She was also in La La Land as the woman at the coffee shop asking if the muffins were gluten-free. 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Dejana

[proserpina65]

23 hours ago, Dejana said:

I was impressed with Claire Foy and took forever to recognize Patrick Fugit and Lukas Haas.

When I saw Haas' name in the credits, I was like "Wait, what?!  That's the kid from Witness, no way!".  It made me feel old.  Even though he was the perfect choice for Michael Collins from everything I've ever seen or read about him.  (I had the same reaction to the kid from Jurassic Park playing Queen's bassist in Bohemian Rhapsody.)