It was a dark winter evening. Just past 7. The room was dark, as I put on the TV. It was the year I had to take a drop during my Engineering studies due to too many KTs. My confidence was running low and I found myself in a self-imposed house-arrest.
So there I was, unable to concentrate on the studies, with my mood as dark as the evening, I put on HBO. The movie had just started. I had missed the name by seconds. I was about to switch the channel, when the screen told me that this particular anonymous flick was based on a true story... 'Oh, is it?' I thought with mild interest and decided to stick around and see what it was about...
To my surprise, the very first scene started with the radio broadcasting the launch of Sputnik - the first man-made satellite to be launched into space... From that point on, I was hooked.
During my childhood years, I had a fascination for space and space-travel... So any movie having anything to do with space was bound to capture my interest... So I stayed on for a while... And ended up watching the entire movie....
The start is a bit slow. Its where the stage is set, the characters sketch themselves, slowly taking shape as they blend into the story.
Its a biopic of a boy named Homer H Hickam. Homer is born and brought up in Coalwood, a typical American "coal town" - a town built around the coal mine. A town where each boy follows his fathers footsteps into the coal mines as a miner. Only one lucky guy will escape this predestined fate - the one who can bag the sports scholarship.
Homer is no good at sports, unlike his brother. His father, a supervisor, who has spent all of his career in the mine itself - for whom mine is the only way of life - wants Homer to either win a sports scholarship or follow his footsteps into the mine...
Overshadowed by his brother's achievements, stifled by his dad's expectations and unable to come to grips with the fact that he may well have to spend the rest of his life working in the mine, life looks grim for poor Homer...
Then one day, a single little event changes the straight predestined course of his life. On an evening in October, he sees a majestic shooting star in the sky. But this is no ordinary celestial body. Its the first man-made object to revolve in orbit round the earth.Its the recently launched Russian satellite Sputnik. As he gazes with awe at this man-made wonder in the sky, he suddenly realizes what he wants to do in his life...
Does a movie require bad guys, super heroes, gorgeous heroines, romance, disaster and the climactic fight between good and evil, to be entertaining? This movie proves that age old formula wrong. Here dream and determination are the heroes, and difficulties, obstacles and fate are the villains.
It glorifies a boy who dreams to be different. A father who wants the best for his son. The clash between a fathers expectations and his sons dreams. A teacher who inspires her students and shows them that sports is not everything, and that science can be a fun hobby too.
Its a movie about an era that's now long gone. And yet it manages to entertain as well as inspire even today...
May be I like this movie more than others will. It still featured at the top of my most favourite movies list. And there is a reason why...
It was my dream to become an astronaut or at least an astronomer. As I grew up, I went for Engineering instead. It was my dad's dream, and I just went along with the flow. And the dream remained just that - a dream.
And here I was at a point where I seriously doubted my choice of a career and how good or bad I was in it... It was at this low point of my life, that I stumbled upon this gem of a movie... Not that it changed me for the better. But it gave me hope that some dreams do come true...
So there I was, unable to concentrate on the studies, with my mood as dark as the evening, I put on HBO. The movie had just started. I had missed the name by seconds. I was about to switch the channel, when the screen told me that this particular anonymous flick was based on a true story... 'Oh, is it?' I thought with mild interest and decided to stick around and see what it was about...
To my surprise, the very first scene started with the radio broadcasting the launch of Sputnik - the first man-made satellite to be launched into space... From that point on, I was hooked.
During my childhood years, I had a fascination for space and space-travel... So any movie having anything to do with space was bound to capture my interest... So I stayed on for a while... And ended up watching the entire movie....
The start is a bit slow. Its where the stage is set, the characters sketch themselves, slowly taking shape as they blend into the story.
Its a biopic of a boy named Homer H Hickam. Homer is born and brought up in Coalwood, a typical American "coal town" - a town built around the coal mine. A town where each boy follows his fathers footsteps into the coal mines as a miner. Only one lucky guy will escape this predestined fate - the one who can bag the sports scholarship.
Homer is no good at sports, unlike his brother. His father, a supervisor, who has spent all of his career in the mine itself - for whom mine is the only way of life - wants Homer to either win a sports scholarship or follow his footsteps into the mine...
Overshadowed by his brother's achievements, stifled by his dad's expectations and unable to come to grips with the fact that he may well have to spend the rest of his life working in the mine, life looks grim for poor Homer...
Then one day, a single little event changes the straight predestined course of his life. On an evening in October, he sees a majestic shooting star in the sky. But this is no ordinary celestial body. Its the first man-made object to revolve in orbit round the earth.Its the recently launched Russian satellite Sputnik. As he gazes with awe at this man-made wonder in the sky, he suddenly realizes what he wants to do in his life...
Does a movie require bad guys, super heroes, gorgeous heroines, romance, disaster and the climactic fight between good and evil, to be entertaining? This movie proves that age old formula wrong. Here dream and determination are the heroes, and difficulties, obstacles and fate are the villains.
It glorifies a boy who dreams to be different. A father who wants the best for his son. The clash between a fathers expectations and his sons dreams. A teacher who inspires her students and shows them that sports is not everything, and that science can be a fun hobby too.
Its a movie about an era that's now long gone. And yet it manages to entertain as well as inspire even today...
May be I like this movie more than others will. It still featured at the top of my most favourite movies list. And there is a reason why...
It was my dream to become an astronaut or at least an astronomer. As I grew up, I went for Engineering instead. It was my dad's dream, and I just went along with the flow. And the dream remained just that - a dream.
And here I was at a point where I seriously doubted my choice of a career and how good or bad I was in it... It was at this low point of my life, that I stumbled upon this gem of a movie... Not that it changed me for the better. But it gave me hope that some dreams do come true...
My rating: 5
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