In 1999, famed director of "Jurassic Park III," Joe Johnston, outdid his previous attempts at making the perfect melodramatic cheesefest movie with "October Sky." The film is about teens with hardscrabble beginnings who launch a projectile as an attempt to escape their upbringings, but the insincerity of the performances made audiences want to projectile launch their lunches into jumbo-sized popcorn buckets.
Prior to learning how to act, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Homer Hickam, a boy who immediately becomes obsessed with rocketry after witnessing Sputnik orbiting the Earth and begins a personal correspondence with a famous Nazi scientist, Wernher von Braun. Homer and the rag-tag group of misfits that he assembles go from accidentally blowing up a picket fences to winning the National Science Fair after a ton of montages that are meant to let us know how tenacious they were.
Chris "The Sherminator" Owen plays a nerdlinger dweebizoid named Quentin who is such a pariah at his high school that even the act of approaching him at lunchtime warrants an audible gasp from the entire rest of the student body. Quentin is the brains of the rocketry operation and indispensable to its success, but he somehow receives almost no credit because Homer was busy lapping it all up.
Laura Dern's portrayal of a passionate teacher named Miss Riley who is diagnosed with a terminal disease just as the students she inspired were about to realize their dreams was as thirsty for an Oscar nomination as humanly possible. They actually have her witness their last launch from her deathbed. This is what we are dealing with here.
Chris Cooper plays Homer's dad, and he's just doing his typical gruff dad role like in every movie he's in other than "Adaptation."
Join us as we discuss passive-aggressive painting, the differences between the memoir and the movie, and why The Sherminator should've won an Oscar for this movie.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by 23 and NOT Me.
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The 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger action-comedy smash hit and cultural sensation "Kindergarten Cop" reminds us that this kid's movie mainly loved by teenagers shouldn't be revisited by adults.
Its giant plot holes (larger than the holes Arnold's reckless cop character wouldn't mind leaving in any drug addict unwilling to get out of the way of his tricked-out shotgun) get force-filled with a huge helping of heart (as Arnold falls in love and misses his estranged son that we or he never see) and are about as big as Arnold's partner's hilariously large appetite (because she's small, get it?). The comedy menu we're given here basically largely consists of "mean man who hates everyone has to deal with children" and daily specials akin to the show "Kids Say the Darndest Things."
Seemingly weeks pass in this three-day plot because we get a lot of montages where Arnold marches these little kids like a drill sergeant in order to whip them into shape, and oddly, somehow this makes them love him instantly.
Arnold plays Detective John Kimble (a cop, you idiot!), who goes undercover (while weirdly using his real name) as a kindergarten teacher to find out who all the kids' daddies are and also learn what they do.
This is because a notorious drug dealer named Cullen Crisp (played by Richard Tyson) has recently learned the whereabouts of his ex-wife and child and plans to go find them when he gets out of jail.
Penelope Ann Miller plays both the on-the-run ex-wife of the bad guy and Arnold's love interest. She works at the school he's scoping out, because apparently small towns don't ask any questions or check references.
Arnold's food-loving partner is played by Pamela Reed. And that's her whole character: she's Arnold's partner and she loves food.
There's also a principal character played by Oscar-winner Linda Hunt who is suspicious of Arnold being a teacher and hopes he'll soon quit, even though she knows from the get-go that he's an undercover cop who will only be staying a few days.
Join us as we discuss how dumb the and dangerous the police heroes of this movie are, our thoughts on the honor bar in hotels and reminisce about those old Arnold soundboards people used for prank calls back in the day.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Bravo's "The Real Stay-at-Home Dads of Boise."
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
In 2000, Gus Van Sant released his second film about a sad older man who mentors a promising young genius only to regain his zest for life along the way, "Finding Forrester." They tried to rekindle the magic from "Good Will Hunting," but they instead ended up making a painfully uncomfortable white savior movie strung together with every cornball trope known to man.
Sean Connery plays William Forrester, a reclusive writer who authored a book that is now on the required reading list for every high schooler (aka a J.D. Salinger stand-in). Forrester has a habit of creepily monitoring the comings and goings of everyone in his neighborhood through binoculars and has the ability to read lips or something because he seems to know exactly what everyone is up to. His peeping eventually manages to rouse some local kids into breaking into his apartment to see what his deal is.
Rob Brown plays Jamal Wallace, a 16-year-old genius from the Bronx who started journaling regularly after his drug-addicted dad walked out on his family. Jamal excels at basketball, but he hides his intelligence and his ambitions to be writer from everyone in his life until he accidentally drops the backpack containing his journals while robbing the apartment of Connery's character, the local ghostly hermit.
F. Murray Abraham plays Professor Robert Crawford, a bitter teacher at a prestigious private school who has spent the past several decades talking down to his students and viciously punishing any dissenters. He is a crazy fanboy of Sean Connery's character and, unbeknownst to him, Connery went out his way to blackball him and prevent his book from being published which made him into the monster that he has become.
Join us as we cringe our way though Sean Connery trying to win an Oscar, debate whether or not Jamal is even good at basketball or writing and unleash some of the worst Sean Connery impressions every perpetrated on the general public.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by YouTwit.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.