Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
Damien Chazelle's follow-up to La La Land is the story of the first man on the moon. I hesitate to call it a Neil Armstrong biopic; Josh Singer's screenplay seems less interested in telling the story of the man behind the landing than in using him as a narrative vehicle.
When it quotes the Kennedy moon speech towards the end ("not because they are easy, but because they are hard"), it sums up what has come before: a story of determination, of ambition at great cost, and shows just what drove one of those ambitious men to take so many risks. Some of the very best sequences are those of claustrophobic danger -- fragile men in flammable tin cans.
Ryan Gosling is typically stoic as Armstrong; Claire Foy, as his wife Janet, is the emotional centre.