Discount Shopping Online :: DVD The Astronaut Farmer : : Michael Polish

The Astronaut Farmer
starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Max Thieriot, Jasper Polish, Logan Polish
directed by: Michael Polish

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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569822924
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 10, 2007
Running Time: 104 minutes
Sales Rank: 7594
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: February 23, 2007

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Editorial Review:

Description:
All systems are 'Go' for Charles Farmer. He's faced bank foreclosure, neighborhood naysayers and a government alarmed by his huge purchase of high-grade fuel, but now he's ready to blast into space inside the homemade rocket he built in his barn. Just be home in time for dinner, Charlie. Billy Bob Thornton portrays Charlie in this charmer about chasing dreams...and about what it means to be a family. 10,000 pounds of rocket fuel alone can't lift Charlie into the heavens. He needs a launch/recovery crew, and he has one of the best: his wife (Virginia Madsen) and children, dreamers all. They have liftoff. Our spirits have uplift. Gravity cannot hold down our dreams. The Astronaut Farmer is that kind of movie.

DVD Features:
Featurette
Outtakes

Amazon.com:
If you can give The Astronaut Farmer the big, bounding leap of faith it requires, you'll probably enjoy this good-natured film about the importance of holding on to your dreams. The title character (and the dreamer in question) is Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), a Texas ranch owner and former aeronautics engineer who's got a homemade rocket in his barn and a dream to blast into space. Even though Charlie's deeply in debt and threatened with foreclosure, his wife (Virginia Madsen) and kids are deeply supportive of Charlie's Earth-orbit mission, even when he attracts the glaring attention of a seasoned Air Force colonel (played by Bruce Willis, in an uncredited role), the FAA, the FBI, and the national media. 'If we don't have our dreams, we have nothing,' says Charlie at a particularly desperate impasse, and this loopy, offbeat, and unabashedly sentimental drama embraces that message with disarming sincerity.

Suspension of disbelief is a challenge when the movie glosses over so many of its logistical details (like, where does one buy an old NASA space capsule?), and in trying for a kind of Capra-esque, eccentrically Western spin on the American dream, the Polish twins--director Michael and cowriter/actor Mark (making their mainstream debut after such indie hits as Twin Falls, Idaho and Northfork)--are only marginally successful in making Charlie's ambition genuinely believable. The film works much better as a kind of post space-age fable for families, and it's just involving enough to make its climax emotionally rewarding, mostly because Thornton, Madsen, and their costars (including Bruce Dern and Tim Blake Nelson) handle the delicate material with the earnestness it needs to be marginally convincing. Elton John's 'Rocket Man' is predictably heard over the closing credits (accordingly, Charlie's launch-time is 'zero hours, nine a.m.'), and at a time when several adventurous entrepreneurs (including Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos) are gradually developing a civilian space-flight industry, The Astronaut Farmer is an admirable yet forgivably flawed reminder that we should never stop reaching for the stars. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Astronaut Farmer: magic of the dreamer not rocket science....
So many panned this film and but I enjoyed it. Many of the negatives about it stemed from the fact that instead of looking at the piece as story about dreaming and loss innocence, too many writers got caught up in looking at technical stuff as we have been taken been over and captured in the hi-tech world of ipods, blackberries, hi-def, hi-tech innovation, hi-gadgetry and the god of science and hi-innovation. Dreaming somehow is lost and that is good because it is has no circuits and logic boards to examine therefore can dreaming be good for us?

Critics nitpicked and complain about technical mistakes in term of aspects of the rocket. Why was more not shown of them building the rocket? The fuel mixture was crazy. One person could never build such a device. To complicated for one. It would never fly and other technicalities on and on. However, their complaints are while perhaps somewhat legit are also ... Read More

Rating:

- This is one of the worst films ever made!
The science of this film is completely flawed. From the rocket building, to the descent on land with nothing more than a parachute, surviving multiple orbits of the planet, breathing in space, remaining warm enough inside the cockpit, even down to the homemade space suit. NONE of this is even remotely plausible, and to further insult your intelligence, when the farmer lands he does so within a short drive back to his farm, all without any contact with his makeshift ground control. This film it is pure fiction. But even if you buy into the ultimate white man fantasy premise, the film is still horrible. Scene after scene plays out with predictable, sappy, emotionally charged energy, the acting is fair, but Billy Bob is completely unbelievable as the every day man farmer with his tooth veneers, drop dead stunning wife, and obvious plastic surgery. The script is a mess of schlock, one zinger "How about these flying ... Read More

Rating:

- Impractical and misleading movie
This movie is about a farmer's fantasy of going in space. This is like those movies in which one person has this obsession with something and whole world is against him. He manages despite the opposition. No matter how ridiculous and dangerous the idea, film writers want the hero to get his way.

This movie has several aspects which are not possible. For example, a rocket blasts off from a wooden barn. Twice. Both the times the rocket leaves flames and smoke behind. But the barn stands unaffected.

In a scene when an official threatens him, the hero asks 'Is it a threat?', the official says 'You are a threat'. I agree with the official's point of view. When first time the rocket fires, it moves through a barrage of journalists.

This kind of thinking that 'I know what I am doing, and it is safe' is not workable. Yes, he has a 350 acre farm and he is doing this experiment away from ... Read More

Rating:

- One of Billy Bob Thornton's best films since Sling Blade!!! A top "flight" family film!!!
This is a great film,it's about a family man who builds a rocket in his barn and actually gets it to work,yes NASA spends oodles of our tax payers dollars and this guy(Billy Bob)does the same thing for next to nothing using money he raised himself!!! A great family film!!! Kinda think of this film as Field of Dreams with rockets instead of a baseball field!!! One the best newer films i've seen in a long long time!!! There are a few nice extras on the disc too!!! The supporting cast is stellar too,Virginia Madsen,JK Simmons,Bruce Dern,Tim Blake Nelson, and a suprise unbilled appearence by Bruce Willis!also give great performances!!! They don't make many films like these anymore!!! Recommended!!! A+

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