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The life of a young man, Mason, from age 5 to age 18.
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, and Ellar Coltrane
Release Date - July 11, 2014
Trailer (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-first-trailer-for-richard-linklaters-coming-of-age-epic-boyhood-20140423)
april 28
dear diary,
[all my emotions!] also, i can feel linklater's boyhood slowly roping me in. not through reading about it (which i haven't), or knowing wtf it's about (which i don't), but from linklater and this idea (i know the boy-across-the-years idea thing)
linklater has his entire career cared about the nature of being human and existing. and you, diary, know i care about that as well. his last movie, before midnight, can be described how it can be described, but the one thing that can't be left out of any description is its sense of breath
i wouldn't tell anyone but you a funny trivia about me: school of rock is the last movie i cried during. i cried at the end of school of rock! people are ridiculous. how important is crying? it's not important, it's ridiculous, that's what i'm saying, i'm saying that crying is an example of human ridiculousness, and linklater is the one who can take me there
i don't think he "gets it" or something like that. life is so big, how can it be got?? tricky as fuck. what linklater does is see it, as a human, and he makes human movies
excited about the movie. well diary, adios. gotta go eat itaian food right now
Ohhh man...that post was a tearjerker in itself, thank you.
Quote
i don't think he "gets it" or something like that. life is so big, how can it be got?? tricky as fuck. what linklater does is see it, as a human, and he makes human movies
mmm.
Quotei cried at the end of school of rock! people are ridiculous. how important is crying? it's not important, it's ridiculous, that's what i'm saying, i'm saying that crying is an example of human ridiculousness, and linklater is the one who can take me there
...that's a conversation...I wanna talk about that at one point. You should talk more about it.
May 2 at Castro Theatre, anyone in the Bay should go. Linklater will be there:
http://www.sffs.org/festival-home/attend/film-guide/boyhood
I too cry during School of Rock. Every time I've seen it. When Zack takes his guitar solo and his dad softens. I'm getting hot eyes just thinking about it.
Every human being must see this. Take someone you care about to this one.
Unsurprisingly Jenkin's words above really say so much about a movie he hadn't even seen yet.
such a lovely email today from cinefamily
QuoteHey, folks!
It's time to get your film-loving dad, future film-loving kid, anyone that's had a dad or been a kid that Cinefamily membership they deserve (did we cover everyone with that list?), because we have a very special Father's Day gift for all our members.
Please join us for a delicious Members-Only Father's Day brunch on Sunday morning (thank you, IFC!) -- followed by a screening of what, in my humble opinion, is the movie of the year for cinephiles.
Yes, I said that. Boyhood is the movie of the year for film lovers. You can put that in quotes, and put my name after it, if that means anything. I know it's only June, but it's the horse to beat.
Fassbinder said a good movie should be simple and beautiful -- and that it's very hard to do both. Well, the formal conception to Richard Linklater's new film is both simple and beautiful, and if that wasn't hard enough, nearly impossible to pull off from a technical point of view. In the early Aughts, he decided to tell the story of childhood not by selecting a single year, but by gradually showing every step, all the little details and memories that stand out, and how fast it all goes, and to do so by filming with the same cast once a year, for twelve years.
Every year the entire production would reassemble to shoot approximately fifteen more minutes of the story, complete with pre-production, production, and post production. Every year, Linklater would re-edit the whole film, taking into account what footage he'd added. The practicalities alone are mind-boggling -- but add to that the aesthetic challenges. How do you cast and work with child actors, when you don't know what they're going to be like in twelve years? When you don't know what you'll be like in twelve years? How do you keep the film's look and feel consistent?
It's incredibly audacious and difficult upon reflection, yet unpretentious and understated in execution. The film flows easily and smoothly, and, like life itself, the time has passed before you know it. It's the kind of quiet ambition that makes Richard Linklater such a special American filmmaker, the same kind of laid-back experimentalism that brought films as unusual as Slacker, Before Sunrise and Waking Life surprisingly close to the mainstream. Once again, he has made a movie with the intellectual curiosity and spirit we associate with European auteurs, but one that I can watch with my parents.
We're so excited to have Rick -- a true cinephile if there ever was one, BTW -- along with many of Boyhood's cast members (Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater) here at the theater to talk about the details and unique challenges of making such an unusual film.
won't be there but it sounds immensely lovely
I will be there and hope it will indeed be lovely.
ok wait. gimme a sec here
so
what i realized is
the imdb calendar i looked at which said boyhood opens july 18 was wrong or referring to some wider (but still limited?) release or something
because boyhood opens here in los angeles at the arclight and at the landmark on july 11
as in, the same fucking day the apes arrive boyhood arrives
and because it's 2014 and releases now happen differently, they both actually have showtimes on july 10
two days from today, the apes and boyhood
same day, the apes and boyhood
heavenly manna. fairies in my heart. birthday ice-cream with grandma. dance party by the river. a shooting star while i kiss you in the street at night. anything like that, similar for me, you know what i mean
You lucky motha! Dying to see Boyhood, which comes out here in London on Friday with Apes following next week. I cannot wait, although I have the Dune Doc and a few other bits to tide me over (just watched Andre De Toth's "Crime Wave" which looks incredible and still feels immediate, and thank the heavens for Sterling Hayden and that magnificent crazy cat, Timothy Carey) but nonetheless, I cannot wait to sit in the dark and see those two movies through!!!
when/where the movie is coming to your us location (if applicable) --
http://boyhoodmovie.tumblr.com/#find
the guardian has a great title to an article--
Soundtracks of my tears: how movie music sets a mood and sums up an era
digitalspy has an article on the soundtrack --
It's a sensational filmmaking achievement, and one that's backed by an eclectic mix of music from the last decade - everyone from Coldplay to Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga to Blink-182 can be heard throughout the movie. It's a wonderfully nostalgic trip down memory lane and one carefully planned out by Linklater.
[...]
Talking about his selection process for the music, the filmmaker added: "A lot of it was retrospective towards the end to see how the culture treats certain songs, how things filter down and what songs have that connotation of putting you right back in 2004.
^
http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a577983/boyhood-soundtrack-richard-linklater-on-recruiting-coldplay-arcade-fire.html
time magazine talks about things --
There proved to be a strategic advantage too: picking songs more recently allowed Linklater the advantage of knowing which songs would stand the test of time. "You could already look at it from the future," he explains. "This film is a period film shot in the present."
^
http://time.com/2964279/boyhood-music-richard-linklater-soundtrack/
and i read all that while being curious about the soundtrack, which has:
Track Listings
Summer Noon - By Tweedy
Yellow - By Coldplay
Hate To Say I Told You So - By The Hives
Could We - By Cat Power
Do You Realize?? - By The Flaming Lips
Crazy - By Gnarls Barkley
One (Blake's Got A New Face) - By Vampire Weekend
Hate It Here - By Wilco
Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester) - By Cobra Starship
Beyond The Horizon - By Bob Dylan
Band On The Run - By Paul McCartney & Wings
She's Long Gone - By The Black Keys
Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra) - By Gotye
I'll Be Around - By Yo La Tengo
Hero - By Family of the Year
Deep Blue - By Arcade Fire
(
my weekend plans --
nymphos 1+2 today
boyhood and the apes tomorrow
venus in fur sunday
)
saw this last night and i have to say i'm pretty devastatingly disappointed. maybe i was in a weird headspace. i'll revisit in a few weeks because i really do want to love this, but this first viewing did not go well for me. i'm a huge linklater fan and have been looking forward to this movie since i heard of the project at all. the overwhelming positivity of the critical consensus have me feeling like i probably missed something. i will say that seeing these actors/characters age throughout the film wasn't nearly as effective for me as it seems to have been for just about everyone else who's seen the movie.
there's much to admire, and i enjoyed a fair amount of it, but it hit a lot of wrong notes to my ear. more later, once others have seen it. just to get the fire started though, i thought the trailer was WAY better...
Quote from: wilder on July 12, 2014, 02:24:13 AM
For this kind of subject matter, I felt there was more insight in the opening 20 minutes of Tree of Life ... than the whole of Boyhood.
i thought this exact same thing, though i'd cite the passages of that film that portray, well, boyhood.
Quote from: wilder on July 12, 2014, 02:24:13 AM
I don't know. It was okay.
word. my disappointment speaks more to expectations going in. i actually had no idea it was 164 minutes long until right before i went to see it, which when considered with the subject matter and ambition of the project suggested this was going to be linklater's magnum opus.
did you find the use of music to be as obtrusive as i did? there are a few instances that were sublime but it was all mostly distracting and i thought a pretty cheap device.
first impressions seem a lil negative
Looking forward to this even more now....
let me provide a cliffs notes: it sucks
Quote from: jenkins<3 on July 12, 2014, 03:17:20 AM
first impressions seem a lil negative
Well, for what it's worth, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with 96 reviews.
my idea is to do zen breathing exercises before i see the movie. imma get emotionally centered and be ready for the power of now™
Man I had read/heard nothing but extremely positive reviews until I cam here. Thank you for tempering my expectations.
Been watching the Satyajit Ray trilogy....finding a lot of connections.
I'm ten years older than both kids in the film (who, in reality are only about 3 months apart), so I could vividly relate to a lot of what they went through while being able to empathize with the characters played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, though I'm not a parent. Older viewers would probably relate more strongly to their characters, and I'm sure my own take on the film will change if I see it years from now.
MILD SPOILERS
As exciting as it was to see Mason change from a kid to a college student, it was particularly poignant to see Arquette and Hawke throughout the film. Hawke starts out as a father who only sees the kids on weekends and isn't particularly responsible. Arquette is doing her best but repeats major mistakes in the kind of men she marries. Hawke's transformation into a more responsible father took a long time, and if he was like that from the beginning perhaps he and Arquette could have made it work. But sometimes the timing is wrong like that. It looks like he finally found some peace and settlement in his life that Arquette has been working towards, but hasn't quite found at the end of the film.
There are some awkward and contrived moments here and there, but overall it was a wonderful film. And if I'm making the film sound like a downer, it isn't. There are some absolutely hilarious moments.
Quote from: wilder on July 12, 2014, 02:50:33 AM
I just wish it were something different, something more creative than it turned out to be. If you took away the real life aging aspect Boyhood wouldn't be that special. Nothing it shows is very confrontational...not that a movie has to be to be good but...it was just all very expected.
It didn't have a revolutionary outlook, but what it did it did extremely well. The dialogue was terrific, and it captured well how people and relationships change over time. The real-life aging aspect is important to the film. If you take something important out of ANY film it's going to suffer.
Quote from: Cloudy on July 14, 2014, 01:02:35 AM
Been watching the Satyajit Ray trilogy....finding a lot of connections.
I saw shades of the Apu Trilogy, the Antoine Doinel films, This Boy's Life, and even The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
^you've described it as both a generic childhood, and as stemming directly from linklater living in austin
sounds like a normal person to me
i feel generic all the time. i wonder what i add to the world, for sure. sometimes i don't feel like i add anything and that's such a bummer state. then anyway i continue to live, i live here in los angeles and i'm trying my best, which feelings of personal best become different while i learn about myself and i learn about world things
during this too, i have that question about whether i scintillate enough. can anyone even see my scintillations? other people are better than me, others are badder than me, and i can't impact any of them. born to grow and grown to die. that's me
the universal as specific, the stupid human challenges of meaning and importance
put together into a single cohesive movie shot over a stretch of time with a non-actor
i like your point, jenkins, it made me reconsider how i feel about the film.
but honestly, i really didn't enjoy it very much. not to echo wilder too much but it just felt like a very generic film whose only significant quality was the way they shot it. i would have liked much more from it.
well you prefer the specific as universal. understandable
QuoteThe idea that by being deliberately vague we're allowed to project whatever we want onto Mason strikes me as a cop-out.
that is exactly what i was trying to say, thank you.
Ghostboy wrote something very good about the movie. I'll see the movie next week. I'll be surprised if I don't like it.
http://film.thetalkhouse.com/talks/david-lowery-aint-them-bodies-saints-talks-richard-linklaters-boyhood/
Richard Linklater Confirms 'Boyhood' Is Coming To The Criterion Collection With Special Features
Source: Playlist
"Boyhood," "Boyhood," "Boyhood," "Boyhood," "Boyhood." The chatter about the Richard Linklater indie has been omnipresent in the last two weeks, but for good reason: if you somehow haven't heard, it's really something else. At almost 3 hours, "Boyhood" is a film shot over twelve years documenting a divorced family as seen through the eyes of a young boy (Ellar Coltrane). You might have quipped to yourself when you saw Linklater visiting at Industrial Light & Magic this past week on Twitter, that the ambitious director could have saved himself a little time by just going the 'Benjamin Button' route of special effects. But there's no CGI here. "Boyhood" is the real deal. We watch a boy of six years old grow into a man around the age of eighteen right before your eyes over the span of a 164-minute movie.
Beyond a gimmick or a stunt as some people could ostensibly describe it, "Boyhood" is much more than that; time is really a character in the movie alongside Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and Lorelei Linklater and the movie is a loving and affectionate tribute to family, but also the passage of time, memory, growth and well, life and all that it entails.
The incessant chatter over the last few weeks has posed the question often: is this beautiful, big, epic film going to come to the Criterion Collection that has a healthy and already-established relationship with IFC Films? Linklater's answer up until now has been "hopefully," but in a interview published today at Mashable, the filmmaker was definitive.
Asked if "Boyhood" was coming to the boutique DVD Label Linklater said, "Yeah, we've got a ton of behind the scenes stuff. We made this in the era where everyone has a digital camera so we unearthed an interview from year one with Ellar, Lorelei, Patricia and myself; Patricia interviewed me in 2002. I hadn't seen this since we shot it, Ellar had forgotten quite a bit of it but he got to see himself as a wide-eyed six year old. For people who like the movie, I think there will be a lot of cool little treasures."
Linklater said they shot interviews throughout the twelve-year production, but didn't have a timetable for its release. The director is clearly a fan of the label (and hell, if you're anything remotely resembling a true-blue cinephile, who isn't?). "Bless Criterion, without them where would we be?," he said. "And it's magical the stuff they dig up. The 'Persona' Blu-ray had this making of a Bergman film. It was fascinating. It's incredible to see what it's like to hang out on the set of 'Persona.'" Indeed. Glad to hear the news is confirmed. That's one many will treasure, even in spite of a Coldplay song.
'Potterhood (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-harry-potter-gets-the-richard-linklater-treatment-in-boyhood-parody-trailer-potterhood-20140730)'
Quote from: wilder on July 30, 2014, 12:57:37 PM
'Potterhood (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-harry-potter-gets-the-richard-linklater-treatment-in-boyhood-parody-trailer-potterhood-20140730)'
Reminds me of this Manohla Dargis' quote from her review of the last Potter film, which basically reviews Boyhood as well:
"It's been unexpectedly moving growing older with these characters and actors perhaps simply because it's invariably poignant watching children become adults."
for me this movie gets stronger as it goes along and ends strong. the music was horrible and obtrusive for me, for others in the cinema they were naming songs and really relating to the constant cultural markers. the cultural markers, harry potter etc, halo (the couple next to me: "It's HALO!") kept taking me out the movie, but i think back to my childhood and these markers were hugely important. I remember movies coming out and music coming out and they were watermark moments, it just wasn't these movies/video games, i guess.
i found the kid starts off generic and template like and the focus being more in the parent's direction, which satisfied me. every time ethan hawke was on screen i felt the movie started coming alive more and more. i loved his character, the way he sells out and is aware of it, but is still a bit of a in-and-out guy at the end, shrugging off his obligations in the smallest of ways.
patricia arquette was also incredible and her last scene alongside her constant tryings and failings adds up to quite a wallop. a day after seeing it, i'm fine with the downtempo storytelling and the lack of immediate dramatic moments but that's the rub: in-between the scenes, the relationships, the comings and goings --- experiences have happened and we see glimmers of the icebergs under the oceans. the sister's line to the boy's girlfriend about how she's gonna meet loads of guys when she comes to college, as the girl's boyfriend/her brother plays pool. little lines like that kept opening up parallel narratives and questions of what happened to these characters when they weren't the focus or when time jumped. the gaps and what was not shown really made an impact on me here.
i loved how by the last hour the movie evolved from a concept to a richard linklater movie. the character no longer felt generic to me. i didn't feel like he had a cookie cutter upbringing and felt that he still had a long way to go, that life was still going to be a struggle.
i think the critical response has been so obsessed with the process, the ageing of the actors and the way the film captures childhood or how it says all these big things about life and childhood, (people bring up 'tree of life' and 'apu' etc etc) but i saw a small downtempo film, anti-big more into low key icebergs moments, focused on the kid as his centre forms (identity, character, the self) as he's uprooted, as the culture around him shifts, as his sister pisses him off and dominates him, as his mum struggles to raise him and hold on to her womanhood and his dad drifts in and out of his life and as it goes on, the centre starts to hold, form and solidify (for now) and he starts to react to all those things that have been going on around him, he finally confronts the reincarnation of the drunk father figure who picks on him and deals with him in his newest incarnation and is able to deal with it and to navigate the situation. and that's what i loved about the concept was the portrayal of trial and error. that's the star here for me. the trial and error and repetition of life.
i also loved the little moments and characters. the manager at the restaurant who fancies the kid's mum and just that scene when she's giving a speech and he watches her in the background, reacting to every word she says. that's an incredible scene and suggests a whole other parallel and future movie where he is the next stepdad (unlikely i know) but the film was full of possibilities and space (that reminded me of being young) and for me the last hour was great and went beyond the concept. whereas the first two thirds felt like they were more 'the concept' than the heart of the movie that we eventually arrive at.
richard linklater is definitely one of the most exciting guys working today (and like pta has been for a while, whereas i'm slowly losing my love for david fincher pictures after zodiac) and i'm so happy that this picture is getting the response it's getting, he friggin' well deserves it. i'm going to revisit before midnight and see how i feel about it now. also lorelei linklater starts off so fiery and full of character in this movie and slowly dissolves her way out of the story, in the way our siblings can do as we get older, they can sometimes lose their sharp edges and become slightly foggy but with tons of baggage/emotion/past attached...oh, also the way it looks. i loved the look of it and lee daniel's photography on this and 'sunset' are incredible understated beauts!!!!
strong movie...
i thought i would chime in as i also felt (like a few others here) very underwhelmed with this movie. i generally enjoy and appreciate linklater's films but this lacked the emotion and insight of his best films (e.g. the before sunrise trilogy). some people have commented on the music being distracting. i don't think the songs lasted long enough to get on my nerves but i found them unnecessary and somewhat lazy. sure, people will recognize the pop culture references but they don't add up to anything beyond empty nostalgia. the same can be said for much of the film. it's a shapeless piece of work, lacking a strong point of view about the subject matter. i agree with wilder that mason seems to be unaffected by his experiences/relationships, to the point (i would say) that just about everything seems inconsequential. linklater presents a situation, quickly drops it, and is on to the next thing. i hear a lot of "i can relate" talk about this movie. but for me it takes much more than that to equal a good film.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-boyhood-on-film-turan-20140803-story.html
Kenneth Turan takes a critic's lonely stand on 'Boyhood'
By Kenneth Turan
If you do it right, film criticism is a lonely job. But some films make it lonelier than others. Films like "Boyhood."
For just about every other critic in America, "Boyhood" has been the opposite experience, a chance to join in an unprecedented chorus of shared exultation about a film written and directed over the course of a dozen years by Richard Linklater that used the same group of actors to watch as a boy named Mason grows from a child of 6 to a young man of 18.\
The New York Times called it "one of the most extraordinary movies of the 21st century." Film Comment labeled it "wondrous" and put it on its cover. The authoritative Thompson on Hollywood blog reported that it "debuted to astonishing figures" and noted it "ranks as the highest scored new release for at least this century at Metacritic." Variety ran a piece headlined "Why Richard Linklater Deserves an Oscar for 'Boyhood,'" and no fewer than 16 critics (I counted) were quoted in a recent print ad calling it a masterpiece and throwing in words like "visionary," "transporting" and "profound" for good measure.
I was not one of them.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate "Boyhood," and I'm not totally immune to its attributes. But for me it was, at best, OK, a film whose animating idea is more interesting than its actual satisfactions. Sharing in the zeal of its advocates, being as on fire as Moses was when he came down from Mt. Sinai with the tablets of the law — that just isn't in the cards for me.
In part because I don't consider myself an enemy of "Boyhood" and didn't want to rain on its parade, I ended up not reviewing the film when it arrived in theaters. I'm departing from that original impulse for a variety of reasons: because I believe there can be value to the culture of film in being out of step, because I feel an obligation to readers to express solidarity with those few who share my doubts, and to go on the record about the most talked-about film of the year.
But mostly it's because being so out of step called up so many disconcerting thoughts and feelings in me — about the film, about the process and culture of reviewing, even about what it means to be a critic and who I am as a person — that I simply had to write them down.
Though I am far from a contrarian and honestly don't enjoy being the only person who doesn't get it, I've been in this position before. I caught a lot of grief from fans as well as writer-director James Cameron when I took objection to "Titanic," and even before that when I was less than enthralled by Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," one of whose partisans recently tweeted me to ask if, 20 years after the fact, I regretted my dunderheaded negativity. (For the record, I don't.) And just last week I got an email about my 1999 "Fight Club" review, asking: "Do you ever look back, re-watch a movie and think, wow, I blew it?"
But being lukewarm to "Boyhood" felt like a different order of thing, like being disconnected from my aesthetic roots. This was no violent blockbuster one could feel free to disdain but a film I was supposed to embrace, a small independent effort whose interest in humanistic themes, character development and interpersonal drama were elements that matter the most to me. I should have been front and center in applauding "Boyhood" rather than remaining cold to its charms.
So, because I am prone to it, the second-guessing began: Had I missed something, had I been asleep at the wheel (metaphorically, not literally, though the film does run a leisurely 2 hours and 44 minutes)? Should I be court-martialed for dereliction of critical duty? Had I made some kind of mistake?
Since I consider reviews to be expressions of personal taste and consequently believe it's completely misguided to look at unpopular or out-of-step opinions as mistakes, the blunder option was not open to me. So I decided to take advice from one of my personal heroes, Sherlock Holmes, who famously decreed: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." What was it about me as a critic that had led me down a path where no one else followed?
For one thing, I find that as I get older and younger filmmakers focus more and more on their own young years, I have become increasingly resistant to coming-of-age stories, which at its core is what "Boyhood" is. Living through my own childhood was unnerving enough; I don't take pleasure in living through someone else's unless there is as good a reason as two personal favorites, Ken Loach's "Kes" and Jean-Claude Lauzon's "Léolo," provided.
Also, though it feels literally sacrilegious to say so in the light of all the devotion "Boyhood" has received, not to mention all the work that went into it, the "12 years, one cast" aspect of the film felt, in all honesty, a bit like a gimmick to me, especially in the light of the heroic work Michael Apted has done with his "Up" series of documentaries, which have looked at the same group of individuals every seven years from age 7 to age 56, and counting. Compared with the insights and surprises the multiple hours half a century of footage provide, "Boyhood" feels a bit like a Readers Digest Condensed version for those who don't want to take the time to see the Apted films in their entirety.
Finally — and this is critical — I have always been cool to Linklater's films, have never connected emotionally to his self-involved characters and a slacker aesthetic that treats banalities as if they were words of wisdom. Though "Boyhood" could be his best film and certainly has its satisfying moments, its narrative feels fatally cobbled together, veering haphazardly from underdone moments to overdone melodramatic contrivance.
On one hand, the fuss about "Boyhood" emphasized to me how much we live in a culture of hyperbole, how much we yearn to anoint films and call them masterpieces, perhaps to make our own critical lives feel more significant because it allows us to lay claim to having experienced something grand and meaningful.
Ultimately, however, what thinking about "Boyhood" brought home, and not for the first time, is how intensely personal a profession criticism is. Whether we like it or not, even if expressing it makes us feel clueless and out of touch in our own eyes as well as the world's, we cannot escape who we are and what does or does not move us. As I've said before and likely will have cause to say again, in the final analysis, as a critic either you're a gang of one or you're nothing at all.
he gets to overshare at length and for publication. 11 paragraphs before he talks about the movie!!
people feeling brave enough to dislike a movie is how i think a good movie works
I liked Boyhood a lot. I loved how it captured what's real in a cliché, how strong it felt (for me, at least) without being overly dramatic, by being simple, how it showed what was left of your life, of your memories, of your childhood. Some glimpses. I loved how cliché it was and how it avoided the big clichés.
I loved the parents. Watching Mason. Having moments.
I loved this line: "I thought there would be more."
It's a weird thing, it doesn't completely work, yes, but I admire the simplicity Linklated decided to keep.
After reading everyone's comments here, I was happy to have some reasonable expectations going in. I was still disappointed.
Spoilers.
To start, the positive:
I'm a Texan, so the region specific stuff worked for me. Shooting guns, seeing country shows, walking around Austin at night, hiking in West Texas...these are all scenes from my life, too, and nice to see. There's one long shot in San Marcos where 8th grade Mason talks to a classmate down an alley. I've been down that alley. A specific take on growing up, indeed.
There were some moments that really moved me. These moments usually originate from the performances of Patricia Arquette and Marco Perella (stepdad 1). Stepdad 1 is absolutely terrifying. His scenes were fantastic.
The first 90 minutes or so fly by like a breeze. Kids being stupid, looking at porn, saying the wrong things to parents ("but oh jeez they're just so cute.") And then, wouldn't you know it, Mason is no longer a child. He's a young adult ready to create his own identity.
Negative:
Quote from: wilder on July 15, 2014, 11:52:40 AM
Who is this kid? Why him? He's practically the perfect son, absurdly well-adjusted given his upbringing. The worst things he ever does are drink underage and flake out in one of his classes.
This is the film's biggest problem. Pardon me for echoing what you've already written. (above and below)
Mason is likable to a fault. He has shitty stepfathers, but he's strong in the face of it all. His major problems ultimately boil down to being (kinda) directionless, a little lazy, and nervous about what the future may hold. Like Wilder said, we all go through these phases, but so what? This movie really needed something to
happen. There are moments where you think that something seriously trying might be around the corner. But then, nope, we're back at Mason's house, his mom's still relatively cool, and he's back to figuring it all out.
And I get it. Life isn't a crazy movie, sure. But growing up is not a process of passive observation. We make mistakes. We get hurt. We hurt others. We don't just pout because we didn't get the birthday present we were promised 7 years ago.
There's also something in this movie that is so bad I think we've collectively forgotten it. I'm referring to the return of the laborer who Patricia Arquette encourages to go to school. The first scene with him was innocuous in and of itself, but his appearance at the end of the film is absolutely ridiculous. It only exists so that he can say, "You should listen to your mother." I wanted to groan out loud but stopped myself.
This is a much more negative review than I originally intended to write, but the more I think of it, the more upset I get. The way they shot this film had its moments, to be sure. I think the aging of the parents was particularly effective. The most emotionally resonant moments in the film come from the adults. If only Linklater had thought to make Parenthood, instead.
Quote from: Pedro on August 09, 2014, 03:12:06 PMIf only Linklater had thought to make Parenthood, instead.
NAILED IT
landed in da multiplex here. is it in your multiplex? there are other chill movies in the multiplex but this is the only one where i'm wondering what it makes you think about
its 100 on tomatoes is silly. we all know the world doesn't ever 100% agree to no 100% nothing
guys, i loved this movie. it's got 99% on rottentomatoes, which is unheard of. how is it that i come to xixax and only 1% of us liked it??
Yes, this movie has a lot of bad in it (the former plumber thanking the mom was quite painful, among other scenes). But in general I had a positive reaction. It works because of its extreme realism. As a study of American life it is masterful. The behavior of the kids was spot on at every age. (although, it's quite laughable how uniformly well adjusted Mason and his sister are as teenagers; not to mention, the parents (minus the stepdads, obvi) are as near to perfect as you can get). I almost feel like one day if I ever become a father I will want to refer back to this movie for guidance.
As a dramatic work it is disappointing. Everyone is paradigmatically normal. I wasn't enthralled or anything like that. But I did recognize A LOT of the characters from my own life and felt an emotional connection with them; I want to text them and check up on them. I think to appreciate it you just have to embrace the genericness and forgive the lack of verve.
Linklater is the man. I was so excited about this film and even after seeing it, I'm still excited! Making Boyhood is what Linklater did in his FREE time! I feel like its one of those things that you hear about and you're like, nah, hes not doing that...I don't believe it. the man has balls
I don't understand. We have every other film in the world for characters who are deeply affected by their upbringing and huge dramatic moments. Every movie around has a central conflict, and nowadays tv series specialize in conflicted asshole characters whose souls get dark by the episode. Linklater completely goes the other way and he's coping out? If anything it takes a lot more balls to go this route, leaving the drama out and celebrating the small moments. Thankfully we have no scenes where the kid breaks his stepfather windshield or gets expelled from school. We know he failed first grade, right? We don't see it yet it's there. Thankfully the whole film wasn't about both parents endlessly fighting and fucking up their kid's well being.
The film doesn't need the main character to rebel or suffer some kind of imbalance. He's a smart kid who keeps things to himself. Most lifes are "uneventful", but how can we say that when watching a film where characters discover themselves quietly as the years go by?
Linklater has been doing this forever, he's not into the whole big dramatic arc thing. He even managed to make a science fiction film about drug addiction which feels more like a laid back slacker experience than a futuristic film noir. I dig it.
I think it's very good. Not a top ten movie for me, but I think the idea of how to film the movie overwhelms the content. Some critics attacked the film for the kid never going through teenage angst and anger periods. Implication is the portrait is more of a sentimental tale, but given the characteristics of the main character, I think it's more part of his nature. No, my qualms against the film that keep it out of greatness territory is that the film keeps the philosophical discussion to a medium level of philosophical revelation. An argument for the familiarity is that life cycle should remind the audience member of their own coming to terms during childhood and high school, but for me, it reminds me of Linklater's tendencies to be fascinated by less than fascinating things. As the story comes to conclusion, the story slows to conversational pace and I find myself seeing more of the less interesting moments to come out of Linklater's dramas. I think a major challenge for the film would have been if Linklater tried to just base the film on experiences that revolve around situations, but it would have forced him to plot out more telling moments and characterize progression more. Linklater loves actor interaction and the potential of the spontaneous in the moment. I think it can mean for different and unexpected things, but I often thinks it never tops a well orchestrated and thought out plan for storytelling and filmmaking.