We watch our movies on Blu-ray, and this film was (finally) made available this week.
(Mild spoiler alert.)
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It is a feel-good movie with a plot that is similar to Rudy. Acting was first-rate, especially Chris Cooper’s performance. We thoroughly enjoyed it, though at times it was bit cliché-ish and predictable.
If you haven’t seen it I recommend it.
Yes, it’s a keeper, especially as it’s reasonably close to a true story. The only thing that bothered me was that Chris Cooper’s character - say that three times fast - was called “John” for lazy script reasons. (Hint: the viewpoint author is Homer Hickham Jr.)
Trivia: the name is an anagram of the source autobiography Rocket Boys. A different title was needed because the studio didn’t want confusion with another film, [del]John Is Actually Homer Too[/del] Wonder Boys.
That is very cool!
I saw it several years ago, and enjoyed it a lot. I had been into model rocketry as a teenager, and I suppose that was a factor in my enjoyment, but even without that, it’s a fun film.
I’d heard that the name change was to make it more appealing to female movie goers. I like this movie a lot. Think they missed a bet not showing Sputnik orbiting the Earth in the opening logo shot (Like Waterworld had the Earth flooding.)
As a West Virginian and a math teacher, I try to show it in class if we have time. That’s getting harder to find, so it doesn’t happen as often as it used to. The kids usually get really interested in the story, and some will even go find the book afterwards. I’ve read both Rocket Boys and Then Coalwood Way, and I have the third one somewhere. He has a nice folksy style of writing, which I like when I’m in the mood for it.
I liked the movie but I highly recommend the book. The memoir has everything, a boy coming of age, science, what it’s like to live in a coal mining town, romance, a great sense of time and place.