October Sky

In the "feel-good inspirational" genre of films, it doesn't get much better than October Sky. It's all here: kids chasing dreams, the inspirational teacher, local culture conflicts, family conflicts (son v. dad), teenage romance. And the nerds beat out the jocks. Twists, setbacks, victory.

I rewatched this today, still too sick to do anything more ambitious. Since it was my 4th or 5th viewing, I was able to focus on technical things, and craft of the film, and it's first rate within the confines of the genre. The time factor is developed seamlessly, an area student writers always have trouble with, usually by paying too much attention to time details. Here several years are covered with only an initial grounding of the date, October 1957, and then context tells us what we need to know -- and only what we need to know. Scene efficiency is also first rate in the storytelling here. It's a great film for beginning screenwriters to study for how much can be said and shown in so little time, economy being the real beauty of film storytelling. And the emotional journey doesn't miss a beat. What you can call "a textbook" film, where everything is done just the way screenwriting teachers teach it.