"The Girl In The Spider's Web"

This movie is based in the novel of the same name, which is a continuation of the "Millennium Trilogy" that featured ace computer hacker, vigilante-supreme, and kick-ass heroine Lisbeth Salander, aka, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  

The storyline in this one involves the theft of a computer program that enables the person who possesses it to have access to and control of the nuclear arsenals of all the nations of the world.  How do you like THAT for a Macguffin, huh?   The guy who designed it  now regrets that he ever came up with such a thing and turns it over to Lisbeth - not sure why he'd pick her - and lots of bad guys, plus an American National Security guy and his Swedish counterpart also want it.

We are also introduced to Lisbeth's back story, which began when she was small child, and we also learn that she had a sister.  Along the way we see lots of amazing things that can be done by expert computer hackers like Lisbeth.  You see some spectacular views of Stockholm and the Swedish countryside.   You also see lots of violence and lots of people die.  This one is not for the squeamish (I went by myself; I knew that Marilyn would not like this one!)

The casting of Claire Foy as Lisbeth is what intrigued me and was the primary attraction of this one for me.  She is a far cry from the young Queen Elizabeth in this one, and a far cry from Mrs. Neil Armstrong, too, but she is quite good in the role.  She certainly has range, that's for sure!

Foy as Lisbeth

She ain't the Queen of England in this one!

Other casting include a gorgeous Dutch actress named Sylvia Hoeks, who played Lisbeth's sister, Camilla:

Hoeks as Camilla

Loved the blond eyebrows!

The cast also included actor Stephen Merchant as Frans Balder, the guy who invented the dastardly computer program.  Mr. Merchant has a boatload of acting credits to his name, but I knew him only as "Dave Gibbs", a character who appeared in three episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" back in 2015.  He was the guy who Amy briefly dated when she was broken up with Sheldon.

Stephen Merchant

It's a big jump from dating Amy Farrah Fowler 

to getting involved with Lisbeth Salander!

You won't fall asleep when you watch this one, but it's probably not one you're going to put in your Top Ten List either.  It's pretty much of a jumble to be honest with you.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

"First Man"

When the Oscar nominations are announced and when the awards themselves are passed out, you are going to hear the movie "First Man" mentioned a lot, and rightfully so.  Saw this one this afternoon, and it is a terrific movie.

It is the story of Neil Armstrong and the journey to his being the first man to set foot on the moon.  It begins with a scene of test pilot Armstrong flying an X-15 over the Mojave desert in 1961, and the story then follows the Armstrongs losing a child (something that I never knew about), his selection as a Gemini astronaut (the sequence of Armstrong's and David Scott's Gemini 8 mission is thrilling and harrowing), the tragic deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts in a training exercise, and, of course, the historic mission of Apollo 11 in July, 1969.

This is not only a terrific story, but it is great movie making.  The scene of the lunar landscape after the LEM lands and the musical score that accompanies it is breathtaking.  And director Damien Chazelle puts you inside a cramped spacecraft and lets you know how really, really hard it is to be an astronaut even better than such terrific past movies as "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13" did.

The movies stars Ryan Gosling as Armstrong and Claire Foy as his wife, Janet.

Both are terrific. Gosling plays Armstrong as the reserved egghead (as described by a fellow astronaut) engineer that he was, not as a rowdy space cowboy, but as a guy whose reserved nature can be traced back to the personal tragedy of the death of a child.  Foy, best known as the young Queen Elizabeth in "The Crown" is fabulous as Janet, who has to deal not only with the loss of her daughter, but with raising two rowdy sons, dealing with NASA bureaucrats, and being married to man who every day runs the risk of not surviving his job.  The scene where she forces Neil to talk to the kids before he leaves for Cape Kennedy and the Apollo 11 mission is the clip that you will be seeing when they  show why she received her Best Actress nomination.

The movie is directed by Damien Chazelle, an Oscar winner for "La La Land" and has a screenplay by Josh Scott, an Oscar winner for "Spotlight".   Add that pedigree to great acting performances, an exciting and true story (yeah, it's edge-of-the-seat stuff even though you know how it ends), and you have what just might be the best movie of the year.

Four stars from The Grandstander, plus a tip of the space helmet to the man who inspired the whole story.

Neil Armstrong

The First Man