Back to School Videos 1999

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Back to School Videos

Blast from the Past

October Sky

She's All That

Earlier this year, when I first began this series of essays and reviews, I bogged down in a series of light, warm-hearted films—quite different from this summer’s heavy offerings (Arlington Road, Eyes Wide Shut, and Blair Witch Project) which are now enjoying a rebirth on video. At least three of them are especially appropriate for kids, parents, and teachers in these last, record-breaking days of summer before the inevitable school bells toll, uh, ring. So, this time, I’m going to cool off and revisit three films that got us started in this ongoing conversation about movies, three films that sometimes surprised me by being so likeable.

Based on the true story of NASA engineer Homer Hickam, October Sky recounts the response of the United States to the opening of the space age by the Evil Empire: anxiety, doubt, suspicion, and, of course, paranoia. The story unwinds lazily through a series of episodes, Tom Sawyer with coal dust, although instead of painting a fence, Homer (Jake Gyllenhaal) blows one up. Almost spilling his considerable guts across the football field in tryouts, Homer sees his homemade rockets as the only way out of Coalwood.

The primary relationship in the film is between Homer and his father John (Chris Cooper), who, although not really a villain, tries to keep Homer’s feet on the ground (if not his life under the ground). Apparently he is convinced that he is acting in his son’s best interest. Of similar importance is Homer’s relationship with teacher Miss Riley (Laura Dern). Although based on a true story, and the real Miss Riley did die young, this characterization, not much more than a woman born to die, wastes the quirky, but wide-ranging talents of Dern. She is the voice of inspiration, selfless, perhaps the voice of the ever present, ever distant missile, bravely speaking lines that lesser mortals wouldn’t dare.

In fact, the Miss Riley subplot, the perfunctory treatment of a miner’s strike and the father’s injury, add no depth or believability to the film so much as they show its weakness. The characters are pawns moved by outside forces (does this explain Sputnik’s beeps?). Townsfolk rally behind Homer and his three friends, the "Rocket Boys," while materials and talents are suddenly at their disposal as they aim themselves and their homemade rockets at the scholarships accompanying victory in a national science fair.

There are a lot of nothings in this film, which left me feeling I had just watched a made-for-tv movie, complete with terminal illness of the week. There is, however, a warmth, a richness of texture and ambiance, and… Oh, yes, did I say warmth, like a cup of hot chocolate on a chilly October night? For what it matters, there is no sex or nudity, and the language is no worse than you can hear on network television.

Perhaps it is the acting, and with what they are given, the cast works small miracles. Aside from Dern, most of the actors in this film do not have names likely to crop up in a crossword puzzle anytime soon, although at least one, teenager Jake Gyllenhaal, seems destined to drive the puzzle-writers to accept the challenge.

October Sky works so much better than it should. Perhaps producer Charles Gordon, who also produced Field of Dreams, still has his golden touch. Some films are called good date movies. For me October Sky is a good pickup movie, and I am not suggesting you take someone you just met in a bar. It is a movie that, despite its long list of shortcomings will pick you up. If you could walk out of a theater humming a rocket blast, you would after seeing October Sky.

Now, to take a Monty Python-esque turn to something completely different, let’s look at two films that are just what we need in these hot summer days, an excuse to stay indoors and enjoy long, hot days as air-conditioned couch potatoes. She’s All That is the tale of a bunch of slick L. A. teenagers who remind me of their fellows in the television show, Saved by the Bell, even a smart aleck named Zack. The language at first is a weak stew of obscenity and valley person vapidity. Hello, I mean, like that is like sooo totally total, you %$#%^*!

Zack (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), the biggest man on a big campus, takes on the task of getting the darkest of dark horses elected prom queen, an art student named Laney (Rachel Leigh Cook). The language at the same time takes on the task of contrasting these two with their peers. The newly tattooed prospective prom queen—"a C-minus GPA in a Wonderbra"—given ample physical attraction by Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, speaks valley vocabulary throughout, while Zack and Laney drop their affectations of language along with other affectations.

At first, I was hoping Zack would fail. Laney is a sweet but bitter hardworking artist and nonconformist, politically alert and grieving the death of her mother—for me the most appealing character on campus. But, she has as much effect on Zack as he has on her. Before they live happily ever after, two talented young actors show off a range of expression and emotion with a virtuosity that older talents might envy, although frankly Prinze, at twenty-three, is pushing his credibility as a teenager.

As in so many films about high school life, hardly any action occurs in class. While students indulge in tobacco, booze, and sex, no illegal drugs are mentioned. Teachers are portrayed with warmth and compassion, and at least some parents are shown as being "with it"—no matter how much I may be showing how much I am without it by using such a phrase.

The Clueless Alicia Silverstone and Brendan (George of the Jungle) Fraser are featured in Blast from the Past, a comedy about a boy-man emerging from thirty-five years in a fallout shelter. Director Hugh Wilson has given Silverstone and Fraser a chance to expand their predictable screen images. With Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken as the shelter-bound parents, he adds an element of pathos, making this one-joke comedy a meditation on parents and children, and their mutual expectations and responsibilities.

But, not to put too heavy a hand on it. This is surprisingly gentle fun. There is an inevitable car crash, as Adam (Fraser) learns to drive, but most of the humor is more subtle than one would expect from a vehicle for Fraser. The more complex scenes involve the parents. Mother Helen (Sissy Spacek) is a bundle of fifties-style neuroses and clichés. As Calvin, the head of this California Family Webber, Christopher Walken brings an edge of obsession, even danger, to his role.

Convinced that the United States has been bombed, Calvin and his pot-roast-obsessed pregnant wife Helen seal themselves into a spacious, well-stocked fallout shelter. Son Adam is born, and in a few minutes the film skirts thirty-five years of the fifties’ nuclear (no pun) family. But, the time locks open, and Calvin ventures into a not so brave new world, followed by thirty-five year old Adam, in search of—Eve (Silverstone), a hard-edged, even hard-boiled lass with an uncanny knowledge of baseball cards and an equally uncanny ability to choose the wrong man until….

Silverstone is growing into a consistently fine young actress. Frazer can’t get cast very far beyond his hunk image. Even though this is a richer role than his human cartoon turns in George of the Jungle and Encino Man, he is still confined to the emotional range of a cute puppy in a strange yard. Walken and Spacek show what a few years can do for a performer. Don’t go looking for anyone to swing into a tree, but don’t expect too much either. Blast from the Past, despite its title, is a quiet little diversion that might be just what a family needs on a hot August night.

Go pour yourself a big, tall glass of iced beverage of your choice, and if you are caught up in the ongoing joys of institutional education, enjoy the last few days before reality sets in. No matter what is facing you this hot month, keep your feet dry and your heart full of noble thoughts.