October Sky

Based on a true story, October Sky is about a young boy from a coal-mining town who had the courage to pursue his dreams, Directed By:  Joe Johnston Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dern, Chris Owen, Chad Lundberg, Natalie Canerday Length:  1 hour, 48 minutes Content Filters:  Modesty

This powerful movie is based on a true story about a high school kid named Homer Hickam who lived in the backward coal mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. The strong story, excellent casting, realistic acting, and great cinematography almost got this one nominated for a CAMIE award. In these days of mostly trash movies and television programming, this movie is really tame. There's no sex on or off-screen. But someone couldn't let the script go without slipping in a line from a friend who tells Homer he will never lose his virginity if he doesn't at least talk to a girl. A short sequence that's worse than this uncalled-for remark is what loses a CAMIE award nomination for this otherwise great film. As Homer and one of his boy friends are sitting on a bench, the friend carefully coaches him how to progressively slip his arm around a girl's neck, sliding his hand down onto her breast and then grabbing it. This unfortunately descriptive "lesson" does not happen with a girl. Even if most kids see shows that are much worse, this movie may plant the idea into their heads when otherwise they'd never think of doing such a thing. So, if you decide that the rest of this movie is so good that you'll let your kids see it anyway, you'll want to talk to them about this incident.

However, other than these incidents, Homer's story of a rather average kid succeeding in spite of a block-headed father is a good one. There are several subplots and real character studies. The dad idealized Homer's older brother, who was a football star, while looking down on Homer for his interest in rockets--stemming from the Russians' October 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first satellite. The dad was determined Homer was going to be a coal miner like himself--not a college student or rocket scientist. But Homer, along with an egg-head friend and a couple of other buddies, built a rocket and then another and another. For a long time the boys' rockets blew up--or went dangerously out of control. Watching these rockets is exciting.

The character acting of the father, the mom, the school teacher, and a couple of the miners is outstanding. We won't give away more of the story. The camera angles on the trains, the coal miners, the kids playing football, the dad, the nerdy egg-head, and the boys' rockets are exceptional. By the way, you'll like the ending--and Dr. Laura Schlessinger thinks this is a great movie.

Reviewed By:  Glen Griffin
Screenplay Writer:  Lewis Colick
Author of Book:  Homer H. Hickham Jr.
Production Studio:  Universal Pictures
Musical Score:  Mark Isham