Hidden Figures 2016

     Russia has launched a man into space and the US space program is behind in the 1960’s.  NASA segregates the colored women working in the organization.  They have their own work area and bathroom.  Three special women begin to change this practice.  Katherine Johnson starts to do very complicated mathematical calculations for the US launch of a man in space.  Dorothy Vaughn begins working with the new IBM digital electronic computers in their own separate room.  The machines can do the calculations much more rapidly than any human.  Mary Jackson wants to be an engineer and she goes before a Virginia judge for permission to take night classes at the local all white high school.

     There is a lot of information published about the space program at NASA but nothing is ever said about segregation or brilliant women treated like second-class citizens.  They have a double barrier, they are colored and they are women.  Katherine Johnson has to leave the office and run a half-mile in any kind of weather to use the colored restroom.  Al Harrison wonders where she goes a couple of times a day?  He has no idea what she is doing until he asks her.  The men in the calculations area believe Katherine Johnson doesn’t know what she’s doing until she starts writing her work on the blackboard.  Dorothy Vaughn is performing the duties of a manager but she doesn’t have the title or the pay?  I thought this was very good!!  4 ½* (I really liked this movie)

127 min, Bio directed by Theordore Melfi with Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, Gen Powell, Kimberly Quinn, Olek Krupa.

Note:  Imdb 7.8 out of 10, 92% critic 93% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 4 ½*, Amazon Video 4.9* out of 5* with 2288 reviews, Metacritic 74 out of 100 with 47 critics.

Special Note:  Filmed in East Point, Morehouse College, Canton, Atlanta and Monroe, Georgia.  The real life Katherine Johnson is now 99 years old.  She calculated trajectories, launch windows and emergency back-up return paths.  Dorothy Vaughn was born September 20, 1910 and she died November 10, 2008 at the age of almost 98 years old.  She worked at NASA for 28 years and supervised the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division.  Mary Jackson was born April 9, 1921 and she died February 11, 2005 at almost 84 years old.  After she became an aerospace engineer in 1942, she worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.