9/2/2023 0 Comments Katherine hidden figures movie![]() No rule book, no fixed way of doing a scene, just doing what works. The other way to make a film engaging and fun is to use your instincts and your actors to get the most from each scene. But that, you see, is the tried and true method to achieve the effect that the producers wanted. An example of this for example is the latest Disney release MOANA which has taken some heat from critics for being derivative and not original. One is (ironically!) by the numbers, using proved plot arcs and other script devices to make it work. There are two ways to do a feel-good film. ![]() I want to be clear on this because it is important. However, to take that story and bump it up to a major "feel-good film" that engages the viewer from the getgo and does not let up until the very end of its 2 hour and 5 minute running time, THAT is what elevates this project to greatness. The characters on which the film is based were special and unique on their own, and well deserving of the sort of semi-documentary films that Hollywood likes to serve up. In the opinion of this reviewer, an extraordinary achievement. If you were born later, see this movie to see what things were like. If you lived during this time, see the movie to remember. There are several reasons to see this movie: from a civil rights perspective from a feminism perspective from the perspective of the early space race when we lagged the Soviet Union, badly. It's a time when resistance to segregation and discrimination was still civil, but as the movie shows, that resistance was beginning to firm up and become widespread. It's a time just before the rise of militant civil rights groups. This is the time of Martin Luther King's rise to prominence. At the same time, civil unrest was rising in the towns. This was not America's shining hour, even in some place as lofty as NASA. As "colored" folk, they got their own separate (and sparse) restrooms and their own, separate dining facilities. As women, they were employed as human "computers" because they were less expensive and they got their numbers right. The protagonists in this movie are three women of color working in one of the most unwelcoming environments they might hope to find: NASA Langley, Virginia, in 1961. ![]() Communications between the ground and the Mercury capsules were not static-free. NASA didn't have flat-panel screens back then. No, it's not a painstakingly accurate picture. This movie, "Hidden Figures," brings all of these worlds back to me. I never rode on segregated public buses, but they were there and I knew it. I never saw separate restrooms and drinking fountains for "colored" but they were there. I was heavily involved in the space race at an early age and watched every launch and recovery on black-and-white TV. I designed computers, I grew up in the south during the 1950s and 1960s. ![]()
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