The Right Stuff (1983)
Alan Shepard: Dear Lord, please don't let me f@ck up.
Gordon Cooper: [Smiling]
I didn't quite copy that. Say again, please.
Alan Shepard: I said everything's A-OK.
Featuring the beginning years of the Space Program in the early sixties, including what is considering the opening of such possibilities by Test Pilot Chuck Yeager's (Sam Shepard) Breaking of the Sound Barrier.
At 3hr 13min, this was a very extensive, detailed learning experience of those early days and the men who participated both on the ground and in space.
What I really loved about this, beyond getting to know those men who, as a kid, were legends with only names and accomplishments and never of who they were as people, but seeing and discovering what occurred doing those early years and, of course, the unknown hero, Chuck Yeager who wasn't even acknowledged for Breaking the Sound Barrier til much, much later.
Along with Shepard are Barbara Hershey, Scott Glen, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, and many others, doing a splendid job displaying the everyday side of these extraordinary individuals. There is levity interspersed within some very tense and hazardous scenarios, and director Philip Kaufman displays all of it. Without the film ever dragging. Though I had to split watching due to my own time restraints, it was still an effortless and enjoyable watch. Not astounding or mesmerizing, but very engaging and, as I remarked previously, I do believe an ideal time in my life to appreciate the men, their relationships with one another, and their wives on a far more comprehensive level than if I had seen this in my late teens, early twenties.
As remarked several times in this film, "F@ckin' A Bubba,"