Monday, June 22, 2009
The Pursuit of Happiness
In 1981, in San Francisco, the smart salesman and family man Chris Gardner invests the family savings in Osteo National bone-density scanners, an apparatus twice as expensive as an x-ray machine but with a slightly clearer image. This white elephant financially breaks the family, bringing troubles to his relationship with his wife Linda, who leaves him and moves to New York where she has received a job in a pizza parlor. She wishes to take her son, Christopher, with her but Chris tells her no because they both know that Linda will be unable to take care of him. Without money or a wife, but totally committed to his son Christopher, Chris sees the chance to fight for a stockbroker internship position at Dean Witter, offering a more promising career at the end of a six month - no salary - training period. There are nineteen other candidates for the one position. Meanwhile, he encounters many challenges and difficulties, including a period of homelessness and troubles with the IRS.
Another Movie I have seen recently is "October Sky"
"October Sky" is an anagram of "Rocket Boys", the title of the book on which the movie is based. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik as it crossed the "October sky". Homer Hickam stated that women over 30 would not go to see a movie titled "Rocket Boys",[1] so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name October Sky in order to capitalize on interest in the movie.The movie takes place in the late 1950's after Sputnik is launched.
The film is set in Coalwood, West Virginia. The coal mine is the town's largest employer and almost every male living there works, or will work, in the mines. John Hickam (Chris Cooper), the mine superintendent, loves his job—despite its headaches and inherent dangers—and hopes that his boys, Jim (Scott Miles II) and Homer (Jake Gyllenhaal), will one day join him working there. When it appears that Jim will receive a football scholarship to attend college, however, that leaves Homer to fulfill his father's dream, although the boys' mother, Elsie (Natalie Canerday), hopes for more for her son. It is not long before a prominent event gives him that chance.
As the townspeople gather outside one starry October night, they see the Soviet satellite Sputnik race across the sky. Filled with awe and a belief that this may be his ticket out of Coalwood, Homer sets out to build rockets of his own and enter the science fair. Of course, most everyone thinks he is crazy, especially when he teams up with Quentin (Chris Owen), the school math geek who happens to know a thing or two about rocket science. With the aid of friends Roy Lee (William Lee Scott) and Odell (Chad Lindberg), however, the four begin experimenting with their new passion. With the help and encouragement of some local townsfolk and their science teacher, Miss Riley (Laura Dern), who hopes that Homer and his friends will enter their work in a science fair contest. The boys begin their tests, but quickly run into several obstacles. First, they do not really know what they are doing, and their initial tests are disastrous. When they figure out that air bubbles in the propellant are causing their rockets to blow up, they get pure alcohol from a local moonshine operation, and mix up a propellant that works. Their successful launches eventually get them into hot water with the local authorities when they are accused of having started a fire several miles away with a rocket that had gone astray. That, coupled with John's not understanding nor supporting his son's "hobby", soon derails the "rocket boys'" dreams.
The entire rocket-making operation is shut down, and the boys burn down their testing shed at the launch site, as their dreams fizzle. Homer drops out of school to work in the mine when his father is injured and cannot work (he does eventually recover).
Homer, however, is inspired to look at a rocket science book Miss Riley had given him, and learns how to calculate rockets' trajectories. This shows him that their lost rocket could not have caused the fire, as it was unable to travel as far as the site of that fire. In fact, this lost rocket is recovered from a stream bed, just about where it should have landed. The boys visit the authorities, and it turns out that the offending projectile was not theirs at all, but a flare that must have come from a nearby airport.
With their names cleared, Homer and his pals set out to prove that they can build a rocket that will soar unimpeded into the sky, proving that they have what it takes to leave the confines of their predetermined, coal miner lives.
Homer wins the local science fair, and is sent on to a major fair in Indiana, where he wins the top prize and is besieged with scholarship offers from colleges. He returns to Coalwood a hero, and visits Miss Riley in the hospital, as she is now ill with Hodgekins disease. He shows her the medal he has won, and she responds touchingly.
A final launch of the largest rocket yet is the last scene of the film. Homer's father finally shows up for a launch, and is given the honor of pushing the firing button. As the rocket streams upward, we view it from the perspectives of many characters.
A series of vignettes tells the later lives of the real characters upon which the movie was based.
"October Sky" is an anagram of "Rocket Boys", the title of the book on which the movie is based. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik as it crossed the "October sky". Homer Hickam stated that women over 30 would not go to see a movie titled "Rocket Boys",[1] so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name October Sky in order to capitalize on interest in the movie.The movie takes place in the late 1950's after Sputnik is launched.
The film is set in Coalwood, West Virginia. The coal mine is the town's largest employer and almost every male living there works, or will work, in the mines. John Hickam (Chris Cooper), the mine superintendent, loves his job—despite its headaches and inherent dangers—and hopes that his boys, Jim (Scott Miles II) and Homer (Jake Gyllenhaal), will one day join him working there. When it appears that Jim will receive a football scholarship to attend college, however, that leaves Homer to fulfill his father's dream, although the boys' mother, Elsie (Natalie Canerday), hopes for more for her son. It is not long before a prominent event gives him that chance.
As the townspeople gather outside one starry October night, they see the Soviet satellite Sputnik race across the sky. Filled with awe and a belief that this may be his ticket out of Coalwood, Homer sets out to build rockets of his own and enter the science fair. Of course, most everyone thinks he is crazy, especially when he teams up with Quentin (Chris Owen), the school math geek who happens to know a thing or two about rocket science. With the aid of friends Roy Lee (William Lee Scott) and Odell (Chad Lindberg), however, the four begin experimenting with their new passion. With the help and encouragement of some local townsfolk and their science teacher, Miss Riley (Laura Dern), who hopes that Homer and his friends will enter their work in a science fair contest. The boys begin their tests, but quickly run into several obstacles. First, they do not really know what they are doing, and their initial tests are disastrous. When they figure out that air bubbles in the propellant are causing their rockets to blow up, they get pure alcohol from a local moonshine operation, and mix up a propellant that works. Their successful launches eventually get them into hot water with the local authorities when they are accused of having started a fire several miles away with a rocket that had gone astray. That, coupled with John's not understanding nor supporting his son's "hobby", soon derails the "rocket boys'" dreams.
The entire rocket-making operation is shut down, and the boys burn down their testing shed at the launch site, as their dreams fizzle. Homer drops out of school to work in the mine when his father is injured and cannot work (he does eventually recover).
Homer, however, is inspired to look at a rocket science book Miss Riley had given him, and learns how to calculate rockets' trajectories. This shows him that their lost rocket could not have caused the fire, as it was unable to travel as far as the site of that fire. In fact, this lost rocket is recovered from a stream bed, just about where it should have landed. The boys visit the authorities, and it turns out that the offending projectile was not theirs at all, but a flare that must have come from a nearby airport.
With their names cleared, Homer and his pals set out to prove that they can build a rocket that will soar unimpeded into the sky, proving that they have what it takes to leave the confines of their predetermined, coal miner lives.
Homer wins the local science fair, and is sent on to a major fair in Indiana, where he wins the top prize and is besieged with scholarship offers from colleges. He returns to Coalwood a hero, and visits Miss Riley in the hospital, as she is now ill with Hodgekins disease. He shows her the medal he has won, and she responds touchingly.
A final launch of the largest rocket yet is the last scene of the film. Homer's father finally shows up for a launch, and is given the honor of pushing the firing button. As the rocket streams upward, we view it from the perspectives of many characters.
A series of vignettes tells the later lives of the real characters upon which the movie was based.
Today i watched movie "The ClockStopper".
The NSA-funded QT (Quantum Tech) Corporation has slated a project to develop Hypertime, a technology which allows the user's molecules to speed up to the point where the world appears to be standing still. After realizing that such technology, contained within a wristwatch frame, could also be used against the USA, the NSA orders the project stopped. However, the research is farther along than the NSA expected and Henry Gates, the head of QT, plans on using the technology to usurp the leader of the NSA and dominate the world. He uses the prototype to stretch the weekend in order to give the brilliant lead scientist, Earl Dopler, time to fix the remaining glitch in the technology after his henchmen Richard and Jay prevent Earl's incognito departure at the airport.
However, initially unknown to Gates, the lead scientist had sent a prototype to a former colleague of his named Dr. Gibbs. His son Zak discovers the watch and shares it with his friends. Once Gates finds out about the leaked prototype, he attempts to retrieve it. Once the teens learn Gates' ultimate goal, they attempt to prevent Gates from succeeding.
Henry Gates, Richard, and Jay managed to locate the hotel that Dr. Gibbs was staying at and managed to get him to come with them.
Dopler helps the kids break in but decides not to go as well. Zak and his girlfriend arrive with paintball guns with paintballs filled with frozen nitrogen as the cool temperature takes someone out of hypertime into normal time. They get caught by Henry Gates, Richard, and Jay and are thrown in a cell with Zak's dad but manage to break out as the NSA Agents arrives and defeat Gates' goons. Gates is not defeated and knocks Zak's girlfriend out of hypertime and prepares to do the same to Zak and his dad. Suddenly he's shot with a paintball by Dopler who returned to help and Dopler shoots him until he reverts to normal time defeating him. Gates and his goons are arrested and Dopler uses the machine he was building to reverse the aging effects of hypertime that happened to him, but it reverts him back into a teenager. Zak finally gets the car he wanted and he, his girlfriend, his sister and Dopler take off in it shooting into hypertime to avoid the cops.
The NSA-funded QT (Quantum Tech) Corporation has slated a project to develop Hypertime, a technology which allows the user's molecules to speed up to the point where the world appears to be standing still. After realizing that such technology, contained within a wristwatch frame, could also be used against the USA, the NSA orders the project stopped. However, the research is farther along than the NSA expected and Henry Gates, the head of QT, plans on using the technology to usurp the leader of the NSA and dominate the world. He uses the prototype to stretch the weekend in order to give the brilliant lead scientist, Earl Dopler, time to fix the remaining glitch in the technology after his henchmen Richard and Jay prevent Earl's incognito departure at the airport.
However, initially unknown to Gates, the lead scientist had sent a prototype to a former colleague of his named Dr. Gibbs. His son Zak discovers the watch and shares it with his friends. Once Gates finds out about the leaked prototype, he attempts to retrieve it. Once the teens learn Gates' ultimate goal, they attempt to prevent Gates from succeeding.
Henry Gates, Richard, and Jay managed to locate the hotel that Dr. Gibbs was staying at and managed to get him to come with them.
Dopler helps the kids break in but decides not to go as well. Zak and his girlfriend arrive with paintball guns with paintballs filled with frozen nitrogen as the cool temperature takes someone out of hypertime into normal time. They get caught by Henry Gates, Richard, and Jay and are thrown in a cell with Zak's dad but manage to break out as the NSA Agents arrives and defeat Gates' goons. Gates is not defeated and knocks Zak's girlfriend out of hypertime and prepares to do the same to Zak and his dad. Suddenly he's shot with a paintball by Dopler who returned to help and Dopler shoots him until he reverts to normal time defeating him. Gates and his goons are arrested and Dopler uses the machine he was building to reverse the aging effects of hypertime that happened to him, but it reverts him back into a teenager. Zak finally gets the car he wanted and he, his girlfriend, his sister and Dopler take off in it shooting into hypertime to avoid the cops.
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