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October Sky
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kevin Maher
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
On the night of 5 October 1957, the residents of the mining town Coalwood, West Virginia, watch Sputnik pass through the night sky. The next morning, teenage Homer Hickam decides to build his own rocket. After his first attempt fails, he constructs a more powerful rocket assisted by his schoolfriends Quentin, Sherman and Roy Lee. It flies into the mines where Homer's father John works. Banned from mine property, the boys continue their testing at a slack-dump just outside town.
Arrested for setting fire to the forest, the boys give up their experiments. When John is injured in an accident, Homer starts working down the mine. In his spare time he studies trigonometry and realises that his rocket wasn't to blame for the fire. He quits work, goes back to school, and enters his rocket in a nationwide competition which he wins. Closing titles reveal Homer is now a NASA engineer.
Review
Rarely has a movie in recent years been as blatantly flag-waving as October Sky. With its small-town setting, where the houses are ringed with white picket fences and where Homer and his friends dream of rocket ships while sipping soda pop in diners, October Sky brings to mind Norman Rockwell's rosy vision of folksy Americana. There are also echoes of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Rocket enthusiast Homer recalls James Stewart's Ransom Stoddard, being a harbinger of modernity (his science obsession) and a symbol of the town's - and by extension America's - Manifest Destiny. His father John, on the other hand, is like John Wayne's Doniphon, a man of action who rushes into collapsing mine shafts without thinking. As with Liberty, October Sky's sympathies lean towards the powerful man of action John: Homer says admiringly to him, "Dr Von Braun is a great scientist, but he isn't my hero - I only hope I can be just as good a man as you are!"
But unlike Ford's film, which radically explored the tensions opened up by the two differing models of masculinity represented by Wayne (with whom we are encouraged to identify) and Stewart, October Sky tries to have it both ways by celebrating both John and Homer as idealised versions of American masculinity. Here the movie retreads the soggy ground staked out by Field of Dreams, with sentimental tears and group hugs as the answer to conflicting ideological standpoints.
Like one of Homer's rockets, October Sky has a predictably linear trajectory. When Homer announces, "I'm going to build a rocket like Sputnik," it's only a matter of time before his picture appears in the final credits as Homer Hickam, NASA Engineer. Along the way, whenever the momentum starts to flag, we're treated to countless musical montages. Even a few spirited turns from an otherwise adequate cast can't transcend the film's mood of earnest naivety. When a girl approaches Homer at the school dance and tells him, "It sure was exciting watching your rockets go up," you can be sure that the scene is not being played for double entendres.
Credits
- Director
- Joe Johnston
- Producers
- Charles Gordon
- Larry Franco
- Screenplay
- Lewis Colick
- Based on the book Rocket Boys by
- Homer H. Hickam Jr
- Director of Photography
- Fred Murphy
- Editor
- Robert Dalva
- Production Designer
- Barry Robison
- Music
- Mark Isham
- ©Universal City Studios, Inc.
- Production Company
- Universal Pictures presents a Charles Gordon production
- Executive Producers
- Marc Sternberg
- Peter Cramer
- Production Co-ordinator
- Katie Willard Troebs
- Unit Production Manager
- Zane Weiner
- Location Manager
- Charley Baxter
- Assistant Directors
- Betsy Magruder
- Jonathan McGarry
- Rusty Mahmood
- Matt Marshall
- Script Supervisor
- Brenda Wachel
- Casting
- Nancy Foy
- Associate:
- Diana Jaher
- Location:
- Jo Doster
- ADR Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- Camera Operator
- Paul Varrieur
- Special Visual Effects
- Industrial Light & Magic
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Jim Mitchell
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Mark S. Miller
- Sabre Supervisor:
- Pablo Helman
- Sequence Supervisor:
- Joel Aron
- Sabre Artists:
- Okan Ataman
- Jonathan Wank
- Digital Timing Supervisor:
- Bruce Vecchitto
- Visual Effects Editor:
- Mike McGovern
- Visual Effects Co-ordinator:
- Theresa Corrao
- Principal Engineer:
- Fred Meyers
- Additional Visual Effects
- Matte World Digital
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Joey DiGaetano
- Special Effects Foreman
- Robert Vazquez
- Special Effects
- Gary L. Pilkinton
- Dave Rigsby
- Richard E. Perry
- Kathleen Tonkin
- Art Director
- Tony Fanning
- Set Designers
- William G. Davis
- Alan Hook
- Set Decorator
- Chris Spellman
- Costume Designer
- Betsy Cox
- Costume Supervisor
- Marciann Shapiro
- Make-up
- Artist Supervisor:
- Lynn Barber
- Key:
- Gloria Belz
- Artists:
- Julie Callihan
- Lee Ann Yandle
- Special Effects Make-up
- Bill Johnson
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Susan Mills
- Stylists:
- Beka Wilson
- Michealle Vanderpool-Kohrs
- Titles/Opticals
- Howard Anderson Company
- Solo Violin
- Sid Page
- Conductor/Orchestrations
- Ken Kugler
- Music Editors
- Tom Carlson
- Joe E. Rand
- Score Recordist/Mixer
- Stephen Krause
- Soundtrack
- "Nine Pound Hammer Is Too Heavy" by Charlie Monroe, performed by The Monroe Brothers; "My Prayer" by Georges Boulanger, Jimmy Kennedy, performed by The Platters; "Jailhouse Rock" by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, performed by Elvis Presley; "Red & Black" , "On Wisconsin" by O'dell Willis, W.T. Purdy, Carl Beck, performed by the Central High School Band, Knoxville, Tennessee; "That'll Be the Day" by Norman Petty, Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, performed by Buddy Holly & The Crickets; "Yakety Yak", "Searchin'" by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, performed by The Coasters; "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach, performed by The Platters; "Let the Good Times Roll" by Leonard Lee, Shirley Goodman, performed by Shirley & Lee; "Only You (And You Alone)" by Andy Rand, Buck Ram, performed by The Platters; "Ain't That a Shame" by Antoine 'Fats' Domino, Dave Bartholomew, performed by Fats Domino; "Speedo" by Esther Navarro, performed by The Cadillacs; "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" by Frankie Lymon, Morris Levy, performed by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers; "It's All in the Game" by Carl Sigman, Charles G. Dawes, performed by Tommy Edwards
- Production Sound Mixer
- Mary Ellis
- Re-recording Mixers
- Michael Casper
- Daniel Leahy
- Recordist
- Charlie Ajar
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Howell Gibbens
- Dialogue Editor
- Stephanie Flack
- Effects Editor
- Aaron Glascock
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Greg Lowe
- Mixer:
- Alan Holly
- Supervising Editor:
- Elizabeth Kenton
- Foley
- Artists:
- John B. Roesch
- Hilda Hodges
- Recordist:
- Carolyn Tapp
- Mixer:
- Mary Jo Lang
- Editor:
- Thom Brennan
- Mine Adviser
- Tom Taylor
- Railroad Co-ordinator
- Arthur J. Miller Jr
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Cliff Cudney
- Dialogue Consultant
- Emily S. Buckberry
- Film Extracts
- Hail Columbia (1982)
- The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
- Cast
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- Homer Hickam
- Chris Cooper
- John Hickam
- William Lee Scott
- Roy Lee Cook
- Chris Owen
- Quentin Wilson
- Chad Lindberg
- Sherman O'Dell
- Natalie Canerday
- Elsie Hickam
- Elya Baskin
- Ike Bykovsky
- Chris Ellis
- Principal Turner
- Laura Dern
- Miss Freida Riley
- Scott Miles
- Jim Hickam
- Randy Stripling
- Leon Bolden
- Courtney Fendley
- Dorothy Platt
- David Dwyer
- Jake Mosby
- Terry Loughlin
- Mr Dantzler
- Kaili Hollister
- Valentina Carmina
- David Copeland
- Coach Gainer
- Don Henderson Baker
- Jensen
- Tom Kagy
- Lenny
- Donald Thorne
- trooper 1
- Justin Whitsett
- kid
- Larry Rue
- Neva Howell
- Terry Nienhuis
- neighbours
- Brady Coleman
- Anderson
- Rick Forrester
- Roper
- Terrence Gibney
- Basil Thorpe
- Doug Swander
- Corvette guy
- Keeli Hale Kimbro
- Corvette girl
- Mark Jeffrey Miller
- Vernon
- Blaque Fowler
- reverend
- Don Tilley
- rescue worker
- Rockford Davis
- chemistry teacher
- John Bennes
- doctor
- Jonathan Fawbush
- Barney
- Larry Black
- Fred Smith
- Frank Schuler
- moonshiner
- Tommy Smeltzer
- man at mine
- Charles Lawlor
- Tom Turbiville
- miners
- Ida Ginn
- Quentin's mom
- Richard Lumpkin
- judge at Welch
- Mark Whitman Johnson Don Taylor
- union officials
- Don G. Campbell
- Mr Morris
- Elizabeth Byler
- Ivy League girl
- Bradford Ryan Lund
- Ivy League boy
- Frank Hoyt Taylor
- judge at Indy
- David Hager
- head judge
- Ray Elder
- Tom Webster
- Andy Stahl
- Jack Palmer
- Joey DiGaetano
- Wernher Von Braun
- Thomas Taylor
- miner in elevator
- David Ducey
- man in crowd
- Jenny Patterson
- nurse
- O. Winston Link
- locomotive engineer
- Certificate
- PG
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 9,667 feet
- 107 minutes 25 seconds
- Digital DTS sound/SDDS/Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Panavision]