{"id":1313,"date":"2018-11-20T15:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T22:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2018-11-15T18:21:15","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T01:21:15","slug":"movie-first-man-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/20\/movie-first-man-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: First Man (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FirstFirst Man
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2018
\nRating: PG-13
\nLength: 141 minutes \/ 2.35 hours<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit: I\u2019m already a fan of Damien Chazelle. I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s because he\u2019s only a few months older than I am, or if it\u2019s how I can personally relate to the subjects of his films. I understand the obsession he covered in\u00a0Whiplash<\/em>\u00a0(2014). I can relate to the dreams of creative individuals he brought to light in\u00a0La La Land<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2016). Now, Chazelle has used his filmmaking talent to cover another topic I have a great interest in: space.\u00a0First Man<\/em>\u00a0(2018) feels like a film that\u2019s been waiting for the right director to come along, and Damien Chazelle hit it out of the park.<\/p>\n

Lying somewhere between\u00a0The Right Stuff<\/em>\u00a0(1983) and\u00a0Apollo 13<\/em>\u00a0(1995), with a little bit of\u00a0Interstellar<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2014) thrown in as well for style,\u00a0First Man<\/em>\u00a0does a fantastic job of showing how dangerous the missions that landed us on the moon really were. There seemed to be an adherence to realism in this film that helped to convey how claustrophobic, terrifying, and risky these few dozen missions were. The fact that we even successfully pulled off the \u201cmoon shot\u201d is a testament to the engineers that made the program succeed.<\/p>\n

While the segments set in outer space help to define the film\u2019s three-act structure, following Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) from test pilot to Gemini VIII to Apollo 11, they are the breathtaking set pieces that give this movie its strength. Consequently, some of the moments on the ground seemed a little slow in comparison. Granted, these moments felt quite intimate as the audience is shown how private and introverted Armstrong was and how he dealt with the stress of work and family. After all, I think we often forget how the multiple deaths of astronaut co-workers can affect the rest of the team and their families.<\/p>\n

A personal, gripping, and realistic look at what got us to the moon, I give\u00a0First Man<\/em>\u00a04.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Man Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 141 minutes \/ 2.35 hours I\u2019ll admit: I\u2019m already a fan of Damien Chazelle. I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s because he\u2019s only a few months older than I am, or if it\u2019s how I can personally relate to the subjects of his films. I understand the obsession he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[1020,1570,406,1568,1569,1571,13,144,1565,8,25,1564],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-movie","tag-1020","tag-apollo","tag-damien-chazelle","tag-first-man","tag-gemini","tag-moon-landing","tag-movie","tag-nasa","tag-neil-armstrong","tag-review","tag-ryan-gosling","tag-space-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}