Happy Thursday, everyone! We're two-thirds of the way through winter as this week ends, baseball should be coming back soon assuming MLB gives the union all they deserve, Oscar nominations are coming up and my shed is being built at the new house. So let's see what weirdness I ran across!
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I'm mystified sometimes by simply terrible blu-ray covers. Like this one, which slaps some very vapid facial expressions on top of the poster for October Sky, a lovely movie about a bunch of teens in Coalwood WV in the early '60s who decide to learn how to build rockets. This, for instance, is the actual movie poster.
Of course, it's not even that simple. The memoir this is based on, by NASA engineer Homer Hickman (yep, the majority of this movie is all true) had a slightly different title.
Both titles are quite great! And I can't argue at all with the title of the movie version, especially when you compare the two of them:
R O C K E T B O Y S
O C T O B E R S KY
And you realize the new title is an anagram of the old one as well as being a pretty darn good title for a bunch of kids inspired by Sputnik to become rocketeers. For a lot of us this was the first time we really noticed Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper and now that it's the 20th anniversary of this wonderful movie I hope more people take a look back at it.
October Sky is sadly not streaming on any package right now but is available for cheap rental and purchase pretty much anywhere.
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This weeks "I have no idea but I'm intrigued" is this 1982 novel, ...And Ladies Of The Club was apparently very popular at the time, something that always intrigues me, especially when it's something came out during my lifetime and I have zero memory of it. Helen Hooven Santmyer apparently wrote and published this when she was in her '80s, a Grandma Moses situation. (Also, it amuses me because my wife has a connection to the school that this was originally published by the Ohio State University Press.)
As for the book itself, I kind of like the idea of a novel that takes place over several generations. For instance, there is Edward Rutherford's London, which starts in Roman Londinium and goes through the end of the 20th century. Or Alex Haley's Roots, which is an interesting mix of history and fiction. So this is new to me but could be a little gem.
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Should I have just gone online and bought a blu-ray of this? Sure. Did I get a seriously '90s classic for a buck, even though it's still only a snap-case DVD? Sure. This movie is kind of bonkers, a goofy Cameron Crowe piece in between Say Anything and Almost Famous with an insanely good soundtrack and a lot of fun appearances by Seattle bands just before they broke (I think at this point Pearl Jam might have still been called Mookie Blaylock before they rejiggered).
Singles is available for rent and purchase at the usual places.
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This week's recommendation is a long one, but worth your time if not perfect. Over on Shudder, check out the new documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. It's a very interesting overview of folk horror in movies, covering all sorts of things. It's one drawback is that it's very British and American-oriented in it's focus; it might have benefitted from being a series where each episode focused on a different geographical area (and would also fix the small problem of the movie not having a strong central focus). But small issues aside, it's very worth your time if you have an interest in the subject.
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