FAITH REVIEW OF FILM Frank Cunningham FILM TITLE October Sky

YEAR 1999 DIRECTOR(S) : Director of 10 other movies, including The First Avenger: Captain America (2011), The Wolfman (2010), Hidalgo (2004), Jurassic Park III (2001), The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Spring Break Adventure(1999), (1995), The Rocketeer (1991) and Honey I shrunk the Kids (1989). Previously, he was the art director-visual effects of 5 movies including: Battlestar Galactica (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and 3 of the Star Wars series (Star Wars, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars VI – Return of the Jedi). His credits prior to art direction include production design, production crew member, writer, and actor.

ORIGINAL RELEASE FORM / February 19, 1999 (USA) -- From September, 1999 to November, 2000, the film VENUE was released in 24 foreign countries under 13 different titles.

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE DVD, VHS, Online as Video on Demand FORMATS GENRE Biography / Family Drama

STORY ELEMENTS  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS: – played by John Hickam, Homer’s father – played by Chris Cooper Miss Riley, Homer’s teacher – played by Elsie Hickam, Homer’s mother – played by Natalie Canerday Jim Hickam, Homer’s brother – played by Scott Miles Quentin and Roy Lee, Homer’s rocket project partners played by Chris Owen and William Lee Scott

 ATMOSPHERE: The backdrop of this biographical movie is a 1950’s rendition of a “coal camp” or small community built around a coal mine in the hills and hollows of West Virginia. Coalwood was real and was the typical southern WV “backwoods” coal town complete with hazardous and unhealthy operations of the local coal mine (the sole employer for generations of the families located there), mining company store, a rough and tumble UMWA union, and families struggling to survive in the mix. One grew up wit h the expectation of going to work in the mines just as fathers and grandfathers had before them.

 CHARACTERS: The principal character of the movie and of this biography is Homer Hickam. Homer is a school boy with a dream to become a scientist working in rocketry. It’s a dream inspired by his watching the launch of Sputnik I and encouraged by his teacher. It is a dream that is on the opposite (and almost completely unknown) side of the world in which he lives. His father, John, is the traditional and typical coal miner of the day. Suffering long and dangerous hours in the mine, he is the family provider. As God forsaken as coalmining is, he works within the normal expectations toward the day that Homer, too, will come to work in the mine. It is continuing the tradition of sons following fathers into the mine that he expects to introduce Homer to the realities of coal. Homer’s vision outside of the mine and outside of the community is set afire by his teacher, Miss Riley. She not only embraces his different dream but she lives it too played out in the early onset of a disease that will quickly kill her. To Homer, she is his inspiration.

 CENTRAL THEMES: In the context of struggles between father and son and the community’s disdain, we see the battles that can lead to the birth of change. It is a battle fully supported by his teach, Miss Riley and thematic in her struggle with her illness and death. Change is caught up in tradition and normal expectation. Rising above the din of status quo is a struggle and a fight to win.

FILM LANGUAGE ELEMENTS The setting is the pivotal element. There is no bigger rut one can fall into and never escape from than that of being born into a poor coalmining family in the backwoods of life. The setting says there is no escape. There are no exceptions. You live life, pass it on to your children and die in or because of the mines. It’s a brutal setting captured in all of its reality. The skies are typically gray and overcast. Often times the temperature is cold and smoke waifs from the fireplaces and heating stoves. It is not a place that appears desirable. It’s a place of brokenness.

AUDIENCE / CULTURAL Coalmining is a culture. It is a culture of poor, starving or barely making it CONTEXT ELEMENTS families with little hope and lesser expectations about their future. It is an excellent film for all ages. It is excellent in groups and in family-group settings.

THEOLOGY IS FOUND Implicitly found, the theology is in the movie but needs to be brought from the outside to bring focus and clarity.

THEOLOGICAL THEMES FOR Themes include having hope in situations and in circumstances offering little, the CONVERSATION struggles that seem necessary and the change that can occur in spite of it, the brokenness of our existence and help from another (Christ-like figure) to fix it or at least make it better. And in Miss Riley we find the Christ-like figure who is literally dying and yet her spirit remains with Homer forever. SUGGESTED TYPE OF The film elicits a conversation of critical challenge, tasking the participant to CONVERSATION examine their own ruts in light of Homer’s.

RECOMMENDED WAYS TO It’s a great family movie. I would consider using this as an evening entertainment VIEW AND ENGAGE THE FILM feature with conversations after the movie. For considerations of time, clips could be used instead for purposes of classroom instruction and activities.

CONCLUDING OR A series including Matewan an d October Sky could have great potential. SUMMARY REMARKS