Monday, June 25, 2007

A Boy, A Rocket and A Movie .....

This weekend, courtesy of Netflix, the family and I enjoyed October Sky ..... a film that apparently passed through Midland theaters with the speed of a rocket. It's based on the book "Rocket Boys" by Homer Hickam, and tells the true story of how Hickam and other boys in a West Virginia coal mine town are inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry, and the consequences - good and bad - of their decision. Wikipedia has more information on the film, including a funny note on how/why film producers changed the name from the book.

I CAN NOT RECOMMEND THIS FILM STRONGLY ENOUGH !!!!!

4 comments:

Les said...

One of my favorite movies. I never understood why it received pretty much no press at all. Then again, I seem to be always out of touch with mainstream-media-movie-hype.

Jeff said...

Les, hard to say ..... it may be that Universal (or whoever was responsible for distributing it) just didn't want to invest much in promoting it ..... I visited Rotten Tomatoes' page for this film, and it had a 93% 'Fresh' rating from reviewers ..... so the film definitely seemdd to appeal to whose who got to see it.

Rob said...

It was a low-key release, but the movie is awesome! Top-notch acting by all involved - but for me, especially Chris Cooper - and a very compelling story. I'm with Jeff on this - 2 thumbs way up!

Jeff said...

Rob, maybe we can get something started here ..... coincidentally, I notice one of the HD channels on Suddenlink has scheduled this film, so there may be more folks like me, 'discovering' this movie.