#2105 First Man

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This afternoon MT and I went to see the latest Ryan Gosling movie, First Man.  It is the story of Neil Armstrong who is, of course, the first man to walk on the moon.

Right from the start, the film is jarring and a little hard to watch. Armstrong is in a test plane/rocket and it is shaky and loud and the images are flashing in front of you so fast that you're not sure quite what you're looking at and you realize it was probably just like that for Armstrong.

I came away with the feeling that Neil Armstrong was so smart and so focused that he was a bit socially awkward. A life-altering event happened to him and his family early in the movie and he seemed changed afterward.

By far my biggest take-away from this film is that it is nothing short of amazing that NASA was able to actually send men to the moon. (I'm a big fan of NASA.) The math and science is incredible, and so is the bravery of the astronauts and the scientists who were willing to take such tremendous risks to accomplish the task. Twelve men have walked on the moon, all American.

You know what else is amazing? The first flight, by the Wright Brothers, happened in December 1903. In July 1969, the first man landed on the moon. That's only 66 years in between those events. Just think of all the technological and scientific advancements that took place in those 66 years. It blows my mind.

The movie was well made. I felt tense in all the right places. Interesting things were done with the sounds of the movie. Sometimes it was incredibly loud to simulate what it must have been like for the astronauts. Other times, notably when Armstrong is coming down the ladder from the rocket to the surface, there is no sound at all except for his breathing. (The effect was sort of ruined for me though, because in the theater next door Venom was playing and it was noisy.)

I like Ryan Gosling. Claire Foy was fine as Armstrong's wife Jan. There didn't seem to be any chemistry between the two of them at all. I wonder if that was real or if it was depicting how the Armstrong's really were. When I left the theater, I mentioned to MT that the Armstrong's were stoic as hell. The movie itself was just all right for me. What I liked the most about it was how it renewed my interest in NASA.