Today on my last day off I drove over to Simi Valley to see the Chumash caves for the first time in four years. I had a lot of fun, and it's pretty awe-inspiring to sit down in the caves, next to the cylindrical bowls carved into the sandstone by the Chumash many centuries ago. Local archaeologists say between 2000-5000 years. So it kind of blows your mind to sit there and imagine their presence in the cave. I also felt like apologizing to them for modern humans, because some idiot had used the last few of his remaining brain cells to paint graffiti all over the side of the cave. May the Great Spirit look down upon him with disfavor.
While I was there, I hiked partway up the Chumash Trail, which goes way back into the Simi Hills. The first (and only other) time I tried this trail was in Summer 2014. That time I got halfway up but had to stop because it's really steep and I wasn't yet an experienced hiker. Today it was a lot easier, but there really isn't much to see except beige colored, dried out hillsides, so I only went in about a half mile and then came back. Also, I had another reason for going to Simi today. A while back, somebody gave me a gift card for a movie chain that has no theaters in the Valley. The closest one is in Simi, and because I don't go there very often except for occasional hikes, I've had this gift card since about 2013 and had only used it for one movie, "Nightcrawler", also back in 2014. I still had fifteen bucks on the card, so since I wasn't working today I figured I'd go back to the same theater after my Chumash visit, to see "First Man", which I did and it was really great.
It's not quite the type of Mega Space Movie I was expecting, although there is a lot of Space Action, and the sections of the film that depict the Gemini and Apollo missions of Neil Armstrong are incredible, showing the most amazing - and harrowing - recreations of those flights that could be achieved in a dramatic depiction. You really feel what it must have been like to be inside the capsules with the astronauts, and you have a whole new appreciation for how tough they were, because for the first time, as far as I know, a director has paid attention to the physical aspects of rocket propulsion; the extreme buffeting, the G-forces, the blackout-inducing gyroscopic malfunctions that send a capsule spinning out of control. Watching the terror of the near-catastrophies the astronauts had to deal with gives you a perspective on just how difficult it was to get to the Moon.
The film is 50% about Neil Armstrong the man, and about his relationship with his family. This is also the film's emotional core. Armstrong was known to the public as a quiet, almost silent man. After his NASA career ended he almost never gave an interview and was more or less out of the public eye for the rest of his life. He is played exactly this way in the movie by Ryan Gosling, who does a good job of capturing Armstrong's reticence. Gosling shows Armstrong's personality only from the inside. Everything is held in, little to no emotion is expressed, and yet you can see the courage in his eyes, and you can see how much he wants to be chosen for the Apollo program. You can also see why the NASA bosses selected him to captain Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the Moon. Gus Grissom had been tagged to be the first man initially, but he was tragically killed in the fire onboard Apollo One, during a flight test. All of us who were kids back then remember the horror of that fire.
Armstrong is not shown to be a great pilot, not in comparison with other astronauts. He makes mistakes that almost get him grounded, and yet......he has a determination and dead serious demeanor that the bosses seem to like. Also, he is a top-notch engineer, a guy who can solve in-flight problems quickly. This gives him the edge to be The First.
I won't tell you any more about the story. Much of it is prominent world history anyway. The guy went to the Moon, and was the First Man to set foot on it. I - and millions of others - watched it happen. Neil Armstrong was like a rock star to kids my age, but he really didn't want to be.
The publicity for the movie reveals a major plot point that I was not previously aware of, nor I doubt was the majority of the general public. I will not mention this point, and you may already know of it if you are following the movie's release.
Neil Armstrong was a family man, an old fashioned do-your-job-and go-home kind of guy. Some of the other astronauts had bigger personalities and egos. Armstrong kept all his feelings inside, but his drive to succeed was stronger than all the others, driven perhaps in part by loss and hidden heartbreak.
There is a brief scene in the movie that I disagree with. It's not even a full scene, really, just a 30 second shot. I won't tell you when it comes, but I feel that the director took way too much dramatic licence to include it. I almost feel that it's an insult to Neil Armstrong to include this shot, because it blatantly didn't happen.
The shot in question doesn't detract from the quality of the movie, which is as much a family drama as it is a space film, and by "family" I include the families of all the astronauts.
But I just feel that if the director, a very young man of the new generation who did a great job on the film but was not alive at the time of Apollo 11, if he had known the true postwar stoicism that produced men like Neil Armstrong (and Gus Grissom, et al), he would never have included such a "well meaning" but entirely manipulative and deluded shot of dramatic fiction.
Most importantly, the shot is unfair to the memory of Neil Armstrong.
Nonetheless, two Humongous Thumbs Up for "First Man", carried by Ryan Gosling's determined portrayal and enriched by a wide supporting cast, most notably Claire Foy who plays his wife Janet, and the actor who plays Ed White, the first American to walk in space who is also the Armstrong's neighbor and close friend.
I don't go to many movies at the theater these days (and they showed 20 minutes of CGI movie previews beforehand, almost all comic book stuff), but "First Man" was well worth it. It's not precisely a Space Movie in the way of "Gravity" or another similar spectacle, but as far as the historical space missions that are recreated, you will never see a more accurate depiction. This is mindboggling stuff, showing what many consider to be the greatest technological achievement of the human race, landing a man on the Moon.
See it if you are so inclined.
I will be back at Pearl's tomorrow, and will see you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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