Anticipating Linklater's "Boyhood"

This looks amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys-mbHXyWX4

Breathless AICN review here: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/66468

Anyone seen this yet?

does Ethan Hawke get beaten in this movie y/n

Hmmm

so basically it's a movie but it took a really long time

I don't know why, but I'm trusting Linklater to make this more than just a gimmick film.

a leap of faith after Before Senescence, but hope springs

Breathless AICN review

You don't say?

I've always hoped someone would do this. I had heard once that some director (Kubrick?) had been filming the boy from "Jurassic Park" at various intervals for a project that never manifested itself.

Anyway, this totally seems like the kind of effective gimmick that could finally land Linklater an Oscar, if he cares about that sort of thing.

he probably doesn't

this is really good
the periodic timelapsiness of it is really profound

Saw this at SIFF, it was incredible and incredibly moving.

The idea of filming the same kid actor from age six to eighteen is moderately interesting, but the only advantage I can see over doing it the conventional way, with multiple actors covering the different ages, is that you don't have to make such discontinuous time-leaps in the script in order to tone down the effect of switching actors. You can develop the story year by year if you want to and there's no penalty to pay in suspension of disbelief. Other than that, it's just a gimmick. The story still has to stand on its own.

that isn't true at all
have you seen it?

yeah that completely misses the point.

just a terrible post
also stories don't, & don't have to, stand on their own

this played glasgow & you saw it, jed?

I haven't seen it, I'm keen to.

ah, okay. i felt like i saw it was playing at edinburgh or something. see & report straight to this thread, obviously.

wait, i still can't figure out if aimless has seen the film or not.

i often feel protective of linklater's movies even when i don't like them much. i didn't like before midnight at all--maybe i wasn't in the right frame of mind, but it came across to me as totally phony--but i still found myself getting really mad at Richard Brody's typically specious pan.

Brody is probably the biggest poseur in film criticism today. there are others who are more high-falutin (though not too many), plenty of critics less sensitive and open-minded. but no one has his capacity for bluffing his way through a review with a lot of inaccurate historical, literary, and philosophical wisdom. i sort of want to pull on his beard, hard.

http://gregjhunter.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/41573_46501918332_4725771_n.jpg

i guess jeffrey wells is a big poseur too, but his stuff is more like outsider performance art than film criticism.

man i really like richard brody. i think maybe that's half just a quick calculation about there being more symmetry between my taste & his than with other critics, but i also think that his sensitivity & focus on the real, poetic matter of film is pretty rare, now. like he really reps for modern, grammatically interesting cinema, & seems committed to engaging with & foregrounding the things that are intangible. so much journalistic film writing is just so blunt, right now. deducing whether a film is too long or not. i forgot, or didn't know, that he didn't like before midnight, i should read up. i just caught ida & know he took issue with it. that stuff is interesting too.

incidentally, about linklater, i will be psyched when some other people see this & we can talk about it, but, two quick things: i did sorta find myself wishing, halfway through, that maybe gus van sant or terrence malick were directing, maybe just because the direction is - understandably, maybe necessarily - sort of a workmanlike, through parts of the film. some of the dialogue however's really exquisite & sharp. & secondly i'd be really interested to get a read on how everyone else watches this; from the little i'd heard about it - with a lot of focus on both hawke & then the main kid - i'd expected the boy in boyhood to be very central, & the two lead female performances are both super strong also.

that isn't true at all
have you seen it?

No. It hasn't made it to these parts, yet.

But, as you are absolutely clear that I was totally off-base, would you mind saying what you think was gained by using the same actor over 12 years of shooting that had no connection to what I imagined would be gained through that approach? I am curious why you say my post was terrible, other than just repeating that it was wrong and terrible.

your post was so frustrating because you are making obnoxious, authoritative declarations about how something you haven't seen should work, & about whether or not it's valuable. you're imposing formulas on something resistant to formula. it is that thing that guys do when they start telling you about how you have to be able to whistle a song for it to be a good song. you're just so off base. film can be expressive in so many ways, is diverse enough to barely be an umbrella term, & we are ten thousand years past the stage at which vague dicta like "the story still has to stand on its own" mean anything. stories don't have to stand on their own. there can be no story at all, or there can be a story that barely stands at all, & pathos & feeling & resonance & recognition can still emanate from a film regardless. films aren't stories. & it's crazy to think that we are still so effectively contained by a film that the particulars of its construction or cast would be so irrelevant. whether it's trying to detect gravitas in post-crash montgomery clift performances, or ingesting a film's BASED ON TRUE EVENTS prefix, we are embroiled in & affected by everything that isn't the film. the idea that someone off-screen expositing "Hey, ANIKIN-" at the beginning of a scene is enough to make watertight the seams that join actors and films together is crazy. the reason there's a difference between using the same kid & using a variety of actors is because when you use the same kid it is the same actual kid. i don't feel super compelled to commentate on & spoonfeed you a digest of a film that you haven't seen yet, just to talk you through your weird prejudice of it; go see it when it opens & get back to me. i like a lot of your posts, aimless, it's a pleasure reading you talk about books, but you're just making nonsensical rules about something you haven't seen & for which there isn't a lot of precedent; it's ridiculous.

the reason there's a difference between using the same kid & using a variety of actors is because when you use the same kid it is the same actual kid.

Thank you for trying to answer my question. I would note that I didn't actually say there was no difference, or even hint there was no difference, but was trying to say that hundreds of satisfying films have been made without going through this sort of arduous 12 year process. My point, such as it was, was that audiences easily accept artificialities like switching actors to portray the same character at different ages. Shakespeare's theater used boys to play women and audiences enjoyed the plays hugely because it didn't matter to the enjoyment they derived.

I can imagine that the continuity provided by using just one boy actor, aging throughout the film has an impact, but the whole impact of the film could not depend on that factor, because you could just as easily make a totally crap film using the same 12 year process and nobody would call it profound or respond ecstatically. They'd just think it was a crap film.

the reason there's a difference between using the same kid... is because when you use the same kid it is the same actual kid

This, basically. The idea of using that as the core idea in a film is interesting in itself. It doesn't have to interest you as an overall endeavour but I think it's strange, and strangely mean, to brush off an artistic choice like that because it doesn't chime with the way things are generally done or they way that you think they should be done either.

The idea of using different actors to tell the same story is silly because the fact that it's filmed in this way is the actual generating artistic foundation of the film - without that idea the film wouldn't exist! it just would't be possible to shift that into a set of actors - how many would you use? 4? 6? 12? It wouldn't work but setting aside the logistics of it you're not seeing the fact that there's something profound in the way that people actually change if you look at it from an artistic perspective. Not the way that film makers or casting directors think that they might change. it is the same actual kid - what an idea! Even if the film was a disaster the idea and the fact that it was actually made with a great deal of commitment from a large number of people over a 12 year period is still beautiful in itself. Of course I'm aware that the film is fictional but, if this is done well, then the physical and emotional development of anyone layered on the top of a fictional structure is a fascinating idea.

Heard of it, hadn't given it too much thought as it hasn't come over yet.

This does sound fascinating, and now reading the posts I can't wait. Love the questioning of the logistical compromise. The emotional tracking of one person within a filmic frame makes you pause. I suppose by making the film over that period ensures a level of commitment among all the participants to make sure it doesn't end up like crap. Certainly we seldom see things made collaboratively over that length of time, they tend to be things made by one person, such as a novel, but of course you may still not find it worthwhile just because of that fact compared against a novel finished in weeks/months (like a lot of Philip K Dick's books were written over that kind of period, and he is a touchstone for Linklater).

The Before... series were made over a long period of time too (and I suppose that isn't yet over), ending as more of a collaboration between three people as time went on, so it falls in line w/what Linklater does.

I can imagine that the continuity provided by using just one boy actor, aging throughout the film has an impact, but the whole impact of the film could not depend on that factor, because you could just as easily make a totally crap film using the same 12 year process and nobody would call it profound or respond ecstatically. They'd just think it was a crap film.

― Aimless, Monday, June 16, 2014 8:12 PM (Yesterday)

so, you burned a million pounds. someone says it doesn't make any difference, you could just as well have burned a bunch of paper and called it a million pounds. sure. but then you wouldn't have burned a million pounds.

more to the point, you took a picture of your child's face every day for 20 years and made a stop-motion film that showed him growing up. someone says it's just a gimmick, you could just as well have modeled it all on a computer, saved a lot of time and money. sure. but then it wouldn't have been a film of your child growing up.

or to put it another way, bela tarr lets his shots hang for minutes at a time. someone inevitably calls it a pretentious, self-indulgent device. cinema allows the compression of time making this sort of thing unnecessary. sure. but then he wouldn't be bela tarr.

you took a picture of your child's face every day for 20 years and made a stop-motion film that showed him growing up.

But the analogy fails because the entire content of that stop motion film is made up of still pictures of your child's face. Take that away and there is... nothing at all. Whereas this is a scripted film, with a great many characters delivering lines, with sets, props and costumes, a carefully crafted piece of storytelling using actors. Replace one actor with another actor and what you have left is... everything except that actor.

Now, I take it that schlump's point was that this one change makes a huge difference in how the audience feels about the film. But I did reference the idea in my first post that this would clearly make a difference in two ways. First, it would deepen the audience's engagement because there would be no penalty t pay in the suspension of disbelief such as occurs when you switch in an different actor to play the character at a different age, and secondly the elimination of that penalty would allow a script that did not have to work around that penalty by placing a large enough time discontinuity between the scenes with different actors for the same part that the audience is more inclined to accept the switch smoothly. These are not small things, but I have described them from a technical standpoint and that seems to have missed the mark with those who want to speak of the film as a seamless experience.

So, for everyone's future convenience, I will take it as read that this one technical change in approach is of such vast import that it has created not just a different, somewhat more believable and therefore affecting piece of storytelling, but has moved this film into a wholly new sphere of artistic possibility, able to say things that could not have been said, to elicit emotions that films have never before elicited.

I guess I'll have to see it when it comes to town then.

guess so

Blurb:

@BretEastonEllis · 12h
Richard Linklater's BOYHOOD is an epic vision of American life and the best U.S. movie I've seen in years. The movie we've been waiting for.

have not seen this, but of course will ASAP.

i did sorta find myself wishing, halfway through, that maybe gus van sant or terrence malick were directing, maybe just because the direction is - understandably, maybe necessarily - sort of a workmanlike, through parts of the film.

i suppose this could be a be seen as a positive? I mean, we already have the Tree of Life, right? though i agree i'd probably be way more excited for this with a different director--one perhaps more attuned to the ineffable strangeness of being a child--than a naturalist like linklater.

that said, i look forward to experiencing this on whatever terms it lays down.

So, for everyone's future convenience, I will take it as read that this one technical change in approach is of such vast import that it has created not just a different, somewhat more believable and therefore affecting piece of storytelling, but has moved this film into a wholly new sphere of artistic possibility, able to say things that could not have been said, to elicit emotions that films have never before elicited.

― Aimless, Tuesday, June 17, 2014 9:23 AM (11 hours ago)

point i was making is that the "gimmick" has (at least potential) artistic value in itself. not as a means to something else, but in a process-as-end sense. sure, you could tell the story some other way, but as schlump points out, the story told needn't be our only or even our primary focus when evaluating film as art.

But, as you are absolutely clear that I was totally off-base, would you mind saying what you think was gained by using the same actor over 12 years of shooting that had no connection to what I imagined would be gained through that approach?

I DON'T KNOW BECAUSE, LIKE YOU, I HAVEN"T SEEN THE MOVIE

jesus, what the fuck is this argument about?

saw it last night and loved it

and it's not just the kid that ages in the film but other family members too. which makes it even more of a beautiful premise imo

Aimless no aspect of any film is the only aspect, is the thing. Saying ah but if everything else about it is no good it won't be any good is not very insightful

Also the decision to approach this one particular aspect in a very unusual way may impact your response to it in ways as yet unanticipated by you :o

This goes for any decision in any movie

yup

what the fuck is this argument about?

Me:

You can develop the story year by year if you want to and there's no penalty to pay in suspension of disbelief.

schlump:

that isn't true at all

stop

done

:D

This kid looks more like Lukas Haas than James Dean to me.

Ellar’s boyhood bore little resemblance to Mason’s — his strikingly free-range adolescence was more of a millennial update on the Austin slacker archetype familiar from Linklater’s other movies — but young Ellar didn’t always distinguish between the set and the world. Only after seeing the movie did he realize that he’d watched one particularly exciting Astros game, complete with a serendipitous home run, not with his own dad but with Ethan Hawke. He also began to see how deeper currents in his own life were reflected in Mason’s — especially his own parents’ divorce and tensions with a stepfather. “I don’t know how much I talked to Rick about that, but I’m sure he saw it,” says Coltrane.

“I was very angsty from a very young age,” he adds. “The way people start acting when they’re 15, I started being at 8.” Hawke remembers one of his first meetings with Coltrane: “He told me that Waking Life” — Linklater’s animated, plotless, metaphysical fantasia — “was his favorite movie. There’s not a lot of 7-year-olds that have seen Waking Life.”

http://www.vulture.com/2014/06/ellar-coltrane-on-his-12-year-movie-role.html

Only after seeing the movie did he realize that he’d watched one particularly exciting Astros game, complete with a serendipitous home run, not with his own dad but with Ethan Hawke.

dat's nuts!

you'd think there'd be a disparity in the scent at least

I was glad we got that scene, but what's unique about Boyhood is that it skips a lot of the scenes you might expect to find in a coming-of-age story like this one. It's more interested in a good conversation than a first kiss.

That’s the peculiar genius of the movie, and the cumulative effect of it is that by not hitting the “TV moments,” when the movie ends, you almost feel like you’ve seen every moment of that kid’s life. You intuit all the big ones. Someone made the comment that in almost all of my scenes, I’m driving — but that’s what you usually do with your dad! When you spend time with your dad, he’s either at work, asleep, or driving you somewhere.

really on point i think

boy, the critics really are ecstatic over this. i feel like linklater is getting a bit overrated these days and that's going to haunt his reputation in a few years. i say that as a fan. maybe it's just that before midnight didn't stir me in any way; it felt kind of hollow and forgettable. but i could have been in a bad mood when i saw it. but it retroactively (?) soured the whole trilogy a bit, for me anyway.

i worry too that all the hyperbole (?) over "boyhood" is going to ruin it for me. but who knows? i'm still looking forward to it.

does this at all resemble the boyhood section of tree of life. because that was rather wonderful. does this film try for the same lyricism? or is it more (deliberately) mundane?

funny that i have been reading about this film even before it got started -- when it was just the proverbial twinkle in linklater's eye.

i definitely remember him talking about it around the time of "waking life"

Supposedly comes out this weekend, but I don't see showtimes in San Francisco...?

Even the trailer had me tearing up, so I'm pretty sure I'll dig this.

i admit i'm more excited about seeing dawn of the planet of the apes

Why choose?

nice chat, let's do it again sometime

well I finally got around to seeing this. beyond the central gimmick it seemed a bit slight and directionless - not in an unpleasant way, just that it seemed to become at some point just a list of things that happened, with no central conflict really guiding the story. I found Mason's sister more interesting than Mason, should've done a parallel movie called "Girlhood" focused on her, I would've watched that

well you, John Boorman and the 500 feminist bloggers who've said that need to get a Kickstarter goin

haha well I'm not coming at it from a gender politics position, I just thought she was more compelling to watch on-screen. Mason v much an observer/cypher-type character

I mean do we ever see him take the initiative on anything, mostly he's just shown having things happen to him.

He takes the initiative condescending to his father.

which reminds me - ethan hawke was not beaten up in this movie! missed opportunity.

lol

should've done a parallel movie called "Girlhood" focused on her, I would've watched that

― Οὖτις, Monday, March 16, 2015

In theatres right now. Not an answer film or in any way connected, supposedly very good.

http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/54d660192afe7b7751000031/20150120224636_Girlhood_poster.jpg

it is quite good.

It's excellent, the first good film of 2015.

...to hit Miami

you don't say

just adjusting the boundlessness of your decrees

my good films of 2015 thus far would include Eastern Boys, Timbuktu, Hard to Be a God, Appropriate Behavior.

I watched this. It's okay. Like resolutely okay. It's as though Linklatter figured, "I have this kid aging into adulthood for real & on camera, the single greatest special effect ever to hit the screen, so all I have to do is make sure that everything surrounding him is as blandly ordinary as possible."

A film of small gestures in a familiar setting requires not just close observation, but an interesting point of view, the ability to see the supposedly ordinary as if through new eyes. Boyhood has no sensibility of its own, and Linklatter seems all too happy to substitute cliched shorthand for observation. Every scene feels like an echo not of life, but of cinema, of a hundred other movies about the ups and downs of the white suburban family. It's generic. Though set in Texas, it has no sense of place and time, just an accumulation of background details.

Patricia Arquette is quite good, and watching Ellar Coltrane grow up really is fascinating, but I've rarely seen such a proudly vacant film. Up to the scene where onetime laborer Enrique rushes out to thank "Mom" for turning his life around, I wasn't really troubled by the emptiness, just bored. After that, fuck this bullshit.

You're one of many who've been angered by that awful, awful scene.

this felt like a lost opportunity to make a really good/great film. the kid - and rest of the cast to be honest, espec for me for some reason ethan hawke - aging was the best part of the film, shame that despite having the inspiration to innovate in that way the other things that many other films have that make them worth watching were conspicuously absent.

Finally saw this yesterday. I really loved it!

this felt like a lost opportunity to make a really good/great film. the kid - and rest of the cast to be honest, espec for me for some reason ethan hawke - aging was the best part of the film, shame that despite having the inspiration to innovate in that way the other things that many other films have that make them worth watching were conspicuously absent.
--Rave Van Donk (jim in glasgow)

Exactly how I felt. One trick Dawson's Creek episode. Schmaltz.

I hadn't paid attention to any of the criticism/promo/hype and didn't even know about the 'gimmick' going in; I just knew it was the most recent Linklater. I just loved the dialogue, the pacing and space. Yeah, 'nothing happens' and the big dramatic moments and conflicts are not shown: that's often the point with Linklater. (So criticizing it as 'schmaltz' or comparing it to a teen drama seems v off the mark to me.)

i watched this, it was really great!

funny how just like the ~vibe~ did make me think fondly of dazed & confused

yep, this

Writer Joyce Carol Oates tweeted her support, saying: "It is rare that a film so mimics the rhythms and texture of actual life as Boyhood. Such seeming spontaneity is a very high art."[42]

Yeah, that's a quality I like about both movies.

so i really liked this

a few thoughts i had:

- i had no idea that the actress playing sam was linklater's daughter until afterwards. i thought she was great and was one of the highlights of the movie for me. i have two sons but i kept thinking "wow sam is so cool throughout this whole movie, i wish i had a daughter too", she just had so many great scenes and was such a smart and often hilarious character, i wish she was in the movie more. she was the anchor of the movie for me especially in the first third when mason doesn't even really say much at all. the "oops i did it again" routine at the start of the film had my wife and i lolling so hard.

- i was never really bored at all. i easily could've watched another few hours. i loved how the transitions and passages in time were filmed, just a slight detail like someone's haircut letting you know time has passed.

- interesting to read this thread w/ all the varying opinions about mason's philosophical monologues and rambling "deep opinions". i fucking loved them tbh, mostly because i used to say that shit all the time and i thought linklater portrayed them with such compassion and empathy. we aren't supposed to think "wow mason is so profound, his thoughts are blowing my mind", we are supposed to be reminded of how heavy and profound these thoughts feel for a teenager. i think linklater is really gifted at writing for these types of teenagers, not all teens are like that obviously but for teens who were like me and felt a little outsidery and reflective and maybe a little too convinced about how deep we are, he is great at that. like that last scene at big bend when they are stoned, i definitely felt like that "profound moment" he shares with that girl about how the moment seizing us was portrayed perfectly -- yes that can be a powerful realization but they are also so clearly stoned so we can both laugh at and deeply appreciate the stoner wisdom on display. i don't know, i was a stoner teen too and i totally identified with that and thought it was hilarious and meaningful at the same time.

- schlump and others otm about him being a little remniscient of wiley wiggins! i thought that too. i also loved wiley wiggins.

- a few people mentioned above how they were a little soured on mason's good looks and luck with girls. i also thought he was good looking too but at the same i was well aware that for much of his teen years he is greasy and has zits and bad facial hair and is a little awkward, i don't know it seemed real to me. he was like a lot of kids i knew growing up who weren't jocks or super popular but were into skateboarding and were a little alternative and still had a lot of friends.

- i haven't spent much time in texas, only a little, but i felt like linklater's love and appreciation for texas was very present throughout and i dug that. the film had a strong sense of place i thought.

good points all, bud

I think about this movie a lot actually. For some reason there are a couple of scenes that randomly pop into my mind all the time -- the scene where the photography teacher lectures him about hard work, and the scene either at the end or close to the end where they hike in the canyon.

I would like to see it again but feel like it could use another big screen viewing. Even though it's a *small movie* in certain senses, there's something about the immersiveness of the large screen that works well for this film.

yea i wish i saw it in the theater, in one go. that said i noticed these comments from stilladvance earlier:

and boyhood is very episodic. it could have worked well as something like a web series.

― StillAdvance, Friday, January 23, 2015 7:06 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

theres something about boyhood that does seem quite web-y actually, its lightness/lack of weight, and how easy it is to watch, how it doesnt really require too much commitment from the viewer.

― StillAdvance, Friday, January 23, 2015 7:10 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree w/ all this! actually since we are super busy and sleep-deprived from our two young boys we had to watch this movie in short installments over the course of a few days. it worked really well that i thought.

I want to see it again, def. I watched Reality Bites on the weekend & his Boyhood dad feels a bit like grown up Troy when I think back on it :)

It had a "lightness" but there was always the looming threat of something traumatic on the horizon. Refreshing that it never really went there.

a few other thoughts:

- my wife and i thought a lot about ethan hawke's transformation -- selling the cool car, getting a minivan, marrying a square-ish girl from a texan christian family, not scoffing too much at the bible and church, growing the moustache. with the rest of the alcoholic husbands throughout the movie, we thought that maybe hawke was once and alcoholic too and maybe in the background was doing work to get sober and starting a new christian life was part of that. there seemed to be a lot of focus on people pouring drinks at mason's graduation party and we noticed hawke's character was drinking water so we were convinced of this. but then that scene when he is talking to mason at the music club about mason's ex-girlfriend he is casually enjoying a beer, so that was it for our theory i guess. we were wrong. still that transformation was very interesting to watch.

- like others i really hated the restaurant scene with the mexican guy. as an hispanic i was just weirded out seeing this guy thank this white woman and her white family for changing his life based on one totally obvious piece of advice ("go to school"!!!) that would occur to most people thinking about striving for success. it was the one sour moment for me in the film and i thought it was totally unnecessary. then my wife pointed out that there was something incongruous about that advice, about how yea the mom went through night school and worked hard for a career but at the same time she seemed unsatisfied and restless throughout her life and never quite found stability or satisfaction.

- i thought it was a little strange that mason drove by himself to his first year at college -- that seems so far outside the norm for most college kids and their families but i guess it really wasn't far off for mason's character and his mom's character. sam and mason seemed very independent throughout the film and their mom seemed mostly hands off (e.g. it was the stepfather that was pissed that mason would come home later, not the mom, she didn't care much about him getting high or drinking).

- anyways i thought the first day at college thing was done so perfectly. like this is such a huge thing to get to college on your first day and realize "i can do whatever the fuck i want." sure, i can eat some pot brownies and skip this orientation thing to go hiking with these people i just met, that sounds great. i didn't have quite a cool experience as mason on my first day at college but i totally identified with that sense of freedom and i thought linklater did a good job conveying that freedom and openness.

yeah I also had an almost movie-like skip orientation moment. It was literally me, my roommate, and my roommate's cool friend (who I wound up close friends with) about to start an orientation sack race, looking at each other, and saying "Let's get the fuck out of here." Unfortunately it declined from there and consisted mostly of us trying and failing to get into frat parties.

marcos on at least ten different marks

they should have called this "boring white people over time"

id def of seen it sooner if that was the title

they should have called this "boring white people over time"

― chaki (kurt schwitterz), Friday, August 7, 2015 11:27 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I love how that title works on two levels

i finally saw hoop dreams and can report that boyhood is basically like a white hoop dreams, though lamer.

Just rewatched Hoop Dreams last week. (I was thinking of showing it to my grade 6 class--once I got up to the fifth or sixth thing I was going to need to mute, I abandoned the idea.)

I can see the comparison. Love both films.

Arthur's mom getting her nursing certification = Mason's mom going back to school. Films very much about motherhood, too (and fatherhood, though not as much).

the wrong one won the oscar.

Yes, Hoop Dreams was robbed of the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar 20-odd years ago.

lol

lol, that should have read AN oscar

I just watched this for the first time the other day and loved it. It so vividly captures how childhood is a prison. Wish the acting was better all around - Ellar is OK, Lorelai is very good, main adult players are all great, but a lot of the kids & people who appear in a scene or two are rough. Loved all the loose ends - the leering restaurant manager, the step-kids, the second stepdad appearing in only three scenes - and the elision of the everyday over big, obvious moments. I like Linklater but I'm not the biggest fan, I find him kind of dull or "simple" for lack of a better word, and whatever bugs or disappoints me about him is all in that last scene and the final lines of the movie, which he wrote back in 2002. But good lord I'm glad Terrence Malick had nothing to do with this. I remember reading about it in ~2004 and being convinced that someone crucial would die before completion. I wasn't seeing movies so much when it finally came out in 2014 and now it's been four years and I've only just gotten around to it. Easily Linklater's best. Don't know why people love Dazed and Confused so much.

The plumber reappearing after all those years was the only completely ridiculous and unbelievably stupid and tone deaf moment of the movie. Felt like a commercial for DeVry University.

I think ultimately the best thing about this is how much of an ambitious undertaking it was and how mild and ordinary the result was.

Never been a Linklater superfan, but find myself appreciating him more with age.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/movies/score/metascore/all/filtered

The Top 5 rated films of all time:

Citizen Kane
Godfather
Rear Window
Casablanca
Boyhood

Science!

I don't know if this was ever posted on ILX--don't see anything on this thread, and nothing comes up when I search the filmmaker's name. I'd never seen it till it turned up on my FB wall today. Looks like he beat Boyhood by about 15 years (and I know there are the Brown sisters, who got their photograph taken every year for four decades).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfqpqiTMUEg