The right stuff for a snowstorm binge

 A recent pre-snowmageddon visit to the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum included the Imax 3D film about the Blue Angels and a planetarium show about asteroids, planetoids, comets, and the technology exploring them.

At the museum, I was most inspired by the films and banners paying tribute to women pioneers of air and space, from Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Cochran to Katherine Johnson, Sally Ride, and Amanda Lee (first female Blue Angel demonstration pilot).

Glamorous Glennis, Chuck Yeager's sound-barrier-breaking craft

All this inspired me to compile a playlist for the upcoming hibernation. I didn't realize I had so many air-and-space and problem-solving women DVDs in my collection, but there it is. 

• The Right Stuff, which is, as everyone should know, the best movie ever made. (Right, I'm just supposed to say whether I liked it, leaving out "good" or "bad." What do I know?) You think it's about competition (test pilots competing with each other, Americans competing with Soviets, astronauts competing with each other to be the leader of the group and/or the first to ride the rocket. But really, it's about relationships--among men and among women and among men and women. Anyway, as they all figured out, "we've got to stick together on this." The cooperative model wins.
• Hidden Figures, the story of the brilliant women working behind the scenes for NASA's missions, including Mercury (as in The Right Stuff) and Apollo (as in Apollo 13 and TV's Timeless episode on the attempted sabotage of the Moon landing).
• Apollo 13, which should have been a logical sequel to The Right Stuff, but for various reasons I was a bit disappointed. Great story telling (working the problem of a crippled craft), but the soundtrack full of angel choirs and soaring emotional crescendos annoys me. But: Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Kevin Bacon. You know.
• Forever Young, just to jump back in time for more test pilot stuff, plus work toward future space missions via the cryogenics experiment that catapults Mel Gibson 50 years into the future. Also about relationships, Elijah Wood's need to replace his missing father, and some pretty good aerial cinematography. More, please!
• Deep Impact, catapulting us into a planet-rescuing space mission to thwart an extinction-level event--a comet discovered by Elijah Wood. Tea Leoni stars as an ambitious cable-news reporter who inadvertently discovers the meaning of E.L.E. Great cast in this film, led by Morgan Freeman as a pre-Barack Obama president and Robert Duvall as the aging astronaut bringing his real-world experience to bear on a younger crew trained on video games. (Competition, again, before cooperation takes over.)
• An Officer and a Gentleman, again a film about manly competition giving way to the cooperative/supportive leadership model. Great training sequences, including the female officer candidate struggling with physical inadequacy (vis-a-vis the males) but asserting her mental resilience. Really more of a relationship movie (men and men, women and women, men and women). The Cinderella ending bothered me for a long time, but it's iconic now and gets me every time.
• Top Gun, the original. I should include Top Gun: Maverick for the essential air-and-space training and relationship storytelling, but I don't happen to have it in my DVD library yet. Anyway, I only watch the original because the DVD has a commentary track featuring real flight instructors like my high-school classmate, Michael "Flex" Galpin. Mike's the one telling all the "that's accurate" or "that's not how it works" stories. I especially liked his description of one officer's home decor, which featured an "I love me" wall of photographs. 
• Contact, so let's get back to women as problem solvers dealing with male competitiveness. Jodie Foster discovers a message from another star system, and Tom Skerritt, whose character tried to thwart her SETI research, steals her thunder and takes her place on the mysterious transport through wormholes. Again, one of the best cast of actors among all these films, including Matthew McConaughey, James Wood, John Hurt, David Morse, Rob Lowe, and Angela Bassett.
• Courage Under Fire, and I don't care if everyone else thinks Meg Ryan was miscast as a helicopter pilot in the Gulf War. She pulled it off, and with an incredible array of male crew and castmates, notably Lou Diamond Phillips and Matt Damon. Her part of the story is told in flashbacks from different points of view, while the other part of the story is Denzel Washington's investigation of the incident that may or may not earn her a Medal of Honor. Scott Glenn, not incidentally, pitches in as a Washington Post reporter.
• Proof of Life, returning to the miscast (NOT!) Meg Ryan as a woman whose husband (David Morse) is kidnapped by narco-terrorists in a fictional South American country. She works with a specialist in the kidnap-and-ransom (K&R) business, trained in military intelligence, special ops, and hard-core military machismo. That would be Russell Crowe.

Technically, I could have ended my binge here, but it's still too cold outside. Besides, I noticed something about my playlist: a lot of crossovers in both the cast and characters. This made it essential for me to watch that Timeless episode featuring Katherine Johnson and Silence of the Lambs featuring Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Diane Baker, and Anthony Heald.

Here are some of the obvious cross-overs:

• The Right Stuff - Ed Harris (Apollo 13), Scott Glenn (Courage Under Fire, Silence of the Lambs), Pamela Reed (Proof of Life).
• Hidden Figures - Katherine Johnson (character, Timeless), John Glenn (character, The Right Stuff).
• Apollo 13 - Ed Harris (The Right Stuff), Gene Kranz (character, Timeless)
• Forever Young and Deep Impact - Elijah Wood.
• An Officer and a Gentleman - Taylor Hackford (director) and David Caruso (Proof of Life).
• Contact - Jodie Foster (Silence of the Lambs), David Morse (Proof of Life), Tom Skerritt (Top Gun).
• Courage Under Fire - Scott Glenn and Diane Baker (Silence of the Lambs), Meg Ryan (Proof of Life).
• Proof of Life - Meg Ryan (Courage Under Fire), Taylor Hackford and David Caruso (An Officer and a Gentleman), David Morse  (Contact), Pamela Reed (The Right Stuff), Anthony Heald (Silence of the Lambs).
• Silence of the Lambs - Jodie Foster (Contact), Scott Glenn (The Right Stuff and Courage Under Fire), Diane Baker (Courage Under Fire), Anthony Heald (Proof of Life).

Now I might go back to all my Jane Austen productions and other British dramas. Lots of cross-over casting there, notably with Downton Abbey.

Love, hosaa
hibernating

3D ready at A&S