First Man

[Zakalwe]

I think that the film does Armstrong's memory an injustice. It portrayed him as some sort of emotional robot or as a cold unfeeling man. This simply isn't true. The incident were he was injured after the LLTV crash was completely fictional (he wasn't injured apart from biting his tongue. After the crash he went back to his office and did paperwork!).

Gosling is just a poor, poor actor at displaying any emotions.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I offer this in evidence

 

 

[Swoop1]

This is a Hollywood film, it isn't a documentary so, there is going to be a level of poetic licence taken to improve the drama of the piece.

I also believe that the meat of the film is based around the experiences of Armstrongs peers in their interaction with him. Armstrong was a test pilot at a time when being a testb pilot didn't have good long term prospects beyond having your mutilated corpse given a decent burial. Many of the top echelon of those with what Tom Wolfe wrote about as "The Right Stuff" had single minded determination and focus in bucketloads. Armstron was one of those pilots. This persona could very easily come accross to others as detachment, robot like unfeelingness. What it actualy is is perfect attitude for the job but poor projected personality when the time comes for Hollywood to immortalise you in film.

I have no doubt that Neil was a loving, caring man and I would have loved the honour of being able to meet him. I just think that, given the context of the film, the portrayal of his professional facade was probably spot on.

[tomato]

Don’t go expecting the definitive Apollo 11 movie, it has a much wider context than that.

Anyway, in my opinion, the film to capture the ‘can do’ spirit of the Apollo programme has already been made, and unlikely to be surpassed, namely Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13”. My dad was not one to display his emotions in public, but there were tears in eyes at the end of that one.

[Hallingskies]

On 18/10/2018 at 08:38, Zakalwe said:

I think that the film does Armstrong's memory an injustice. It portrayed him as some sort of emotional robot or as a cold unfeeling man.

Agreed.  Just seen this film and found it very, very disappointing.   

In The Shadow Of The Moon is a uplifting celebration of the achievements of NASA's moon mission men, rather than a twisted, shallow and rather pointless hatchet job on one of its lead players, who is unfortunately no longer around to contest its portrayal.  

Watch that instead.

[Stu]

9 hours ago, Hallingskies said:

In The Shadow Of The Moon is a uplifting celebration of the achievements of NASA's moon mission men

 Agreed!

[StuartJPP]

On 14/10/2018 at 21:53, SIDO said:

I caught the flick in Imax yesterday, in my humble opinion it's an ok movie but in regards to the title and the significance of the subject matter it severely lacks the importance of the time in history in which the events occure. Another down side is the lack of a flag planting scene, this being left out I feel was a disservice to the astronauts being represented so in good faith I will include the missing footage in a link below. 

 

 

I am surprised that the title of this movie managed to get approval these days and the lack of the planting of the flag to me was purely politically motivated.

Me, I'll give it a skip, perhaps it is just me getting older that makes me detest most Hollywood tripe these days, especially with hidden agendas.

[westmarch]

Really disappointed with this film. The constant, shaky, zoom in - zoom out cinematography technique ruined it for me. I got my wife to accompany me to this. I now owe her and doubtless will end up at Abba 3 now!

John

[Shibby]

It seems the film was very divisive! Personally, I thought it was great and had a very good, authentic feel to it. To me, the characters were far more real than those portrayed in Apollo 13. In fact, Neil Armstrong's sons have defended the portrayal of their father so it can't be that far off can it?

I'm not sure why it's such a problem that the actual flag planting was missed out; there wasn't that much screen time devoted to the lunar surface anyway. The film was about Neil Armstrong, not specifically about the lunar landing. Besides, there was plenty of pro-American content such as JFK's speech.

[Owmuchonomy]

It was exactly as expected for 2018. Not my cup of tea and it seemed a bit rushed and disjointed. It’s not a patch on Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff but I’m glad I went though. If you read this and want to watch something a bit more revealing search for the documentary ‘Unsung heroes of Apollo’. You can get the real life responses of those who’s lives were affected. The quote at the end of it regarding the Apollo launch pad fire will silence you for a while. It did me.

[adyj1]

On 14/10/2018 at 16:09, Zakalwe said:

I watched it yesterday in IMAX.

Well, it's an interesting movie. Very much about the relationship between husband and wife and less about the events.
Unfortunately it is ruined by the scourge of modern cinematography....the zoomed-in, wobbly, out-of-focus shot. Just about every shot is tight in so the centre of focus is an ear or a nostril hair. The camera constantly wobbles and moves. Focus is all over the place. No, this does not make it personal or give it a feeling of "being there" (quite the opposite)...it gives it a feeling of being shot by a drunk amateur with early onset Parkinson's. It constantly takes you out of the film and at times disassociates you completely. At times, for instance during the Gemini crisis, it was impossible to look at the screen (I sat about in Row D, four back from the screen so the IMAX screen it filled my vision). This nonsense was just about acceptable in the Blair Witch project or in bad YouTube videos. Every single shot, until a handful on the Lunar surface became tedious and predictable...zoom in, pull focus in and out, wobble, wobble, wobble.

The Gemini 8 crisis was massively over-egged, but I put that down to artistic licence. The film also does a dis-service to Scott when

  Reveal hidden contents

it shows him blacking out and not responding to Armstrong's requests. This did not happen.

 

The scenes on the Lunar surface were beautiful, and I believe, were the only ones shot in 70mm IMAX. I was delighted to see them getting some important touches correct, such as the motion of the regolith in the Lunar vacuum (no billowing dust!)

 

Gosling was OK....he was able to express his full emotional repertoire of mahogany to teak. I'm sure that only Keanu Reeves has ever managed to challenge Gosling for the ability to get people to pay him huge sums of money to act with the emotional nuances of hardwood. ?

The film was shot on three different film stocks. The grainiest was reserved for Armstrong's memories. The next best was shot for the bulk of the film (again in dreadful wobble-vision). The Lunar surface scenes were shot in 70mm IMAX and were beautiful. I would have loved to see much more of this.

There's a good film in there somewhere, but it needs to be reshot with camera operators that have more than one single technique in their kitbag and that have a tripod or two. A Martin Scorsese film it is not.

Overall, it's a swing and a miss. Chazelle and his cinematographer Linus Sandgren were totally out of his depth with this one. It's such a shame as the story won't be re-told again and this doesn't do it justice.

I went to see the film without wanting to read too many reviews. I wish I had.

Zakalwe's views of the film above almost perfectly match my opinion as I left the cinema. I too had watched it in Imax, and wish I hadn't.

The one thing I would add is that after sitting down for 2 and three quarter hours (including adverts and trailers), I found the Imax seats at Cineworld Cheltenham extremely uncomfortable...

 

Ady