First Man (2018)
DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle
CAST: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll, Ciaran Hinds, Lukas Haas, Shea Whigham, Cory Michael Smith, Patrick Fugit, Pablo Schreiber, Ethan Embry, Brian d’Arcy James
REVIEW:
First Man would make an excellent companion piece to other docudramas about the 1960s NASA space program, including 1995’s Apollo 13 (whose mission took place only nine months after the climax of this film) and 1983’s sprawling The Right Stuff, which some consider definitive (although it portrays an earlier phase of the space race than First Man and Apollo 13, meaning one could watch the three as a sort of loosely-connected trilogy). The primary difference is that, while those films were ensemble casts giving a broader overview of the workings of NASA, both on Earth and in space, First Man is more tightly-focused on the professional and personal life of the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, offering an intimate look at a man who sometimes seemed as remote as the bleak, barren lunar surface. Continue reading
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
DIRECTOR: Drew Goddard
CAST: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, Cailee Spaeny, Chris Hemsworth
REVIEW:
Bad Times at the El Royale has issues—sometimes overly self-indulgent in its own dark quirkiness and excessively Tarantino wannabe—but as an obvious homage to the kind of movie Quentin Tarantino might churn out, it serves up enough twists and turns combined with a dark sense of humor to keep the audience engaged and guessing through a slow burn pace. Like Tarantino himself, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who enjoy this kind of movie, it’s an enjoyably dark and twisty ride. Continue reading