criterionforum.org

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:29 pm**

Persona wrote: Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:05 pm I don't disagree with you on the questionable thematic bent of Whiplash, but I did enjoy the jazz scenes quite a bit.

I won't deny the craftsmanship - the editing alone deserved its Oscar. It's just undermined by his meathead conception of jazz. Even La La Land seems clueless with regards to not just jazz but modern music, period, but it's much more palatable there - it's a problem in only a handful of scenes and they fly by fast.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:00 pm**

Massive rave from Variety

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:11 pm**

Bradshaw is a little less enthusiastic:

Peter Bradshaw wrote:The film’s narrative direction takes us away from the difficulty to the great sublime moment, and then … it’s over. The ending has a resounding impact, but does raise the question: what was the point?

And Zacharek pretty much panned it in Time:

Stephanie Zacharek wrote:In 2018, we generally feel bad for men who can’t express their emotions, and most of us are rightly happy that more men have learned it’s OK to do so. But does it really serve men of Armstrong’s generation to have young filmmakers applying Psych 101 principles to their emotions some 60 years after the fact?

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:33 pm**

THR is also strongly positive:

The extent to which mainstream audiences will respond to the lengthy film’s unfaltering restraint remains to be seen. But this is a strikingly intelligent treatment of a defining moment for America that broadens the tonal range of Chazelle, clearly a versatile talent, after Whiplash and La La Land. What is perhaps most notable is the film’s refusal to engage in the expected jingoistic self-celebration that such a milestone would seem to demand.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:50 pm**

Regardless, I'd like to see what they do with Armstrong, because by most accounts he was fairly boring, which I wouldn't call a slight - he wasn't famous for being an obnoxious personality, he actually accomplished something that was truly incredible.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:13 pm**

Spoiler

The Gil Scott-Heron scene sounds interesting.

edit: Thanks to the mods for the spoiler tag, should have thought of that.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:32 pm**

Persona wrote: Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:13 pm
Spoiler
The Gil Scott-Heron scene sounds interesting.

Context:

Spoiler

Jessica Kiang wrote:But amid all the things that First Man is, it’s also notable for what it is not. There’s minimal flag-waving here, making it a universal story about tenacity and sacrifice, rather than anything more overtly patriotic. That’s a good thing, but it means that politics are dialed right back in general, with only some Vietnam War footage playing on background TV screens and one moment in which Gil Scott-Heron‘s “Whitey On The Moon” sounds out, making a particularly pointed comment on the social context of the era.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:45 pm**

At my MI:6 IMAX screening earlier this month, they screened this film's take-off sequence before the trailers, and it was one of the most white nuckle experiences I've had in a theatre. The terror and claustrophobia of being blasted into space in a rattling tin can, basically, was captured with such physical and aural precision that you soon forget you know the outcome and begin sharing the emotions of the astronauts.

Posted: **Thu Aug 30, 2018 6:18 pm**

David Bordwell thinks it's "another exciting achievement by one of the most ambitious directors working today." (That's one for the poster.)

Posted: **Thu Aug 30, 2018 6:40 pm**

I hadn't read those linked posts about La La Land but man they're fantastic

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 2:24 pm**

Right wing is already coming at this

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 3:09 pm**

A nation is a patch of dirt. It's entirely a human achievement.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:42 pm**

Only in America can complete fucking morons be paid big salaries to have their own television show. I suppose that is quite an achievement for any country that isn't a dictatorship (yet).

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:57 pm**

Big Ben wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 3:09 pm A nation is a patch of dirt. It's entirely a human achievement.

A patch of dirt, and the people who occupy it, and their characteristic mode of government and forms of communal life. The moon landing was specifically an achievement of the United States at a particular point in time. The achievement was the apex of a space race against another nation, who failed to land a man on the moon, and the event itself climaxed in the planting of an American flag on the moon. These are not trivial details. To purposely omit the flag and what it stood for is to rewrite history. If your fluffly, naive, universalist worldview can only confirm itself in narrative form by knowingly telling lies about the past, then that's rather sad.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:12 pm**

Agree with the first part, disagree with the second

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:17 pm**

HJackson wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:57 pm
Big Ben wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 3:09 pm A nation is a patch of dirt. It's entirely a human achievement.
A patch of dirt, and the people who occupy it, and their characteristic mode of government and forms of communal life. The moon landing was specifically an achievement of the United States at a particular point in time. The achievement was the apex of a space race against another nation, who failed to land a man on the moon, and the event itself climaxed in the planting of an American flag on the moon. These are not trivial details. To purposely omit the flag and what it stood for is to rewrite history. If your fluffly, naive, universalist worldview can only confirm itself in narrative form by knowingly telling lies about the past, then that's rather sad.

It is not entirely necessary to demonstrate a truth everyone understands (Although the Moon Hoax people might disagree). Everyone with any semblance of awareness understands that the United States was the first to the land on the moon. It is not however, necessary to turn it into masturbatory browbeating about American superiority. Fox News isn't complaining about it because it's made an omission that has no thematic relevance to what appears to be a story focusing on the man who made it happen they're complaining because it doesn't promote Nationalist values (Which is why they specify Gosling's nationality in the criticism.). hearthesilence's point is salient for this reason. Would I have left it out? No. But it says a lot about Fox news that this completely asinine detail is something they've chosen to focus on.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:38 pm**

hearthesilence wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:42 pm Only in America can complete fucking morons be paid big salaries to have their own television show. I suppose that is quite an achievement for any country that isn't a dictatorship (yet).

I mean, having watched TV from outside the US, I'm pretty sure paying stupid people money to talk on TV is not a good example of American Exceptionalism.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:40 pm**

Shrew wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:38 pm
hearthesilence wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:42 pm Only in America can complete fucking morons be paid big salaries to have their own television show. I suppose that is quite an achievement for any country that isn't a dictatorship (yet).
I mean, having watched TV from outside the US, I'm pretty sure paying stupid people money to talk on TV is not a good example of American Exceptionalism.

Hah, I stand corrected then.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:34 pm**

HJackson wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:57 pm knowingly telling lies about the past, then that's rather sad.

Some pretty big leaps you're taking there. Has anyone from the film stated that they're erasing the moment from history, or simply not drawing attention to it? This seems like excessive backlash for what little we know of that part in the film. I can see Chazelle's rationale for skipping that moment. This is not a space race pic, or an Apollo 11 pic. I could be wrong, but I'm getting the sense that the film ends shortly after the moon landing. Ending it on a shot of Armstrong with the flag in his hand, and the earth in the background, may draw the story too far from Armstrong, the man. It's something more inline with Eastwood. Or a scene that works better in the more overarching "From the Earth to the Moon" (which I'm guessing these same people are mad wasn't called "From America to the Moon").

Now, I can also see that moment playing off as a great celebration of everything Armstrong sacrificed and accomplished. It's not my film, so why demand he make it a certain way?

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:42 pm**

A critic who saw the film already stated that the film shows the American flag flying on the moon several times, there's just not a scene of it being planted...

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:52 pm**

domino harvey wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:42 pmA critic who saw the film already stated that the film shows the American flag flying on the moon several times, there's just not a scene of it being planted...

I dunno, sounds fluffy to me.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:59 pm**

I wonder if this controversial exchange from the original screenplay made it into the final film:

OTHER PERSON IN SPACE: Neil, shall we plant the flag of our country into the virgin dust of America's moon, as planned?
NEIL ARMSTRONG: No.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 9:07 pm**

swo17 wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:59 pm"shall we plant the flag of our country into the virgin dust of America's moon?"

Worthy of Dr. Strangelove.

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 9:23 pm**

domino harvey wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:42 pm A critic who saw the film already stated that the film shows the American flag flying on the moon several times, there's just not a scene of it being planted...

Well now I feel misled...

Posted: **Fri Aug 31, 2018 10:51 pm**

HJackson wrote:
domino harvey wrote: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:42 pm A critic who saw the film already stated that the film shows the American flag flying on the moon several times, there's just not a scene of it being planted...
Well now I feel misled...

If it makes you feel any better, this is almost certainly the first time anything like this has EVER happened with “Fox & Friends”. Just ask our President!

criterionforum.org

First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)

Re: First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)