This weekend I saw the latest movie from the Damien Chazelle-Ryan Gosling collaboration, First Man. It's good -- yes, it deserves a Best Picture Nomination (I'll save judgment on whether it should win).
If you don't know, First Man is the story is Neil Armstrong, and it's about the his walk on the moon. Sort of. It takes almost 2 hours to get there.
Gosling (obviously?) plays Armstrong, who we pick up as a rocket pilot in the early 60s. It's not clear that everyone thinks he's a great pilot.
Since this is biographical, there's no need to worry about spoilers: the Armstrongs lose a daughter, Karen, to a brain tumor, before she's 2ish. As Jane Armstrong says later "we never talked about it."
That's kind of the thing about the movie: Gosling's Armstrong isn't exactly winning a warm and fuzzy award. In fact, lukewarm and furry wouldn't do it.
But there's no doubting both Armstrong's inner strength, his mental acuity, and his cool under fire. At one point he tells Houston and his co-pilot "shut up, I am calculating."
When Buzz Aldrin's character says "I am just saying what you were all thinking," Armstrong's one-beat, two-beat, three-beat later rejoinder is "maybe you shouldn't."
As the movie portrays it, and Wikipedia backs it up, in both the Gemini 8 mission and the trip to the moon, Armstrong did things you have to call amazing. If you don't remember (I vaguely do), Gemini 8 went sour when the capsule started spinning out of control. Armstrong, in the movie with his co-pilot passed out, figured out how to make the necessary correction, eventhough he used some of the fuel for course adjustments back into the atmosphere to do so. They aborted the mission from there, but made it home safely.
On the moon landing, Aldrin isn't sure where they should land, as the proposed spot is too rocky, and Armstrong uses every last bit of fuel to land on the other side of the crater -- now forever Tranquillity base.
I heard much stuff about how the movie could not depict the flag planting on the moon -- "you HAVE to show that." I didn't even notice it was missing. I'm sure someone can explain why it's not there (like it's not important to Armstrong's story).
As to Oscar bait, Gosling is excellent as Armstrong. Deserves an Oscar nod. As you can tell, Armstrong isn't exactly a ball of joy -- Gosling keeps it all bottled up all the time.
Given the cleverness and vividness of some of the shots, especially on the moon, Chazelle probably will get some best director nods. I'm okay with that, but there might be better candidates coming along.
Claire Foy as Mrs. Armstrong? She's almost as tightly wound as Gosling, so sure. It would probably be tough for any actor to be so brittle.
Should you see it? Yes. Both the history, Gosling's portrayal of someone who is a real hero (he and co-pilot should be dead in Gemini 8), and the beauty and inventiveness of some of the cinematography make it worth seeing. Is it better than A Star is Born? If you don't like Bradley Cooper. Lady Gaga, or singing in a movie, definitely.
That's 2 for the fall.
Now...what's opening this weekend?
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