{"id":10091,"date":"2018-10-18T01:55:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T01:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/?p=10091"},"modified":"2020-03-21T18:45:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T18:45:18","slug":"first-man-the-wrong-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/18\/first-man-the-wrong-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"FIRST MAN – THE WRONG STUFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF\u00a0FIRST MAN<\/em>\u00a0REVIEW<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2020_03_21_10_51_061.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

SHORT TAKE:<\/p>\n

Incredible acting can not save this tedious and pseudo-“reality TV show” style rewriting of history aimed at devaluing American exceptionalism, American accomplishments and American heroes.<\/p>\n

WHO SHOULD GO:<\/p>\n

No sexuality, a handful of mild profanities (and one quite vulgar but understandable cuss word muttered off screen by someone feeling very ill) and a lot of visually disturbing images including prolonged scenes of extremely violent shaking and people trapped in a fire in an enclosed space. Were this an accurate inspiring portrayal of the space race I’d say it was worth it, but as it is there’s really NO POINT.<\/p>\n

AND IF YOU LIKE THESE REVIEWS PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! THEN YOU’LL GET\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 EVERY NEW REVIEW SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR E-MAIL!!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THE LEFT HAND SIDE AND TYPE YOUR E-MAIL IN – IT (SHOULD BE) THAT EASY. ANY PROBLEMS PLEASE SEND ME A COMMENT AND I’LL DO MY BEST TO RESOLVE YOUR ISSUE.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

LONG TAKE:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was 10 years old when the first man – an AMERICAN – walked on the moon. I remember it being late in the day – 9:56 pm CST to be precise – where we were, so\u00a0I had my P.J.s on. And when Neil Armstrong uttered those now amazing words for the first time: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I SAW it on TV. \"\"<\/a>Then everyone in the house – Mom, Dad, my brother and sister and her fianc\u00e9 all ran outside. I was barefoot, so my future brother-in-law swept me up and carried me outside with our group and we all just stood\u00a0near Metairie Road, because nearer to our house the view of the sky was obstructed by trees – and we just looked and waved to Neil Armstrong. \"\"<\/a>And we were not alone. People all over the WORLD cheered and cried and laughed and were simply amazed at the INCREDIBLE event that AMERICA had accomplished, putting the FIRST MAN –\u00a0an AMERICAN\u00a0man – on the moon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

America was the FIRST country, and to date the ONLY COUNTRY,\u00a0to\u00a0make an extraterrestrial manned\u00a0landing, was AND IS the FIRST AND ONLY country to have a man step out ONTO\u00a0 extraterrestrial property, and frankly\u00a0is the FIRST and ONLY country in the world or in HISTORY to legitimately lay CLAIM to an extraterrestrial piece of land.\u00a0In a fit of\u00a0historic re-engineering to downplay the obvious American exceptionalism in such a feat,\u00a0First Man <\/em>pointedly neglected to show the planting of the American flag – a symbol as synonymous with our achievement as the image of the\u00a0booted human\u00a0footprint or Lieutenant Armstrong’s step off the module.<\/p>\n

Their excuse is that they think Armstrong didn’t see himself as an American hero but that it was an accomplishment of the world…..NO!\u00a0The world didn’t pay for it. The world didn’t chip in men or time or money or blood or industry or lives in plenty for our AMERICAN space program. No one but AMERICAN men died in our test planes and shots and explosions. The UN had nothing to do with it. \"\"<\/a>And I don’t really care what the filmmakers think Armstrong’s opinion was. This was ENTIRELY an American adventure against which we were\u00a0in competition with other countries. And even if I bought into the vacuous “world accomplishment”\u00a0POV – which I do not – the fact is the flag was planted. Our AMERICAN flag was\u00a0visible in places and photos where the director – Damien Chazelle – deliberately chose, in an act of sheer arrogance, to inauthentically, blatantly and unilaterally eliminate our AMERICAN flag from the picture. And yet they CLAIM to be historically accurate emphasizing its FALSE historicity with the documentary style footage. This is an affront to every man who died, to every widow who had to raise their children without one of the men who perished in a test plane or capsule, to every man, woman and child who devoted their prayers, tax money, sweat, enthusiasm and attention to this DISTINCTLY AMERICAN\u00a0program.<\/p>\n

Before I went to see First Man <\/em>I had heard about this\u00a0flagrant insult to the memories and sacrifices of our country. I had been concerned\u00a0I would have to chide what\u00a0I had been\u00a0sure\u00a0would be an otherwise excellent movie about the space program.<\/p>\n

I needn’t have been concerned.<\/p>\n

SPOILERS<\/p>\n

There are PLENTY of other egregious flaws with First Man<\/em>. Insulting the planting of the American flag by ignoring it was just one of many.<\/p>\n

To start, however, the acting was excellent.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>In Claire Foy I think we’re seeing the\u00a0making of a British\u00a0Meryl Streep –\u00a0a woman who can so artfully immerse herself in\u00a0character that you don’t recognize her from one performance to the next.\u00a0She is a\u00a0true actor – as\u00a0defined by Alan Swann\u00a0in My Favorite Year\u00a0<\/em>when he explains in comic desperation that\u00a0he is “…not an actor,\u00a0I’m a\u00a0MOVIE STAR!” (For more examination of this point please see the first paragraph of my blog\u00a0Operation Finale<\/em><\/a>).\u00a0Whether\u00a0the Swedish Girl in the Spider’s Web<\/em>, the\u00a0crazed\u00a0American in Unsane<\/em>, Queen Elizabeth II\u00a0in The Crown <\/em>or as Janet Armstrong, Foy nails it.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>There is a scene at the end, brilliantly performed,\u00a0of almost complete silence, visually emphasizing Armstrong’s inability to connect with anyone, where Gosling and Foy say more in subtle looks and gestures than most movies do in pages of script.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Unfortunately, while Ryan Gosling is excellent too – he expends\u00a0his talent\u00a0creating an extremely unpleasant person.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Were I Neil Armstrong’s descendants I would be thoroughly perturbed at the portrayal of\u00a0the famous astronaut\u00a0in First Man<\/em>. It is also just poor script writing. We all know the outcome of the story: It took years, there were a number of Gemini shots which made sure we could safely get a man into space, dock with another vehicle and return him home alive. Then Apollo 1 blew up, Apollo 11 made it to the moon and there were a number of successful Apollos in between. In order for such a pervasively well known story to work you have to care about the characters. And the Neil Armstrong in First Man<\/em> is not only unlikeable, he is unapproachable.\u00a0Cold, distant, unfeeling, harsh, abrasive even to his best friends, his wife and his sons, \"\"<\/a>the writer chalks his personality issues down to his inability to overcome the death of his toddler daughter by brain tumor. He flees\u00a0the funeral of a fellow astronaut,\u00a0to run away home, without a word to his wife,\u00a0ignoring the fact she is\u00a0in pain as well, and\u00a0leaving her, humiliated, having to beg a ride from a friend. He shuns his friend’s offers of counsel, as he stands staring into space\u00a0in his backyard\u00a0with: “Do you think I came out here because I wanted to talk? Do you think I left the funeral because I wanted to talk?” \"\"<\/a>He not only refuses to answer his worried wife’s inquiries when he returns home bloodied and burned after an almost fatal crash, but immediately runs away claiming to have “forgotten something at the office”. Janet has to bully, berate and throw things to get\u00a0him to say goodbye to his own children, for possibly the last time, before he goes to the Moon. He seems immune to the agony of his dead friend’s widow. And the\u00a0flashbacks of his dead daughter, which\u00a0cripple him\u00a0into apathy, become redundant in their predictability at crisis moments. \"\"<\/a>I’ve seen serial killers, devoid of empathy,\u00a0portrayed as more\u00a0emotionally engaged than poor Ryan Gosling’s Neil Armstrong. It is difficult to believe NASA would put someone so emotionally and\u00a0psychologically damaged in charge of THE one and only first ever in all of human history – \u00a0moon landing.<\/p>\n

The retro historians were out to trash an established American hero. Basically they portray Neil Armstrong as a body part reserved for proctologists. And even if this were true, the story of the First Man,<\/em>\u00a0who was landed on the moon by AMERICA, was NOT the place to put it. If you want a tell-all, soap opera bio pic of Neil Armstrong, then by all means, go ahead. But don’t pretend this tortured portrait of an American hero is a reflection of the American Spirit or play fast and loose with history while claiming to be accurate.\u00a0Don’t make a psychologically crippled version of Neil Armstrong the center of a movie about the space race.<\/p>\n

Either show Armstrong’s whole life warts and all or\u00a0put the uplifting endeavor that was and is the AMERICAN space program in the correct light. The only reason to have it “both” ways and put it ALL in a negative light is because you wish to undermine and treat with dismissiveness the AMERICAN moon walk in particular and AMERICA in general.<\/p>\n

Nowhere in the entire movie is the\u00a0joie de vivre, the enthusiasm,\u00a0the sheer joy of exploration and discovery\u00a0that was and is the American space program, not even in the more realistically portrayed \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Gus Grissom (Jason Clark) or\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll).<\/div>\n
Where is \"\"<\/a>the camaraderie from The Right Stuff<\/em>? Where is \"\"<\/a>Ed Harris’ John Glenn\u00a0who\u00a0exemplified that\u00a0\"\"<\/a>genial excitement or \"\"<\/a>Dennis Quaid’s\u00a0 cocky and arrogant but \"\"<\/a>infectiously confident\u00a0Gordon Cooper in the movie about the lead up to the moon shot?<\/em>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Harris and Quaid’s Glenn and Cooper, respectively, personified why\u00a0charting the unknown was worth the trials and terrors and tears that it cost us.<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>By contrast First Man <\/em>makes it look like\u00a0the space program was the unwanted\u00a0chore of a beleaguered group of government bureaucrats with which we foolishly burdened the American taxpayer.\u00a0Chazell even\u00a0rudely shoehorned in “Whitey on the Moon,” an anthem against the space program. Playing it along with\u00a0scenes of racially inspired protest marches, the film makers tried to make it appear as though\u00a0this bitter song\u00a0was a reflection of\u00a0the\u00a0“popular” sentiment during the years leading up to the moon shot.\u00a0This song, with all its resentment and anger,\u00a0was neither a representation of the mood of the country concerning the space program NOR even\u00a0published until AFTER the first landing on the moon took place. Its anachronistic insertion\u00a0was amateurishly spliced in, as though\u00a0from an entirely different\u00a0movie and\u00a0had no bearing on the outcome of the story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The obvious intent of First Man <\/em>was to make it appear as though the American public was against the program, when, in fact, the approval for the space program was enthusiastically positive along all the —isms you can imagine because it was a uniquely AMERICAN program of which every AMERICAN could be proud! In the end the entire WORLD was rooting for AMERICA and these three AMERICANS to get to the moon, land and return alive – which AMERICA accomplished FIRST.<\/p>\n

Instead of the exciting, energizing program that created jobs, inspired innovations and injected new levels of patriotism across our country, \"\"<\/a>First Man<\/em> tried to portray the\u00a0space program as a draining, painful, horror movie. The audience has to sit through \"\"<\/a>interminably\u00a0long, difficult to endure,\u00a0near real-time length scenes\u00a0in the capsule,\u00a0including the\u00a0 deafening roar from\u00a0inside of the relatively primitive\u00a0Gemini 1\u00a0and the \"\"<\/a>monster-like screaming of the\u00a0exploding rocket fuel\u00a0and distressed metal as it strains to not come apart in Apollo 11.\u00a0The director’s choice of\u00a0near home movie\u00a0found-footage semi documentary-style\u00a0makes the movie feel even more harsh and barren, especially as we walk often through dated, sparsely adorned versions of the military housing where these men and their families lived.<\/p>\n

And slow! Oh my goodness! It was as though Stanley Kubrick\u00a0became enamored of The Blair Witch Project<\/em>, and\u00a0insisted on the acting techniques of HAL\u00a0from 2001<\/em> to make a sequel to The Right Stuff<\/em>.<\/p>\n

First Man<\/em> is yet another obvious attempt by the intelligentsia to target and try to downplay, trivialize and sully\u00a0the achievements that highlight America’s genuine and unique exceptionalism. They emphasize the space program’s problems and failures without celebrating their successes and astonishing one-of-a-kind accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And – guess what – when last we looked “…our flag was STILL there!”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Poland should be rightly proud of Madame Curie’s discoveries. \"\"<\/a>The world should be grateful to France for producing Louis Pasteur. \"\"<\/a>The world admires and loves Mother Teresa, a native of\u00a0Skopje (now Macedonia).\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Humanity is\u00a0better\u00a0for the beautiful music of Russia’s Tchaikovsky. \"\"<\/a>Japan’s Kurosawa’s movies are\u00a0considered classics. All these countries love their native sons and daughters and take every opportunity to extol them to the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What is WRONG with some Americans?! \"\"<\/a>The country of their birth, which has given them\u00a0and the world so many blessings through the grace of God is unappreciated by many whose thriving is owed to the freedoms for ingenuity and success that\u00a0America affords. Other countries seem to appreciate and respect our flag more than do some of her native peoples, and it is infuriating. \"\"<\/a>If you do not appreciate the many many blessings of living in America and being an American then, as another blessing of living\u00a0in America,\u00a0you are free to\u00a0go to some other country for which you have more respect. \"\"<\/a>If you wish to make movies about American history then\u00a0\u00a0I don’t expect perfection or for it to be shown without mistakes, for no human endeavor can be done without them, but I do expect that it would be created with respect.<\/p>\n

In short First Man <\/em>is the LAST place you want to go for a good uplifting (pun intended) movie about the space race. Instead, just go watch The Right Stuff <\/em><\/a>again!!\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF\u00a0FIRST MAN\u00a0REVIEW SHORT TAKE: Incredible acting can not save this tedious and pseudo-“reality TV show” style rewriting of history aimed at devaluing American exceptionalism, American accomplishments and American heroes. WHO SHOULD GO: No sexuality, a handful of mild profanities (and one quite vulgar but understandable cuss word muttered off screen by someone … Continue reading FIRST MAN – THE WRONG STUFF<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2294,1337,472,639,2306,2307,2293,2305,2303,318,2295,2292,2298,2309,2302,2300,2739,818,2301,2310,2297,2299,2718,336,1327,2296,17,2304,2308],"class_list":["post-10091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-america","tag-american","tag-apollo","tag-audio","tag-buzz-aldrin","tag-chazell","tag-claire-foy","tag-corey-stoll","tag-dennis-quaid","tag-ed-harris","tag-exceptionalism","tag-first-man","tag-flag","tag-gemini","tag-gordon-cooper","tag-gus-grissom","tag-iphone","tag-jason-clarke","tag-john-glenn","tag-landing","tag-moon-landing","tag-neil-armstrong","tag-podcast","tag-ryan-gosling","tag-sacrifice","tag-space-race","tag-the-right-stuff","tag-the-wrong-stuff","tag-whitey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/poster-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6mhKV-2CL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10091"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16764,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions\/16764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}