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Dom Robinson reviews 
Columbia TriStar 
- Price: £19.99
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Being a long-time fan of the Simpsons, any film ever made from now on which features a lead character with the name of Homer is sure to inspire thoughts of a dim-witted oaf of scant intelligence and even less luck. When his plans for the future don’t go the way he anticipates, you’ll always expect the annoyed grunt of the yellow-skinned one.
It’s October 1957 and in Coalwood, West Virginia, high-school kid Homer Hickam, Jr. is in awe of the Soviet satellite Sputnik streaking across the sky above – so much so that he wants to build his own rocket with the help of three friends. Oh, did I mention this was a true story? Call me cynical, but now you can guess how it’s going to end given the USA’s propensity for feel-good All American fare. The real Homer, incidentally, went on to become a NASA engineer and trained astronauts for Space Shuttle missions.
Enter the villain of the piece – Homer’s father. As far as he’s concerned, his son’s destiny lies in the town’s coal mine. We may be before Arthur Scargill’s time, but there’s always been the fight to stop pit closures so it’s not the most secure of job prospects. Their only major adult help is from their teacher Miss Riley (Laura Dern going way overboard with the Southern accent, y’all!)
And hot dang if the picture doesn’t have problems too (ahem!) The good news is the anamorphic original cinematic 2.35:1 ratio and not much in the way of artifacts with an average bitrate of 6.92Mb/s, just nudging 9Mb/s. On the downside there’s something decidely odd about the geometry, making it look as if my widescreen TV is stuck in the wrong screen mode (and it’s not!) Perhaps this was intentional given the way it was filmed. The bottom third of the widescreen image shakes up and down for eternity, while the rest is steady. Quality Control had a day off then.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound only gets to shine the rockets take off and the standard extras are a trailer, filmographies, production notes and a ten-minute featurette comprising the usual film clips and chat from the cast and crew.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.