October
Sky
DOWN &
DIRTY:
Drama: A teenager hopes to break
free from his predetermined life
by winning a national science
fair competition with his rocket
designs.
NITTY GRITTY:
In 1957 Coalwood, West Virginia,
the coal mine is the town's
largest employer and almost every
male living there works, or will
work, in the mines. John Hickam
(CHRIS COOPER), the mine
superintendent, loves his job and
hopes that his boys, Jim (SCOTT
THOMAS) and Homer (JAKE
GYLLENHAAL), will one day join
him working there.
As the townspeople gather outside
one starry October night, they
see the Soviet satellite Sputnik
race across the sky. Filled with
awe and a belief that this may be
his ticket out of Coalwood, Homer
sets out to build rockets of his
own.
Everyone thinks he's crazy,
especially when he teams up with
the school math geek Quentin
(CHRIS OWEN) and friends Roy Lee
(WILLIAM LEE SCOTT) and Odell
(CHAD LINDBERG).Their science
teacher, Miss Riley (LAURA DERN),
hopes that Homer and his friends
will enter their work in a
science fair contest.
With the help and encouragement
of some towns people, the boys
begin their tests, but get into
hot water with the local
authorities when the police
arrest the boys for starting a
forest fire near their launch
site.
THE ENDING:
The boys give up their rocket
building and go back to school.
Homer's father is injured in a
mine accident and Homer goes to
work in the mine to support the
family. One night after work,
Homer figures out that their
rocket was not what started the
forest fire. He and Quentin find
the lost rocket and take the
information to the authorities
who clear the boys.
Homer decides to go back to
school and enter the science
fair. He takes the rockets to the
national science fair and wins.
All four boys get scholarships
and get out of Coalwood.
WHAT EVERYONE WILL BE
TALKING ABOUT:
The train scene. The
boys need money for their rockets
and they take rails from an
abandoned railroad spur. Then
they hear a train whistle and
quickly try to put the rail back.
When they can't get the rail
placed back, they run up the
tracks yelling for the engine to
stop. The engine glides by them
on ANOTHER track, bypassing them
and the abandoned spur.
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