#Charles jettison boot movie
Yet, leave it to the filmmakers to lace the movie with winks to their art house fans. So it's refreshing - and certainly surprising - to see them make the kind of traditional movie that a generation ago would be half of a Saturday afternoon double bill at the local Rialto. The Polish brothers are best known for such eccentric, otherworldly fare as 1999's "Twin Falls Idaho," which starred the filmmakers as a pair of mystical, conjoined twins.
And it's definitely why we quietly applaud Charles's wife, Audrey (Virginia Madsen), who - in the secular-Madonna tradition of all screen wives who stand by their dreamer husbands - smiles and steels herself for the inevitable countdown.Īfter all, if "Audie" were really taking stock of the situation, the ink would be dry on the divorce papers by the end of Act 1: The farm is facing foreclosure. Which is why we gamely ignore the laws of rocket thrust and atmospheric reentry, and why we practically celebrate Charles's low-tech control panel - manned by his 15-year-old son, Shepard (Max Thieriot) - that will supposedly guide him around the world. And to watch it is to protect the movie - and ourselves - from the killjoy rules of reality. Its willful innocence is its charm and its safeguard. Written by Mark and Michael Polish (Michael is also the director), "Astronaut" doesn't sweat the small stuff of veracity.
And the movie's unpretentious lightheartedness, which echoes the old-fashioned, corn-fed lore of Frank Capra or even "The Andy Griffith Show," makes it blissfully easy to sign on for this good-natured voyage. Sure, it's the corniest of conceits, but "Astronaut" delightfully taps into one of our deepest cultural values - the one about the pursuit of happiness. As for the rocket - well, who needs Houston? - he's been building it himself in the barn. But in the years since, he's been running a farm - rather ineptly - in Story, Tex., and dreaming of making it into space. He's Charles Farmer, an aspiring astronaut who had to jettison his career thanks to a family crisis. It helps us considerably that the man in the spacesuit - a silvery "Buck Rogers"-style outfit that laces up like a set of granny boots - is Billy Bob Thornton, the actor whose relaxed assurance can boost even the hokiest of roles. This isn't a brilliant episode, yet it was handled expertly by its cast and crew."The Astronaut Farmer" is a surefire test of our ability to believe in anyone with a dream - including a soft-spoken Texan who figures if he points his homemade rocket in the right direction and juices it with enough fuel, he'll orbit the globe and get back home in time for dinner.
#Charles jettison boot series
What makes the episode one of the better in the series is how obvious it was that the police were barking up the wrong tree. The plot is good example of the Something's Wrong With This Picture that's at the core of its story. The story is well told, and most of the non-regular characters come off as either suspicious or a bit shady. The younger man saved the ship, but where's the cargo? This is a Perry whose plot is so convoluted as to cause he heads of all but the most experienced Perry savvy viewers heads to spin. No, this Perry Mason does not channel the famous Coleridge poem, however it concerns the aging captain of freighter that nearly sinks at sea during a storm en route from Japan to to California and once safely in port things appear amiss amiss on this troubled ship and its master is none too happy about the way his first mate took control of his boat from him.