“First Man” (2018)—Neil Armstrong story - from “La La Land” director

My favorite example of that was in Crazy, Stupid Love. He takes off his shirt and Emma Stone says: "Are you serious? You look like you've been Photoshopped!"

 

Umm... there's still a disturbingly large number of people who do doubt we made it!

 

I had a rather nasty epiphany a number of years back when I realized that fully half the population was below the mean intelligence level.

 

Saw it in IMAX tonight. All that happened in that decade with Space program is really remarkable too!!

 

Finally saw it, yesterday.

Not so much the story about the Apollo missions' race to the moon, but of the crumbling marriage of an emotionally repressed man, haunted by the death of his young daughter - who happens to be the first man who stepped on the moon. (If he wasn't dead) Ingmer Bergman should have directed this.

I thought there was too much film grain (or whatever effect they used to replicate film grain). I 'get' what they were trying to do, but thought that effect was overdone.

BTW, I have always pronounced "Gemini" as gem-in-eye [long i sound on the last syllable]. I noticed in the film Armstrong and another Nasa official pronounce it as gem-in-e [long e sound on the last syllable]. I watched this Nasa film to double-check if I had been mispronouncing it all these years, but in the film it is pronounced with a long 'i' sound. What gives? Did Armstrong have some kind of strange Ohio accent?

 

You'll find that through out the various programs and documentaries of the space program, including those done at that time, that both pronunciations appear, but I think gem-in-e is used much more than gem-in-eye. I've always use the "e" version.

 

Actually shot on real 16mm and 35mm and 65mm film. The early flight test stuff was 16mm, documentary stuff; the NASA scenes, Gemini/Apollo, and home scenes were 35mm; and then when they land on the moon it's 65mm. So I'm pretty certain what you saw was actual film grain and not something done as an effect. I think modern audiences are so conditioned by digital filmmaking, they kind of recoil when they're reminded what actual film negative looks like.

They did finish the film digitally, but I tend to doubt they added more grain as part of that process (done by Natasha Leonett over at eFilm/Hollywood).

 

how did this do at the box office?

 

Gemin-ee?

No that’s just wrong. I never heard a single news commentator during that entire time call it Gemin-ee. Never heard it called that in my entire life until today.

 

For me, Gem-en-eye.

 

I enjoyed it..

 

As I said, both pronunciations were used. Are you going to tell Wally Schirra and Pete Conrad they're pronouncing it wrong?

 

A couple of dumb soldiers? Probably. It's Gemini. As in the astrological twins: Gemini. Not Gemin-ee.


How to pronounce Gemini in English

 

Which is it?

 

Typical of the poster.

 

Saw it over the weekend, it felt kinda sterile and one-note.

The space shots, the technical elements of the movie were very well done, but the human aspect of the film was quite... dull?

But very little chemistry and feeling in the film (and Buzz's characterisation just felt off, no redeeming qualities afforded him on the screen, which is a shame).

Also felt the "manufactured" scene on the moon just felt forced.

 

If you are "Space Food Sticks" you are a better man than I.

Tang I liked!

 

As long as it was, they left out some critical moments from Armstrong's family, including their house fire in the mid 60s where his family barely made it out alive. That incident was shot for the movie, but didn't make the final cut. (A few frames from the house fire scene were included in the trailer.) I wonder if a longer cut that includes the fire will be made available for the Blu Ray.

Buzz was not a particularly popular astronaut among his colleagues and had few friends in the astronaut corps. Some felt as if he acted superior to others, because he had a PhD (and was the first astronaut to have one). If anything, Aldrin was probably more business-like than his colleagues and perhaps had an ever drier personality than Neil did at that time. Other astronauts expressed a desire not to be paired on a mission with Buzz, so Deke Slayton had a talk with Neil Armstrong before assigning Buzz to his crew. Neil didn't have a problem working with Buzz and accepted him on the mission. For Neil, it wasn't about friendship, it was about flying with an astronaut he thought he could rely on. None of the Apollo 11 crew were really friends of each other, especially in contrast to Apollo 12 where all three astronauts were very close friends.

One thing left out of the movie was Buzz's attempt to be the first astronaut to walk on the lunar surface. He tried to persuade others to agree that he should be first out of the LEM, using arguments that he was nearest to the door and that the commander had too many other things to worry about. But it was felt by most of the astronauts that the commander of the mission should be first out the door, and Armstrong showed no interest in giving up the honor of going out first. Neil clearly knew that the first man out the door was the one that the history books would remember, though he would diplomatically say in later years that he and Buzz landed on the lunar surface at the same time, so it's a shared honor.

For what it's worth, I think the movie's portrayal of Buzz was off-the-mark, but they needed to make one astronaut the symbolic jerk for dramatic purposes, so they settled on Buzz.

Perhaps calling Pete Conrad and Wally Schirra "a couple of dumb soldiers" is your attempt at a joke. But if that provides any hint of how you really feel about the astronauts, I can assure you that you couldn't be further from the truth... even if you were standing on the moon.

 

Is there a "colorist community" as such in Hollywood. Do you all get together, talk about the work you've done and criticize each other's clothing choices? "A teal shirt and orange shorts? Are you kidding me!"

 

It's probably going to lose a little bit of $, total worldwide so far is $75.6 million.

 

That was covered in some detail in an episode of "From The Earth To The Moon". I should get round to watching that again sometime.

 

thanks.

i believe that they thought it would do better. they must have spent a ton for marketing, it was all the TV there for a couple of weeks.

 

Naw, everybody is resentful and petty and jealous of what other people make. Me, I don't give an F, and I do try to socialize a little bit with independent colorists a bit. We do have dinner once or twice a year, and there is a colorist organization that meets up at NAB: CSI, the Colorist Society International.