October Sky (1999)
Directed by Joe Johnston
The true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes.
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What critics compared October Sky to
The fact that many critics are praising this crater as a mountain baffles me, making it the October Sky (last spring’s phenomenally overrated critical darling) of 2000.
Even though parts of Frequency reminded me of other time-travel fare, like Back to the Future or the âCity on the Edge of Foreverâ episode of the original Star Trek TV series, I enjoyed it more for the father-son relationships that parallel October Sky and Field of Dreams.
This long delayed production, adapted from Curt Siodmak's original 1941 screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker ("Se7en," "Sleepy Hollow") and David Self ("Thirteen Days," "Road to Perdition") and directed by Joe Johnston ("October Sky," "Hidalgo"), turns out to be a surprisingly effective update that respects the gothic tradition yet jolts with restrained gore and surrealistic drug-induced nightmares.
Among Johnston’s oeuvre, which ranges from iconic family romp “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” to the lovely “October Sky,” “The Wolfman” falls into the same category as “Jurassic Park III”: unnecessary and forgettable.
Wolfman, directed by Joe Johnston (Rocketeer, October Sky), fails primarily because it takes itself entirely too seriously.
The film also features John Hawkes (A Perfect Storm, Rush Hour, From Dusk Till Dawn), Amanda Peet (Igby Goes Down, Changing Lanes, The Whole Nine Yards), Alfred Molina (Murder on the Orient Express, Frida, Magnolia ), John C. McGinley (Stealing Harvard, Any Given Sunday, Scrubs), Jake Busey (Starship Troopers, Contact, The Frighteners), William Lee Scott (Gattaca, October Sky, Gone in Sixty Seconds), Clea DuVall (Girl, Interrupted, But I'm a Cheerleader, She's All That), and a very bitchy Rebecca De Mornay (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Backdraft, The Trip to Bountiful) to remind us that she's still a star.
In addition to the critical hit “October Sky,” Joe Johnston has previously directed several fun action movies including “Jurassic Park III” and “The Rocketeer.”
Director Joe Johnston ("The Rocketeer," "October Sky" and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (all three "The Chronicle of Narnia" movies) want audiences to discover the origin of the Marvel Comics first avenger.
Chris Evans, who graced the two most recent “Fantastic Four” features as the Human Torch/Johnny Storm, gets the full body, eponymous treatment with Joe Johnston (“Jumanji,” “Jurassic Park III,” and—my personal favorite of his oeuvre , the coming-of-age “October Sky”) directing this jingoistic sci-fi salute to what was worth fighting for 70 years ago.
It was directed by Joe Johnston, whose career has been an alternate-universe version of Spielberg’s — “The Rocketeer,” “Jumanji,” “October Sky,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Jurassic Park III” — and who in fact worked as a visual-effects artist on “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
The movie was directed by Spielberg/Lucas protege Joe Johnston, best known for The Rocketeer , October Sky and the third Jurassic Park.
Johnston presumably got this assignment because of his success doing vintage Americana in "The Rocketeer" and "October Sky," the two best films of his 22-year career as a Hollywood journeyman.