The Right Stuff

So Top Gun Maverick was actually giving homage to this movie with its opening scene. A very well-made movie that tries a lot of things and succeeds in them. My problems with it are all in the intentionality itself. I expected the movie to be very close to the true story because of how much it firmly stands by American exceptionalism while subtly and smartly satirizing everything wrong with that in America. I'm already too fed up with such "American" stories in the first place, but then I found out that there are too many historical inaccuracies, too. The way the movie tries to make the prologue and epilogue portions poignant was very well directed, but still felt weird, especially because of how different the rest of the movie is, but still, it was a nice change of pace. I was surprised to see Ed Harris and searched for his age. At least he was able to look exactly the same for the next 30 years after this movie.

Dealing with the development of American space exploration, The Right Stuff is a long movie but commit to it and you will be rewarded with an engaging story with good characters and heart-stopping visual effects.

The Right Stuff captures the spirit of risk, achievement and heroism like no other movie I can remember. A big part of that is the rousing musical score by Bill Conti, which I wish could be bottled and sold as an energy drink. But it's really the film's offbeatness that sets it apart. There's never been another movie like it. Forty years later, it still seems fresh, like a song no one's been able to copy.

Lots of people have chronicled great feats of human ingenuity but few (if any) have done so while consistently maintaining a satirical and borderline surreal tone. It's hard to imagine that Kaufman was allowed bizarre flights of fancy (the bumbling government agents played by Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer, the press corps played by an improvisational comedy troupe, etc.) in a movie that features Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier and John Glenn orbiting the earth.

This movie showed how American astronauts lived, and it did that well, but it had a lot of unnecessary scenes that did not help develop the plot.

The space race and the men who entered it. Looking back into the late 40s-60s, breaking the sound barrier and family relationships. It's a hefty 3 hour film that's still worth it.

An unbelievably amazing movie. It's just so well done. Everything about it is incredible. The cast, the acting, cinematography, oh man, wow.

An entertaining and compelling biopic that at times becomes a slog with it's 3 hour plus running time.

A good inspiring movie for a change.

One of my top ten movies of all time. It’s aged beautifully over the years. It always will be an American classic. Beautiful movie.