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First Man


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  • 5 months later...

Saw it this weekend, and it's really special, though not a movie for everyone. I'd call it the antithesis to "The right stuff" or "Apollo 13", in that it refuses the viewer the superficial glory, but it puts a very human (and controversial) scale to man's journey into space. It's very convincing in portraying the physical and psychological strain at play, with masterful cinematography and another killer performance from Gosling and Foy. The narration is less anecdotical, but more impressionist in style, and it paints a strong, butdifferent picture from what we're used to that way.

The movie probably leaves you glad you didn't choose "Astronaut" as a career, but it doesn't diminish the achievement of the people who did.

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I saw it a couple weekends ago, and I liked it as well. For those who get motion sickness, this may not be your cup of tea, as there are a couple of spinning scenes where you experience it from inside the craft, and the soundtrack is pretty loud in these scenes to ratchet up the intensity. The one scene takes place in LEO, so there shouldn't have been any sound, but Hollywood. :rolleyes: However, the larger scope of the film centers on Armstrong, and takes you through some personal struggles as well as the obstacles he faced on his journey from test pilot to astronaut. Armstrong was an emotionally closed fellow, and Gosling does a good job conveying that aspect of Armstrong's personality. Foy did an excellent job as Janet, Armstrong's first wife, who was with him all through his years at NASA, and who had to be the emotional bedrock for them both and their two children. Tough lady.

Anyway, the movie made me want to delve deeper, and I've been reading the eponymous biography upon which the movie was based. There are a lot of pedantic facts and figures that seem a bit extemporaneous, but Armstrong had no interest in his fame or notoriety, and was very quick to point out the contributions of others, and it was his request that many of those facts and figures be included. Think of Armstrong as the anti-Shatner, except he actually went into space. Armstrong was an engineer, as is his biographer, so the book has a tendency to read like a textbook more than a biography at times.

I've also picked up Gene Cernan's autobiography, suitably titled, "The Last Man on the Moon". I've only read snippets of his book, but he gives a pretty candid view of what being an astronaut was about, from extra-marital affairs by some of the astronauts, to pooping in zero-G. Of the two books, I think Cernan's will be a far more personable view of the program, showing every side, and providing answers to a lot of questions many of us have about the more intimate details of space travel. 

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I saw this a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it... until I had to leave with ~45 minutes left after a family emergency (that turned out to be neither family nor emergency) came up. Will definitely try to catch it again in cheapo theaters if I can, or on BD/streaming if that's what's left.

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