While watching the very good new movie “First Man” about Neil Armstrong, I remember wondering why the story of this great American was not made into a movie 30 or 40 years ago, especially considering that the first moon landing happened almost 50 years ago. Hollywood decided in 1995 to make the movie about a failed moon mission Apollo 13 where 3 astronauts were very close to losing their lives when an explosion happened in their capsule – why not make a movie about this successful mission? It is impossible to not have great respect for all the astronauts who risked and gave their lives, especially in the 1960’s when the risks of space travel and a trip to the moon were at their highest.

Since the 1960’s a total of 20 NASA astronauts have lost their lives, including 3 astronauts who died in a fire inside their space capsule in the early stage of the Apollo missions. There were so many things that could have gone wrong in the incredibly risky ventures of both the Gemini and Apollo missions that eventually led to the moon. Due to the high level of danger involved, the courage of those who risked their lives was the most impressive part of human beings landing on the moon in July 1969. It is understandable that the cost and risk of death was so great that NASA decided to never go to the moon again, after the last Apollo Mission in 1972, with Apollo 17. I was most impressed with this film when it showed the small and dark environment of the space capsules and the extreme vibrations involved when the rocket takes off into space. Due to these vibrations, its hard to believe that so many more explosions and accidents did not occur, considering the millions of parts that were involved for each space flight. During all of the Apollo Missions to the moon, Apollo 13 being the only failure, one can easily imagine the many ways all of or some of the astronauts could have been killed, and this even included being stranded on the moon forever.

Ryan Gosling stars as Neil Armstrong, playing this this part wooden, almost emotionless, which was the personality of Neil Armstrong and one of the reasons why he was chosen to be an Astronaut in the first place. In order to fly missions as dangerous as all the astronauts did in the 1960’s being able to stay calm in an inevitable crisis was paramount. Gosling also looks like Neil Armstrong who died in 2012 of a heart ailment and I thought it was a shame that he was not alive to see this very good movie about his life and trip to the moon. Armstrong’s wife was played by Claire Foy, who does an acting job so outstanding, she will probably receive an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.

First Man is one of the best movies of 2018 almost a guarantee to receive and Academy Award nomination for best picture and it receives my highest recommendation.

The new movie “Venom” follows the same Hollywood paradigm for Marvel action movies. “We don’t need a story or a script because we have a built in Marvel audience. All we need is special effects and explosions and people will come.” Unfortunately, this idea works as Venom, which is a pretty bad movie is making very good box office, but for those of us who are looking for a quality screenplay or some kind of a story, this film is a nightmare to sit through.

I was most surprised to see Michelle Williams in this movie because her entire career has been all about quality over money, but perhaps she was angry over being paid so little in last years re-shoot of “All the Money in the World”, and decided that it was her time to get a big payday. The star of the movie Tom Hardy looks like he is drunk or in some kind of a coma during this entire 2 hours and at times he is hard to understand because he mumbles many of his lines.

This movie should be avoided, even for die hard Marvel comic fans. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a very low 30% – my rating is around 15%. Unfortunately there will be more bad movies like this in our future that forego a script, story and quality in favor of special effects.

Robert Redford has said that at age 82, this will be his last acting role. If this is true, its unfortunate but for any profession there is a limit for most people in just how much they want to do, even with such an enviable career like Redford has had. Ironically, the high point in Redford’s career was winning best Director for “Ordinary People”, in 1980, arguably the best picture of its kind ever made. Redford has never won a best actor Oscar, nominated in 1973 for the Sting, which like so many other actors as good as Redford has been, makes no sense.

The new film “The Old Man and the Gun” is about Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who robbed many banks and more amazingly escaped from prison no less than 16 times. The interesting part of this story is the fact that Tucker robbed all of these banks without any violence and was actually polite when he walked into a bank and asked for their money, just showing the gun he had under his coat. Tucker also worked with two other accomplices, played well by actors Danny Glover and Tom Waits. Tucker was just a person who enjoyed robbing banks and could never have been rehabilitated; to him being a criminal was life to him and very often he had a smile on his face while robbing a bank or running from the police.

At the start of this movie they mention that this story is “almost true” and we do not learn what parts are true or Hollywood embellishment and this includes the girlfriend Tucker finds while escaping the police, played by Sissy Spacek, who I have not seen in a movie for a number of years. Casey Affleck plays the police detective assigned to find Tucker and his gang and this is the first role I have seen him in since his Academy Award performance in the great movie “Manchester by the Sea”, released in 2016.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a very strong 89% and I agree with that score. Hopefully Redford will change his mind and act again and even direct again. I highly recommend The Old Man and the Gun.