One Word Movie

October Sky

This film caused me some aesthetic squirming. It's quite nicely done, and it's about an interesting subject. But it's so obvious. It's about these teenagers who, after the Russians launch Sputnik, are inspired to make their own wee rockets. Pretty early on in the film, the Laura Dern science-teacher tells one of the teenagers that he should carry on with his rockets, because then he can enter the regional science fair, and should he win the regional science fair, he can go to the national science fair, and should he win that, he can get a scholarship, and go to college, and get out of this crummy mining town. So, you know that what's going to happen is that he's going to enter the regional science fair, and win, and enter the national science fair, and win, and then go to college and get out of the crummy mining town. Apart from that, the only surprise is that Laura Dern dies of Hodgkin's Disease.

Oh yeah, there are obviously Seemingly Insurmountable Obstacles to be overcome, but this film was "based on a true story" and I think we all know what that means.

So, the aesthetic squirming had to do with trying to work out whether this film was good or shit, because the only problem with it is that it's utterly predictable. Is that really such a bad thing? I like Laura Dern, and Chris Cooper's good as well. This film really is the perfect three-star movie. So I hummed and hawed over what rating to give it, until practically the last scene, where Laura Dern sees the boys' final rocket rising into the clouds from her hospital bed. And then, it was like, phew. This film is shit.

The other entertaining thing about this film is that there's a subplot where one of the characters writes to Werner Von Braun, because he's the father of the US space program. OK, maybe you can forgive Werner Von Braun for being a major in the SS. his excuse was that Himmler made him do it. But I can't help but feel that the Americans wouldn't be quite so tolerant of him if he'd pounded the shit out of their cities with his charmingly named V-2 (vengeance-weapon 2) rockets. So I must admit, I did think it was quite amusing that this film which tries very hard to be nice, and would invite your mum over for tea if it could, I found it very amusing that this film should be so keen on this prominent nazi, the sort of man who'd use slave labour to build rockets to kill 7,000 Londoners, and all because Hitler was a poor loser.

posted by Chairman Peyote @ 2:14 PM