October Sky
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | October Sky |
| Original title | October Sky |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 103 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Joe Johnston |
| script | Lewis Colick |
| production |
Larry J. Franco , Charles Gordon |
| music | Mark Isham |
| camera | Fred Murphy |
| cut | Robert Dalva |
| occupation | |
| |
October Sky is an American film drama by Joe Johnston from the year 1999 . The plot is based on the 1998 autobiographical novel Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam .
action
The main character in the film, Homer Hickam, lives with his family in the small mining town of Coalwood , West Virginia . His future as a miner in the colliery seems to be mapped out. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite into space, in 1957 , Homer discovered his interest in rockets and decided to build a rocket himself.
After the first attempt ends with his mother's garden fence destroyed, he enlists the help of three other boys, Quentin Wilson, Roy Lee Cooke and Sherman O'Dell. He finds further support from his teacher Frieda Riley, who makes him the suggestion to participate with the project at a science fair , which could bring him a scholarship and thus a path to his dreams.
The experiments proceed with varying degrees of success and the dream seems to be over when one of their rockets is blamed for the outbreak of a forest fire. When his father also had an accident in the mine, Homer took over his job in the mine to help the family through.
After his father has recovered, Homer tries to find out whether one of their missiles was actually responsible for the forest fire. After he can prove to the school that the missile was not responsible, the boys start building missiles again and work towards the competition.
Everything is at stake again when Homer is stolen the model of a rocket nozzle in the decisive national competition. With the help of his father, who was previously more of an opponent of the project, a colleague at home manages to make a new nozzle and get it to Homer on time.
Reviews
Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on February 19, 1999 that he can still remember his own shock when the Russians launched the first satellite in 1957. However, it was only enough for him to read science fiction, he didn't start building rockets right away. For him, the line of conflict in the film does not run between the boys and the rockets, but between the young rocket builders and people who think that the sons of miners should become miners themselves. This includes Homer's father, who is not a bad person and is not represented in a simplified manner.
In many films that are set at a high school, the characters looked like twenties in the television series. The students in October Sky, on the other hand, acted like real teenagers.
Desson Howe wrote in the Washington Post on February 19, 1999 that the film well reproduced the atmosphere of a family at that time. He criticized, however, that the film is relatively predictable and offers few surprises.
Awards
- Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Owen were nominated for the Young Star Award in 1999. Jake Gyllenhaal and the film were nominated for a Young Artist Award in 2000.
- Lewis Colick won the Humanitas Prize in 1999 and was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award in 2000.
- The film won the 1999 OCIC Award from the Ajijic International Film Festival and was nominated for the Casting Society of America Award . He was nominated for the Saturn Award in 2000 and received a nomination for the E Pluribus Unum Award of the American Cinema Foundation and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award in 2000 .
background
The shooting took place in Tennessee . The film grossed approximately $ 32.48 million in US cinemas .
Trivia
- October Sky is an anagram of the book title Rocket Boys
Web links
- October Sky in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- October Sky at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- October Sky at Metacritic (English)