Festival viewers were over the moon for Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic, and the love hasn’t waned now that the movie’s opened. First Man’s grounded take on the space race got a rousing reception at a VIP screening I attended recently, and the film’s earned raves from every star in the critical firmament except Richard Brody . However, one small note of caution — even positive reviews like Peter Travers’s note that some viewers may find First Man “too remote or cool to the touch.”

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A Star Is Born

A Star Is Born was projected to make around $30 million in its opening weekend. It pulled in nearly $43 million. A recent Academy screening was jam-packed, with lines worthy of a new iPhone, and some would-be attendees were turned away at the door. (“I have never seen that — ever,” a veteran publicist told THR.) Team Star is so confident in its chances that they’re even submitting the film as a drama to the Golden Globes. Basically, if A Star Is Born’s Oscar campaign was in A Star Is Born, right now we’d be at that montage where Lady Gaga bangs a tambourine onstage. But there’s still plenty of movie to go at that point, and as Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone notes, becoming the Oscar front-runner this early means getting a target on your back that won’t go away for four months.