First Man - Movie Review

Starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit, Ciaran Hinds, Olivia Hamilton, Shea Whigham, Pablo Schreiber, Lukas Haas and Ethan Embry.
Written by Josh Singer.
Directed by Damien Chazelle.

★★½

The good stuff first. Everything in space is great. This movie makes you feel like you are in that shuttle. That creeky "are you sure this thing will hold up?" shuttle. So half of the movie is good stuff.

The other half is a real drag. Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) was a depressed guy, and here he is making history, but there doesn't seem to be much joy or wonder. Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) is portrayed as a jerk, but at least he's stoked about space travel.

A lot of Neil's tightness is around the death of his young daughter. There's also the issues of accidents that kill some of his friends. Outside pressures ask NASA, "Is space travel really worth the cost?"

I saw it in IMAX, and that's the best way to see it. It has a lot of positive qualities, even if it's low on actual joy.

Venom still #1, First Man #3 at box office

For the weekend of October 12-14, 2018, Venom held on to the #1 spot, and A Star Is Born had a shallow drop in its second week to help it keep the #2 spot and stave off all newcomers.

First Man had a good resume, and it's getting good reviews, but it got lost opening between the 1-2 punch of Venom and A Star is Born last week, and Halloween next week. Goosebumps 2 did about as well as expected. Meanwhile, Fox could not figure out how to market Bad Times at the El Royale despite having Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm and Dakota Johnson in its cast and good reviews.

Gosnell is the directorial debut of Nick Searcy (Justified) and was aimed at the MAGA crowd.

In limited release, Beautiful Boy was the big winner. It stars Steve Carell as a dad trying to cope with his son's drug addiction. Jane & Emma and The Happy Prince did okay. The Oath, written by, directed by and starring Ike Barinholtz (Blockers) bombed.

It hasn't been a good season for limited release movies. The Sisters Brothers, a Western starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly, expanded to over 100 screens, but it's only getting $2000 per screen and will therefore not likely expand further. Colette, starring Keira Knightley, expanded to 593 screens, but couldn't even get $2000 per screen.

Opens October 19
HALLOWEEN with Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny McBride and Judy Greer.