![\"Come](\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/astronautfarm.jpg\")
Come fly with me, come fly, let's fly away: Billy Bob Thornton has stratospheric dreams in "The Astronaut Farmer"<\/p><\/div>\n
Barn Burner<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n[xrr rating=3.5\/5]<\/p>\n
The Astronaut Farmer.\u00a0<\/em>Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Max Thieriot, Jasper Polish, Bruce Dern, Mark Polish, Jon Gries, Tim Blake Nelson, and J.K. Simmons. Music by Stuart Matthewman. Cinematography by M. David Mullen, A.S.C. Edited by James Haygood, A.C.E. Written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Directed by Michael Polish. (Warner Bros., 2007, Color, 104 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG)<\/strong><\/p>\nA man wearing a spacesuit rides horseback across the sand dunes of a barren desert. He moves right-to-left, which spells trouble in movies\u2019 silent language. There, he finds a calf that has strayed from its mother, lying in the sand. With a firm but gentle hand, he returns the lost beast to the herd.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a scene whose incongruous visual elements reminded me of the 1968 sci-fi thriller\u00a0Planet of the Apes.\u00a0<\/em>But this isn\u2019t some spaceman marooned in a strange place; it\u2019s the movie\u2019s earthbound hero, a Texan named Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton). A graduate of the University of Texas aerospace engineering program and one-time member of NASA\u2019s astronaut program, Charlie left the space agency decades ago to run the family ranch after his father\u2019s untimely death. Yet, through all the years of operating the ranch and raising his own family, he hasn\u2019t let go of his dream of defying gravity.<\/p>\nIn his barn, Charlie works obsessively, day and night, to build a rocket that may help him realize his dream. He models it after 1950s-era Atlas missiles, using salvage parts he buys on the cheap from rocket graveyards. His supportive wife, Audie (Virginia Madsen, enjoying a rewarding second wind onscreen), and their three kids get caught up in the daily up-and-down drama of his quest; indeed, his first-born, son Shepard (Max Thieriot), was named in honor of the first American in space, Alan Shepard.<\/p>\n
However, their neighbors in the farm community regard Charlie as the town oddball, a frustrated man going through a bizarre mid-life crisis. There\u2019s even an ongoing bet among the locals as to whether he \u201cwill ever go up, or blow up.\u201d When he attends show-and-tell at his daughter\u2019s elementary school in his spacesuit, her teacher humors him: to spur the kids\u2019 imaginations, \u201cwe need more parents willing to dress up.\u201d Foremost among Charlie\u2019s woes: to finance his idea, he\u2019s gone into hock for over a half-million dollars to the local bank, and they\u2019re about to foreclose on his ranch for delinquent payments.<\/p>\n
What I like about Thornton\u2019s portrayal is that it actually justifies the townsfolk in pigeonholing him as a square peg. A quixotic figure with a bit of a mean streak (when he receives a foreclosure letter, he throws a brick through the banker\u2019s plate-glass window), he reminds me a little of Anthony Hopkins\u2019s quirky Burt Munro in\u00a0The World\u2019s Fastest Indian.\u00a0<\/em>But, when push comes to shove, Thornton recalls Burt Lancaster in so many of his tough-guy Western roles.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen Charlie forwards his flight plan to the FAA in anticipation of his expected launch, government officials dismiss him as a crank. But when he attempts to purchase high-grade liquid rocket fuel, he opens a can of alphabet soup: the FBI, CIA, FAA, NASA, and a host of other agencies descend upon his ranch to stop him. Even the local Child Protective Services closes in when Charlie decides to home-school his kids and draft them into his \u201cspace program.\u201d In typical bureaucratic fashion, the CPS agent diagnoses the children, long-distance, as \u201cbrainwashed and violated,\u201d and threatens his wife: \u201cIt\u2019s about time you take charge of your family before someone else does it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A visit to his lawyer makes Charlie more aware of the pressure the government intends to apply. \u201cWith the Patriot Act,\u201d the attorney tells him, \u201cthey can do whatever they want if they think it\u2019s a threat to homeland security.\u201d He advises Charlie to \u201cembrace the media, invite them in for your protection.\u201d Next, an astronaut from the old days (Bruce Willis, in an uncredited cameo) shows up to try to talk his eccentric friend out of his scheme. \u201cThey don\u2019t let civilians into outer space, they let\u00a0astronauts<\/em>\u00a0into outer space,\u201d he says. We then learn that he\u2019s been sent at NASA\u2019s behest, because if successful, Charlie\u2019s shoestring-budget launch could embarrass the space agency, which needs to defend its multi-billion-dollar budgets.<\/p>\nEventually, Charlie defends himself before a meeting of federal officials in words that express the aspirations of the lone creator against the regulatory state and the pessimistic mindset:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not your right to tell me whether or not I can launch into space\u2026. I\u00a0know\u00a0<\/em>we have laws; we\u2019ve got all kind of laws. We\u2019ve got more laws that tell us what we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>do than anything else\u2026. You see, when I was a kid they used to tell me that I could be anything I wanted to be. No matter what. And, maybe I am insane, I don\u2019t know, but I still believe that. I believe with all my heart. Somewhere along the line, we stopped believing that we could do anything, and if we don\u2019t have our dreams, we have nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSoon after, in a fit of desperation, he launches his rocket, using an unstable kerosene-based fuel mix. It leads to disastrous consequences, but\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, I don\u2019t want to give away the ending. Let\u2019s just say that\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer\u00a0<\/em>isn\u2019t just a \u201cfeel-good movie\u201d; it\u2019s a\u00a0preposterously\u00a0<\/em>\u201cfeel-good movie.\u201d Its plot has to be taken with a grain of salt, but then, so does movie popcorn. I don\u2019t go to the movies to bask in the mundane or to nitpick at continuity errors; I go to be entertained, perhaps even enlightened. And the Polish brothers tell a highly entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking tall tale.<\/p>\nIn a way, I found\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer<\/em>\u00a0to be\u00a0one of those unbelievable flicks that you can truly believe in, because its creators take the preposterous seriously. That,\u00a0<\/strong>and an expertly suspenseful buildup, makes all the difference. Somehow, they were able to take the plot of the forgotten Andy Griffith 1979 TV movie\u00a0Salvage One<\/em>, seize the theme of Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s\u00a0Tucker: The Man and His Dream<\/em>, mix in cinematic references to John Ford Westerns and\u00a0Apollo 13<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>and yet make it all jell. The movie\u2019s only real drawback is an undistinguished soundtrack.<\/p>\nCredible acting enhances the story\u2019s credibility. Billy Bob Thornton brings to the role of Charlie his quiet, idiosyncratic, yet steadfast demeanor. For her part, Virginia Madsen exudes a natural warmth and unflagging conviction. The supporting actors are well-cast, too, including sisters Jasper and Logan Polish as Charlie and Audie\u2019s daughters; Bruce Dern as Audie\u2019s cantankerous, aging father; and J.K. Simmons as the gruff FAA official who keeps setting up bureaucratic roadblocks in Charlie\u2019s path.<\/p>\n
What I most enjoyed, however, is that\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer<\/em>\u00a0is a great family movie, as entertaining for the kids as it is for their parents. One of my earliest childhood memories is from late one night in July 1969, when I was four years old. My father woke me up and took me to the living room television set to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Lately, I\u2019ve been thinking that perhaps I\u2019ll never get to share a moment like that with my own son, who will soon turn two\u2014that in his lifetime, man may never again set foot on the moon, let alone walk on Mars.<\/p>\nAfter watching Billy Bob Thornton\u2019s unwavering, \u201ccan-do\u201d performance for almost two hours, however, those dim prospects somehow seem to grow a little brighter.<\/p>\n
Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Barn Burner [xrr rating=3.5\/5] The Astronaut Farmer.\u00a0Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Max Thieriot, Jasper Polish, Bruce Dern, Mark Polish, Jon Gries, Tim Blake Nelson, and J.K. Simmons. Music by Stuart Matthewman. Cinematography by M. David Mullen, A.S.C. Edited by James Haygood, A.C.E. Written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Directed by Michael Polish. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,48,3,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-fantasy-movies","category-mreview","category-sci-fi-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
A man wearing a spacesuit rides horseback across the sand dunes of a barren desert. He moves right-to-left, which spells trouble in movies\u2019 silent language. There, he finds a calf that has strayed from its mother, lying in the sand. With a firm but gentle hand, he returns the lost beast to the herd.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a scene whose incongruous visual elements reminded me of the 1968 sci-fi thriller\u00a0Planet of the Apes.\u00a0<\/em>But this isn\u2019t some spaceman marooned in a strange place; it\u2019s the movie\u2019s earthbound hero, a Texan named Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton). A graduate of the University of Texas aerospace engineering program and one-time member of NASA\u2019s astronaut program, Charlie left the space agency decades ago to run the family ranch after his father\u2019s untimely death. Yet, through all the years of operating the ranch and raising his own family, he hasn\u2019t let go of his dream of defying gravity.<\/p>\n In his barn, Charlie works obsessively, day and night, to build a rocket that may help him realize his dream. He models it after 1950s-era Atlas missiles, using salvage parts he buys on the cheap from rocket graveyards. His supportive wife, Audie (Virginia Madsen, enjoying a rewarding second wind onscreen), and their three kids get caught up in the daily up-and-down drama of his quest; indeed, his first-born, son Shepard (Max Thieriot), was named in honor of the first American in space, Alan Shepard.<\/p>\n However, their neighbors in the farm community regard Charlie as the town oddball, a frustrated man going through a bizarre mid-life crisis. There\u2019s even an ongoing bet among the locals as to whether he \u201cwill ever go up, or blow up.\u201d When he attends show-and-tell at his daughter\u2019s elementary school in his spacesuit, her teacher humors him: to spur the kids\u2019 imaginations, \u201cwe need more parents willing to dress up.\u201d Foremost among Charlie\u2019s woes: to finance his idea, he\u2019s gone into hock for over a half-million dollars to the local bank, and they\u2019re about to foreclose on his ranch for delinquent payments.<\/p>\n What I like about Thornton\u2019s portrayal is that it actually justifies the townsfolk in pigeonholing him as a square peg. A quixotic figure with a bit of a mean streak (when he receives a foreclosure letter, he throws a brick through the banker\u2019s plate-glass window), he reminds me a little of Anthony Hopkins\u2019s quirky Burt Munro in\u00a0The World\u2019s Fastest Indian.\u00a0<\/em>But, when push comes to shove, Thornton recalls Burt Lancaster in so many of his tough-guy Western roles.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n When Charlie forwards his flight plan to the FAA in anticipation of his expected launch, government officials dismiss him as a crank. But when he attempts to purchase high-grade liquid rocket fuel, he opens a can of alphabet soup: the FBI, CIA, FAA, NASA, and a host of other agencies descend upon his ranch to stop him. Even the local Child Protective Services closes in when Charlie decides to home-school his kids and draft them into his \u201cspace program.\u201d In typical bureaucratic fashion, the CPS agent diagnoses the children, long-distance, as \u201cbrainwashed and violated,\u201d and threatens his wife: \u201cIt\u2019s about time you take charge of your family before someone else does it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n A visit to his lawyer makes Charlie more aware of the pressure the government intends to apply. \u201cWith the Patriot Act,\u201d the attorney tells him, \u201cthey can do whatever they want if they think it\u2019s a threat to homeland security.\u201d He advises Charlie to \u201cembrace the media, invite them in for your protection.\u201d Next, an astronaut from the old days (Bruce Willis, in an uncredited cameo) shows up to try to talk his eccentric friend out of his scheme. \u201cThey don\u2019t let civilians into outer space, they let\u00a0astronauts<\/em>\u00a0into outer space,\u201d he says. We then learn that he\u2019s been sent at NASA\u2019s behest, because if successful, Charlie\u2019s shoestring-budget launch could embarrass the space agency, which needs to defend its multi-billion-dollar budgets.<\/p>\n Eventually, Charlie defends himself before a meeting of federal officials in words that express the aspirations of the lone creator against the regulatory state and the pessimistic mindset:<\/p>\n It\u2019s not your right to tell me whether or not I can launch into space\u2026. I\u00a0know\u00a0<\/em>we have laws; we\u2019ve got all kind of laws. We\u2019ve got more laws that tell us what we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>do than anything else\u2026. You see, when I was a kid they used to tell me that I could be anything I wanted to be. No matter what. And, maybe I am insane, I don\u2019t know, but I still believe that. I believe with all my heart. Somewhere along the line, we stopped believing that we could do anything, and if we don\u2019t have our dreams, we have nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Soon after, in a fit of desperation, he launches his rocket, using an unstable kerosene-based fuel mix. It leads to disastrous consequences, but\u2026<\/p>\n Well, I don\u2019t want to give away the ending. Let\u2019s just say that\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer\u00a0<\/em>isn\u2019t just a \u201cfeel-good movie\u201d; it\u2019s a\u00a0preposterously\u00a0<\/em>\u201cfeel-good movie.\u201d Its plot has to be taken with a grain of salt, but then, so does movie popcorn. I don\u2019t go to the movies to bask in the mundane or to nitpick at continuity errors; I go to be entertained, perhaps even enlightened. And the Polish brothers tell a highly entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking tall tale.<\/p>\n In a way, I found\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer<\/em>\u00a0to be\u00a0one of those unbelievable flicks that you can truly believe in, because its creators take the preposterous seriously. That,\u00a0<\/strong>and an expertly suspenseful buildup, makes all the difference. Somehow, they were able to take the plot of the forgotten Andy Griffith 1979 TV movie\u00a0Salvage One<\/em>, seize the theme of Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s\u00a0Tucker: The Man and His Dream<\/em>, mix in cinematic references to John Ford Westerns and\u00a0Apollo 13<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>and yet make it all jell. The movie\u2019s only real drawback is an undistinguished soundtrack.<\/p>\n Credible acting enhances the story\u2019s credibility. Billy Bob Thornton brings to the role of Charlie his quiet, idiosyncratic, yet steadfast demeanor. For her part, Virginia Madsen exudes a natural warmth and unflagging conviction. The supporting actors are well-cast, too, including sisters Jasper and Logan Polish as Charlie and Audie\u2019s daughters; Bruce Dern as Audie\u2019s cantankerous, aging father; and J.K. Simmons as the gruff FAA official who keeps setting up bureaucratic roadblocks in Charlie\u2019s path.<\/p>\n What I most enjoyed, however, is that\u00a0The Astronaut Farmer<\/em>\u00a0is a great family movie, as entertaining for the kids as it is for their parents. One of my earliest childhood memories is from late one night in July 1969, when I was four years old. My father woke me up and took me to the living room television set to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Lately, I\u2019ve been thinking that perhaps I\u2019ll never get to share a moment like that with my own son, who will soon turn two\u2014that in his lifetime, man may never again set foot on the moon, let alone walk on Mars.<\/p>\n After watching Billy Bob Thornton\u2019s unwavering, \u201ccan-do\u201d performance for almost two hours, however, those dim prospects somehow seem to grow a little brighter.<\/p>\n Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Barn Burner [xrr rating=3.5\/5] The Astronaut Farmer.\u00a0Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Max Thieriot, Jasper Polish, Bruce Dern, Mark Polish, Jon Gries, Tim Blake Nelson, and J.K. Simmons. Music by Stuart Matthewman. Cinematography by M. David Mullen, A.S.C. Edited by James Haygood, A.C.E. Written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Directed by Michael Polish. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,48,3,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-fantasy-movies","category-mreview","category-sci-fi-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}