The Astronaut Farmer
by Michael Polish
(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Billy Bob Thornton, Jasper Polish, Logan Polish, Max Thieriot, Virginia MadsenDirector: Michael Polish
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-10
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- 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
DVD Reviews of The Astronaut Farmer
DVD Review: the point seems to be about individual effort instead of government controlled space flight
Summary: 4 Stars
"Controlled"
In ancient times you didn't need a government contract or clearance
to do something like build a ship and sail as far as you were able.
This story about an engineer pilot who built his own mercury
project atlas-type rocket and goes into orbit.
His first try almost kills him, but he and his family don't give up.
Sort of a modern Noah and family type of effort results in this fictional success.
Burt Rutan and band of friends did the equivalent of this several times
over with setting many records for distance and height with his
designs. There pretty much just two real aerospace corporations
left in the USA because of government( strangle hold)
policy mismanagement of contracts.
It is not a nice situation when government tells you not to dream
or wish for a better future for our children.
DVD Review: Wanna See Something Really Beautiful?
Summary: 5 Stars
A film that makes you reflect on your own dreams or the dreams of your loved ones. This movie, though a bit of a corny, family entertainment piece, touches something childlike in us. To be shown a man who holds onto his childhood dream while friends, community and the world are saying its time to let go of it, makes for a magical viewing experience. The fact that his family sticks through it with him, even though at times their belief in him is tested, was what I thought the bigger lesson in this movie. To support those in your family in attempting to fulfill their dream, through accomplishment and/or failure, is the sign of a healthy and happy family.
A beautiful movie with real people in excitingly unreal roles. Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen and the three kid actors capture the essence of a family living with an unfulfilled dream and the loving sacrifice to see that dream fulfilled. Grandfather, husband, wife, son, daughter, they all have so much to lose and gain by one's fulfillment of the dream. The southwestern landscape adds to the magic.
If you can remember watching a movie as a child that held you spellbound in a theater or in front of the television, this film can bring you back to that time and place.
Wonderful!
DVD Review: Favorite Movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this feel good movie. Yes much of the plot is unrealistic, but its a movie and I enjoyed it and the happy ending especially scenes at the end ( don't want to give away spoilers ) Watch this as a drama and try to relate to the family more and I think you will enjoy it! :) DVD Review: GREAT?
Summary: 2 Stars
I really liked it for the simple reason it made me laugh a lot. I would like to know if this is the end of decent and watchable movies from the US.DVD Review: Folly.
Summary: 1 Stars
A long time back, my family was sitting around the living room tuned into the good ol' directv contemplating between The Astronaut Farmer and Flyboys. Absolutely unfortunately we chose The Astronaut Farmer and spent the next few days questioning the waste of three good dollars. Dollars that could've been used to buy some gum (my mouth regrets the choice).
You see - the set-up to The Astronaut Farmer presents us with this "I'm a dreamer, even thought my dreams are far-fetched" feel. And that...we generally like. Or at least I do. You don't expect the movie to be painstakingly realistic. But...C'mon. The man crashes his...Rocket. Not his chevy, not his motorcycle. He crashes his ...Rocket Ship. AND HE LIVES! And then He and his son build him another rocket...within what seems to be a week's time.
Do you remember the part in Lord of the Rings when Bilbo tells Gandalf that he feels stretched? Like butter scraped across too much bread? Yeah well that's the story-line of The Astronaut Farmer. It's a whole lot of nothing stretched across a near 2 hour movie.
Description of The Astronaut Farmer
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
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
General DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in General DVDs
Twilight (Two-Disc Special Edition)Universal; Release date: 2009-03-21; DVD
Best price: $15.88
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Full-Screen Edition)Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Lost: The Complete Fifth SeasonRelease date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $36.99
Price in other shops:
The Proposal (Single Disc Widescreen)BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2009-10-13; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
![Angels & Demons [Blu-ray] Image](/images/Angels-Demons-Blu-ray-B002O5M4SU-X.jpg)
Angels & Demons [Blu-ray]SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $18.90
Price in other shops:
Four ChristmasesNEW LINE HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $12.66
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Two-Disc Limited Special Edition + Digital Copy)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops:
Julie & JuliaRelease date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Angels & Demons (Single-Disc Theatrical Edition)SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-12-08; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Not Without My DaughterRelease date: 2001-10-02; DVD
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
Bad News Bears (Widescreen Edition)PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2005-12-13; DVD
Best price: $2.35
Price in other shops:
Apollo 13 (Widescreen Collector's Edition)HANKS,TOM; Release date: 2006-08-22; DVD
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops:
School for Scoundrels (Unrated Widescreen Edition)WELLSPRING/GENIUS; Release date: 2007-02-13; DVD
Best price: $2.90
Price in other shops:
ArmageddonDisney; Release date: 1999-01-05; DVD
Best price: $5.88
Price in other shops:
The Philadelphia ExperimentSTARZ/SPHE; Release date: 2000-09-19; DVD
Best price: $3.45
Price in other shops:
Away from HerLIONS GATE HOME ENT.; Release date: 2007-09-11; DVD
Best price: $2.90
Price in other shops:
The Last Mimzy (Full Screen Infinifilm Edition)NEW LINE HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $2.81
Price in other shops:
Space CowboysEASTWOOD,CLINT; Release date: 2001-04-17; DVD
Best price: $4.51
Price in other shops:
October Sky (Special Edition)UNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2005-01-25; DVD
Best price: $4.89
Price in other shops: