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?

i'm not choosing, i'm just a bit surprised at myself.

Before Midnight was so fake that it made MGM look like Cassavetes.

i assume you refer to the MGM that made "22 jump street" :)

Random Harvest starring Melissa Leo and Jonah Hill

but yeah, i found it fake, but i could have been looking at it from the most unflattering angle.

i remember hating richard brody's review when i read it (before having seen the film). it's still stupid and self-regarding in the usual brody way, but i think it was built on an accurate observation that he inflated into a rather misguided attack on "naturalism" (funny from a defender of mumblecore!). the observation being that the muted stylistic approach of the last two "before" films is treated as a guarantor of realism when it isn't really any such thing. the first film is rather more obviously and expressively stylized, and i'd argue that linklater is probably aware of the stylization of the latter two films as well. yet there's still something in brody's basic reaction to the film....

anyway.

(random harvest is a powerful film BTW)

re mumblecore: i see a few critics fawning over joe swanberg's films (smart people like dan sallitt and "smart-set" people like brody) and i want to take a gun to my head. wtf. i 'd rather watch almost any TV drama than a joe swanberg film. i'd watch a marathon of "taxi brooklyn" to avoid seeing another swanberg film.

Have seen two or three Swanberg films, he's OK, at least some of the time.

I agree RL's been overrated of late, but the only 3 films of his I've really liked in the last dozen years are A Scanner Darkly, Me and Orson Welles, and Fast Food Nation.

Holly Willis FC piece on Boyhood:

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/richard-linklater-boyhood

Release dates across the U.S. (scroll down a little):

http://thefilmstage.com/news/find-out-when-and-where-you-can-see-richard-linklaters-boyhood/

Thank you! Going to see it on Saturday...

The thing this reminded me most of all was Marclay's The Clock - films about time passing, and where the content constantly alerts you to the film's actual duration (ie "Oh he's fifteen now, must be about twenty minutes to go").

Film is too long, and the last third is by far the weakest.

Hardly gone to the cinema in the last month - World Cup and all that.

Making up for it, hopefully should see nearly three hours of this and nearly five hours of Norte - The End of History to compensate.

Agreed it was too long. And would directors please stop casting their kids in major roles? The sister's horrendous acting really sticks out. Maybe it was just too overhyped, or the reviewers are falling in love with their own "they grow up so fast" schtick, but I was bored to death, and I love his movies.

Kudos to Patricia Arquette for going zaftig, though--you could hear the anorexic New York audience gasp in horror when she first came on screen

saw this last night, it was singular and great. so much minutiae, so much to watch and look at. emotionally overwhelming in virtually every way.
i could have watched 3 more hours tbh.

i haven't seen the film, but i HAVE read the thread (lol), and i'm probably alone in enjoying the little dustup above about the utility of having the same actor throughout.

lorelai linklater a real highlight of this, the most vibrant part of the first half of the film. so many good lines w/the asshole stepdad.

she kinda disappeared in the second part but you are otm about her humor in the beginning
the blue cup made my heart sink so hard. i knew what was coming.

Lol'd heartily at the scene where she was singing "Ooops I did it again" while beating her little brother up.

(Potentially interesting retromanic thesis on how/if at all the use of songs marks the different years. Generally the tech is more evocative of a particular year)

The songs totally marked the passage of time -- no question about that!

Loved the movie! Some bits seemed unnecessary (condescending plumber "arc" in particular), but so many powerful moments. Lorelei Linklater was great, and pitch-perfect as a sullen teenager. So heartbreaking that you never see their step-siblings again.

The movie really captured the way that kids are completely powerless (and usually mostly-clueless) to the circumstances of their adults in their lives. But also how resilient they are to all of the chaos. Tragic and hopeful at the same time.

the last third is by far the weakest.

Sure, in that life's final third is by far the weakest.

Admittedly, tho, the longer it went the more frustrating it got -- but that played at least in part as a reflection of the now post-pubescent Mason ascribing tentative significance to his own existence, compared to the more fragmented, sensory nature of the earliest years.

Like Tree of Life, it's made by an adult who no matter what he feels about boyhood has mixed opinions about manhood.

Like Tree of Life, it's made by an adult who no matter what he feels about boyhood has mixed opinions about manhood.

― You are exactly why people root for the apes (Eric H.), Tuesday, July 22, 2014 3:54 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just saw the movie last night and I think I might've 'watched' it in a very different light than what has been discussed so far here.

One of my favorite bookends in this movie was the contrast between the ~9 year old Mason having his long hair shorn off at the behest of stepdad 1 and the teenaged Mason blowing off stepdad 2 when he gives Mason shit about the earrings and nail polish. Basically this isn't a particularly queer movie but I am pretty into anything that celebrates resistance to the intergenerational enforcement of masculinity.

Also I was amused at how by the end of the movie Mason had more or less grown up into a rambling, contemplative, slightly out-there Richard Linklater character whose musings in the desert wouldn't have been out of place in Waking Life.

There was some great parts in this...but there was so many cringe inducing moments that made me feel like I was watching an episode of some WB sitcom monstrosity.

The scene where the Latin American comes to the table to "thank" Patricia Arquette for telling him he was "smart enough" and that he should go to college was some truly vile and condescending nonsense.

The third part of the film and the scenes between Mason and his gf was full of horrible acting and felt like I was watching a One Tree Hill/Dawson's Creek B-side.

I could go on but there were many moments that were either just straight up corny and cliche riddled at best or condescending and completely unaware at worst....

It wasn't a bad film by any means but the hype is not justified.

Also, for all of the talk about innovation...I also found it aesthetically very boring and bland.

Yeah the thing with the plumber-then-restaurant-manager was kinda garbage.

But I unreservedly love Teen Feelings as a genre and I have no objections to any of the girlfriend stuff.

For as many plot elements as there are that feel like they were transposed from a much inferior movie, Linklater has a way of presenting them in ways that seem surprising and observational and of-the-moment. Like someone said upthread (I think), the restaurant scene ought to be a Hallmark moment, but Patricia Arquette seems so unmoved by the man's testimonial that you're not even sure she remembers the incident at all. The drunken stepfather does stock villainous things, but then some of his asides emphasize the self-destructive angle, which I wasn't expecting since thru the eyes of a child, he's just being straight up terrifying.

That all said, Tree of Life hit me deeper for sidestepping plot almost entirely.

Lorelai Linklater's character is better than her acting abilities, but she gets better as she gets older. Can't blame the man for only casting one kid to stick it out for 12 years.

I feel like this is the anti-Tree of Life in a lot of ways (visually, for sure, but also anti-memory in a way) but it hit home in the same places for me.

The last third >>>>>first third.

I may be alone, but the actor playing Mason is such a compelling camera subject as he ages: the drawl, reminiscent of Wiley Wiggins, the offhand way in which he lands on one of Linklater's portentous lines. Too many monologues, yes, but high schoolers monologize too, and he knows when to cut

Love the moment when Arquette accepted Hawke's offer of dough. Excellent production design: the genteel poverty of an assistant professor. Neither children nor the movie judge her either.

This was everything the mendacious Before Midnight was supposed to be.

Eric OTM about how the restaurant scene played.

The third part of the film and the scenes between Mason and his gf was full of horrible acting and felt like I was watching a One Tree Hill/Dawson's Creek B-side.

you mean it was a good "Dawson's Creek" episode.

"mendacious"? i mean, jeez, i didn't like it either, but...

I enjoyed this, in particular the sense of how memories and self-narratives are made up of minor moments (not always the landmarks that the mother lists at the end). Agree with everyone else about the hamfisted restaurant scene - I guess the intention was to contrast the fact that kids rarely express explicit gratitude? The daughter did fine with a limited part ("ok in this scene, look glum!"), the son was pretty likeable for a "weird kid" - and way more successful with girls than my friends were.

Biggest laugh in my aisle: "I could go on sabbatical!"

Mystery that bugged me throughout the last 30 minutes (and since): where did Mason go to school in the end?

I don't mind the restaurant scene anymore because Arquette played it well.

it dovetailed with the film's theory that you're most appreciated by people who don't know you well.

http://www.amfm-magazine.com/boyhood-epic-story-in-an-epic-state/

When Mason finally does escape, he ends up on the other side of the state, at some college (possibly UTEP or Sul Ross) driving distance from Big Bend National Park. “He wanted to get as far away from home as possible,” Linklater said, “it’s a long, long way – you’re halfway to LA at that point, but you’re still in Texas.”

Aha, thanks - I thought there might have been something obvious that I didn't pick up on. When he's arriving for the first time there was a sign on one of the buildings but I couldn't make it out.

so basically it was a movie but it took a really long time

otm

i liked it for the nostalgic moments of verisimilitude -- there were definite tics and references that i would not expect to see in a movie unless they were being recorded in secret -- but gawd linklater really only has one idea of male adolescence/youngadulthood doesn't he? there was so much of ol' wiley wiggins in this and i didn't really like dazed and confused either. also a few moments where that dazed and confused era seeped through weirdly, when mason was around wiley's age. and that's juxtaposed with the weird lack of pop culture history throughout, which i always hate about recent-period pieces; aside from samantha singing along with "comfortably numb" and i guess mason's understanding of the beatles everything was kept so current, ignoring how heavy the culture of our elders weighs on us as we grow up.

that wouldn't have stuck out so much if linklater wasn't so insistent on marking time with present pop culture

aside from samantha singing along with "comfortably numb" and i guess mason's understanding of the beatles everything was kept so current, ignoring how heavy the culture of our elders weighs on us as we grow up.

that's precisely what the movie doesn't do!

The scene with the solo Beatles comp played like "Oh, god, another generation corrupted" -- oh, even a post-boomer dad can't resist a comp with solo George.

Friend who I saw this with pointed out that watching Ethan Hawke age was at least as interesting as watching the kid grow up

xp that's like the only thing! and there's no way linklater intended for the scene to be read that way. he's still got ideas about sensitive male authenticity he pushes on everything.

it's interesting that with a film built around pop culture refs we don't really get to know the individual things mason likes as he gets to the age where he'd probably start over-identifying with them. just photography and graffiti and not lacrosse.

the lack of the line "lacrosse players are assholes" broke the verisimilitude for me tbh

eh I've actually known kids his age detached from pop culture; later they learn that this is how they presented themselves.

struck me as a sign of the last third's undercookedness, too many teenage waking life monologues and authority figure lessons, not enough bullshit

wish i had a teacher like mr. terlington in HS though

Haven't read the last couple weeks' posts, but liked this. Great? gtfo.

What makes the last third work is THAT KID -- he just has that translucent cinematic object quality.

Linklater's daughter seemed like a plausibly annoying teenager. This could be the best P Arquette performance I've seen too.

Is this the first time RL has shot inside the Continental Club since Slacker?

fuck pop culture history btw

(except lib idiocy about Obama '08 was nicely documented, semi-unintentionally)

What makes the last third work is THAT KID -- he just has that translucent cinematic object quality.

I'm glad you caught it too. This part of the movie's been shortchanged.

and it's beyond him being model-beautiful.

most def think the 'Black Album' scene was partly satirical, even if Linklater can't hate on the Beatles to Alfred's satisfaction.

Mason's embarrassed gratitude is the giveaway.

and it's beyond him being model-beautiful

Rather, it's all about how close he came to that level without ever actually quite getting there.

speaking of model-beautiful: Charlie Sexton as Mason, Sr's musician buddy!

yeah i didnt realize that was him til the credits.

go back to yr Dave Franco scrapbook, E.

i recognized one of the louts in the karate "camping" scene as the kid who was punched out by Robert Forster in The Descendants. Has he aged out of playing teen apes yet?

http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.8882997.1406222743!/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/display_600/image.JPG

also this was seldom v "Hallmark" or anywhere near tearjerky. I'm trying to think of a comparable piece where the last words we hear from a sympathetic parent as his/her kid departs is a grave-echoey "I expected more."

co-sign on Arquette, have not been that impressed with her in a long time. amusing to see her with her Medium haircut midway through.

Thought I'd seen the late-film girlfriend, Sheena, before, but I think I was just confusing her with Joanna Newsom.

Brooklyn audience obligingly laughed at the hicks and their Bible and guns

Pretty sure that moment will play to laughter everywhere it plays.

What teenager ever wanted a Bible for their birthday?

Jerry Falwell.

so when Mason Sr steals the McCain sign are ppl laughing AT him, or...

(tells the kid to steal it, rather)

Your Armond still needs a little spit and polish, but it's getting there.

(Of course people are laughing at him!)

I'm assuming the 2012 prez campaign wasn't mentioned cuz even Austinites couldn't fake it anymore.

A film crit on my wall remarked on the unusualness in the 21st century of letting Mason drive to college on his first day of dorm check-in.

letting Mason drive ALONE, that is.

but gawd linklater really only has one idea of male adolescence/youngadulthood doesn't he?

What other ideas is he supposed to have -- YOURS? Rather perhaps you mean he has similar ways of expressing his sense of this period, which only makes sense.

You ppl sure paid a lot of attention to Wiley Wiggins. I've seen D&C 4 or 5 times and Waking Life at least twice, and every time he's mentioned I have to remind myself who he is.

he's not as cute as Mason.

just saw computer chess, did not recognize him.

Wiley Wiggins was in that?!

i think ethan hawke was my fave part abt this whole thing, like it was almost secretly a film about a deadbeat dad coming of age a decade and a half late. even towards the end he's still kind of giving shitty advice to mason but he's totally a way better dad than he's ever been up to that point

The audience sort of laughed/sighed/clucked at EH's "Women always wanna trade up" line near the end.

Because we saw so little of Mason's best friend, their relationship was ambiguous for me to wonder for a few minutes whether he and Mason were lovers and that's why they were nervous about attending the graduation party.

its just awkward bein a teen, man

Alfred hoping 'Richard Linklater' was a pseud for Gus Van Sant

i think ethan hawke was my fave part abt this whole thing, like it was almost secretly a film about a deadbeat dad coming of age a decade and a half late. even towards the end he's still kind of giving shitty advice to mason but he's totally a way better dad than he's ever been up to that point

Yeah, I think this is what I enjoyed most about the movie.

total number of shooting days: 39

http://www.austinmonthly.com/Austin-Amplified/March-2014/SXSW-2014-Q-A-with-Richard-Linklater-Ethan-Hawke-and-Ellar-Coltrane/

sheena is a dead ringer for joanna n -- otm!
i noticed that too and wondered if she was chosen specifically for that reason and then given the name "sheena"

also i knew that mason sr's dad looked like a famous person. charlie sexton -- of course!! dude totally has the look of a lifer in the music biz. great casting.

btw gross this weekend was over $1.7 M on 107 screens

Alfred hoping 'Richard Linklater' was a pseud for Gus Van Sant

Well, there was the nail polish too.

extra lols at Mason Sr marveling over Roger Clemens' pitching performance circa 2005, unaware that he's 'roided up.

i was proud and then then ashamed to know that year was 2005 based on clemens' ERA

and

What other ideas is he supposed to have -- YOURS? Rather perhaps you mean he has similar ways of expressing his sense of this period, which only makes sense.

You ppl sure paid a lot of attention to Wiley Wiggins. I've seen D&C 4 or 5 times and Waking Life at least twice, and every time he's mentioned I have to remind myself who he is.

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 28, 2014 10:01 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no -- "ideas" was the wrong word i guess, i am talking really literally about the type of people linklater makes his young male characters, all tending to be variations of that boho slacker ideal just placed into different movies at different times. mason was very similar to me as a teenager! that's sort of the problem. his movies have these Authentic Young Male Experiences while the boys around the protag are all of lesser meaning, lacking that spark of significance and philosophy and vulnerability and artistic concern, and the girls are all just crushes or girlfriends or some sort of seductresses. i don't know why i expected different from him this time. i thought it was good up until the high school years but then linklater's favorite character to write surges forth. though you could tell he was gonna go that way with the "you spend all class looking out the window" comment in the beginning. i get very annoyed by writers who spend decades without ever divorcing their young characters with their own youths or their own ideas of what their youths should have been. i will say that his bio parents (even with hawke being another extension of this type) were well-written.

and when i say wiley wiggins i'm just talking about his character in D+C whose name i don't remember. had no idea he was in WW.

you're getting awfully huffy about something you found merely good, do you always yell your way into realizing you like a movie more than originally thought?

er had no idea he was in *waking life

WW, WL, etc

you're getting awfully huffy about something you found merely good, do you always yell your way into realizing you like a movie more than originally thought?

― linda cardellini (zachlyon)

aw you don't know our Morbs!

Yeah, it usually goes the opposite direction.

It'll happen with this one the more people that see it.

:p

you are confused

i do think Ed had it right that the Obama-sign scene was worth "cringing" over

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/boyhood

(least enthusiastic review on Metacritic btw; just about right)

Note that Ed also says "the growth of our country's political climate," not "the decline of our country's political climate."

yeah well, I don't know what he's looking at. just us getting screwed over by pols across the demographic spectrum, perhaps, like any satisfied Democrat.

I'm sorry if I was yelling at you, zachylon. I didn't find this particular adolescent tiresome, I guess, bcz he was complaing about a society of compliant "robots" unlike anyone in, say, "the brilliant Her," or those two curdled middle-aged whingers in Before Menopause.

You're totally right. People complaining about a society of compliant robots never gets old or tiresome.

truth 24x a second

if that's what gets you going then boy do i have some immensely popular facebook image macros saying the exact same things you might like

just cuz dummies are saying something badly doesn't mean it isn't true.

No one would call you dummy to your face

I would.

Oh wait, would we have to be in the same room together?

Eric, let's not bring your pillow talk in here.

*our

A book full of clippings.

The general atmosphere is very "Golden Girls"-ish.

Thank Christ those seasonal gay threads are over

anyway, why hasn't Linklater been called out as a Grumpy Old Man for putting his Facebook Zombie monologue in the mouth of a poor teenage actor?

http://31.media.tumblr.com/64d92f610a8a106a5075318c6ba08323/tumblr_mn6xfvQyVM1sp9olpo1_500.gif

johnwayneshootsthegoldengirls.gif

why hasn't Linklater been called out as a Grumpy Old Man for putting his Facebook Zombie monologue in the mouth of a poor teenage actor?

cuz he's almost model-handsome

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lj02wyz89E1qakh43o1_400.gif

anyway, why hasn't Linklater been called out as a Grumpy Old Man for putting his Facebook Zombie monologue in the mouth of a poor teenage actor?

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, July 29, 2014 8:27 AM (41 minutes ago)

the (really great) Vulture profile on Ellar Coltrane you posted upthread says it was the kid's idea:

Linklater would give him extracurricular assignments: “When you find yourself alone talking to a girl in an intimate situation, go home and write it up.” Two write-ups — about Star Wars and the evils of Facebook — made it into the movie.

Ellar Coltrane: A New Hope

this is cute

amorbsable

his movies have these Authentic Young Male Experiences while the boys around the protag are all of lesser meaning, lacking that spark of significance and philosophy and vulnerability and artistic concern, and the girls are all just crushes or girlfriends or some sort of seductresses.

i don't think there's only one kind of teenage protagonist to portray, & so sure there are probably wilder terrains into which linklater could drag his movies about youth, but i do think that portraying a teenager with reference to the distance between him & his peers, or by focusing on the myopic solipsism of adolescents, is something that would be common to a lot of those portrayals, rather than evidence that they're all the same. it's a key characteristic of that group, perceived specialness & vividness & realness compared to others. those monologues aren't there as conversation with the viewer, they're there as demonstrations of his thinking & priorities as a, whatever, nineteen year old; semi-sanctimonious, internalised & attempting to distinguish himself. reminded of gus van sant's beautifully captured kinda anomic youths in paranoid park - you aren't watching it to hang out & be persuaded by the insights of teenagers but to be reminded of the kind of logic that felt available, then.

paranoid park is sort of the opposite though -- a singular teenager desperately yearning to fit in with the cool subculture kids (with casualties) who aren't really presented as special (other than for the aesthetic wonders of being good at sk8board), and neither is he, he's just a kid dealing with the depression of teen ennui/shitty experiences/accidentally killing a dude/really wanting to feel loved. the narrative structures mason as having that special spark as though other kids his age aren't all filled with those feelings of romance. not necessarily saying that linklater presents him as being better than everyone else (there's clearly some self-awareness of youth/naivete) just that he only likes writing these male characters built around vulnerability/sensitivity/artistic inclinations/philosophy-garble-a-la-waking-life while that one character's peers blend in with the normal old wallpaper of life, or they're girls that "get" him but are too busy being girls to "get" him enough. it gets boring!

if he has that "special spark," it's because the movie is about a kid whose has a talent that may or may not be realized. That ambiguity is important! There's no suggestion that his future is made

couldn't POSSIBLY get as boring as Paranoid Park

yeah Linklater has been a tot hottie for decades but after the teo films preceding this one he goes back in the line.

There were things I liked, and I was never bored, and I definitely liked it better than the last two Great American Films, The Master and The Tree of Life. What’s most admirable about the film--that it almost wholly stays clear of manufactured great moments--is also kind of where it fell it a little short for me, though. I wish it had risked a few of those. In the end, I just was never really moved, like with (to pick the most obvious parallel) the Apu Trilogy.

--interesting how much Mason’s girlfriend looked like a young Patricia Arquette; I thought Ethan Hawke was about to mention that when they were talking on the club’s balcony, but no one ever did
--Lorelei Linklater as the daughter must have done a great job, because there were times when I really hated her
--not sure what was up with the music; there was some at the beginning, then it would disappear for long stretches...not saying I wanted American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused, that wouldn't have worked at all, it just felt unfinished; Yo La Tengo was nice
--having Arquette essentially go through the same thing twice with her second and third husbands was odd (though it set up a funny line from Mason)
--liked the ending

Saw it at a multiplex, and the theatre was more than half-full for an afternoon screening (holiday Monday here)--more than I expected.

also if you even refer to me on so much as a film thread i will hunt you down

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius)

I think my favourite moment in the film was the Harry Potter girl who got her book right after Mason--you could see the joy in her face. Wish there'd been a little more of that. I've read through the thread, and at the risk of resurrecting a little flare-up, I don't think Aimless's point was unreasonable. By the time Ellar Coltrane hits 15, I had lost the connection to his younger self--if it had been a different actor, I don't think that would have changed my feelings about the film at all. But I do understand the other side, that if it's a different actor, the film loses the very thing that makes it special.

I understand the point but it didn't bother me: kids change a lot in a couple years. A dull boy suddenly discovers a talent. or vice versa.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ethanhawke/boyhood-the-black-album

I liked the Beatles scene. Nothing to do with the Beatles, it just seemed very genuine--that Hawke would take the trouble to put together that CD (and, as the daughter said, endlessly fuss over it), and that he'd be so excited about giving it to his son. Having done the same myself many times, I related. And to the son's response, a "Cool" that amounted to a shrug of the shoulders. I remember giving a friend a 5-CD set for her birthday that had the entire Top 100 on the day she was born, and basically it was, "Hmph--why would you ever do that?"

His new wife, I mean, not the daughter.

how comes Ethan Hawke suddenly started dressing like his grandfather in chinos and such?? woulda been more convincing had he kept on wearing 'cool dad' clothes as he got older and older. those suits and stuff really jarred.

My initial reaction to the film was that this was good...has some cringy moments, but not bad and certainly nowhere near amazing.

It seems most on this thread liked it but I hear no one raving that this is a cinematic masterpiece.

So why the unanimous critical rapture ?

We don't write for newspapers?

Movie critics see so much shit that anything remotely good gets extra scrutiny and praise.

it took a really long time

I have been thinking about the film today, and that's a good thing. I thought the ending was great. Not so much the philosophical content--in a way that was almost funny, but a good kind of funny, not so-bad-it's-funny; I was laughing when I thought of how my dad would have reacted to a three-hour movie that ends with Mason's clarifying thought--but just the overall feeling, and the smile on the girl's face. (I was also jealous that I didn't look like Mason--where were all these girls throwing themselves at me when I went through university?)

I was listening to the Wussy album in the car today, and this song felt like it contained some of Boyhood.

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

Actually my audience of Brooklyn elitists laughed initially at the final lines, thinking it "druggy" and then bringing themselves up short when they realized the intent was Serious. These are the type of people I blame for the Before Trilogy Cult.

It did have some drugginess to it, for sure, but I thought it walked right up to the point where you might laugh it, where it could have been something Cheech or Chong would have said, but worked perfectly--as a summation of the film, as perfectly true to the characters, and as just a nice note to go out on. It had a touch of lightness to it (as opposed to, for me, the dreariness of Tree of Life).

Kevin Turan of the LA Times had a nice dissenting opinion review of it recently, but it seems to be behind their paywall. I kind of agree that while I liked it a lot, I don't think it's a great movie or even a top-10 of the year movie. And I can't help but think that if it didn't have its 12-year, same actors thing, it wouldn't be getting all this adulation.

I disagree with most of it -- too many equivocations and apologies.

My initial reaction to the film was that this was good...has some cringy moments, but not bad and certainly nowhere near amazing.

It seems most on this thread liked it but I hear no one raving that this is a cinematic masterpiece.

So why the unanimous critical rapture ?

― oscar, Tuesday, August 5, 2014 7:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because many critics are parents who feel sad about their kids leaving the nest

Pinning down the Boyhood game:

https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/which-astros-game-did-the--boyhood--characters-attend-164003306.html

I may be way off here, but I think the movie may rehabilitate Clemens somewhat in the public eye. Clemens, at this point, has been reduced to a symbol and a caricature. I know as I watched the scene myself, he was just Clemens again--it was the person, and it felt immediate.

― clemenza, Wednesday, August 6, 2014 5:43 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

UPDATE (August 5): Steve from the Astros got back to us after doing some digging and confirmed the above theory. On August 18, 2005, the crew went and shot the game Clemens pitched. The following April, on the 17, Ethan Hawke and the other actors went to the game where Lane homered to left. A big thanks to the Astros for confirming our detective work.

lies, so many lies, simply disgusting

I agree that Turan spends too much time setting up his review, but it felt honest, and I related to some of it (independent of Boyhood itself). Just in terms of ILX, I didn't post much on The Tree of Life, The Master, or The Wolf of Wall Street. I don't enjoy being a contrary voice either. There was a time when I did--I wrote a long fanzine piece in the mid-'90s detailing all the things I didn't like about Pulp Fiction (conceding that I loved some of it--and like Turan, I'm still basically in the same place). I felt like I was absolutely right, and enjoyed railing on about it.

I don't have the energy anymore, and it always does feel a little contrived to me when I'm in that position. I still say my piece, but I try not to belabor the point--it's not like you're going to change the mind of anybody who loved something you hated, and really, why would want to?

they actually shot one pitch per game over the course of an 81 home-game season

I've written more than my share of against the grain reviews and when I was an editor commisioned them, and never with the intention of changing anyone's mind. The point, I think, beyond the pleasure of writing such an appraisal, is to raise questions, examine points missed by others, provoke second and third thoughts. Turan's skittishness was the wrong approach. Just grit your teeth and say what you mean -- don't apologize to readers for not getting it.

I agree with that. I got where he was coming from within a paragraph or two, and he didn't need four more rephrasing the same set-up. I thought his specific objections to the film were well stated, but he also said he liked things about it, and he should have spent some time on that.

shit, I've read a few intelligent demurrals and dismissals on this thread.

my main problem aside from the Obama-sign stuff was that THE INSTANT Drunk Husband #1 is seen in that first classroom scene, everyone can say "Oh there's a dick."

I didn't.

And I think it was nicely done, the way they show her teaching at San Marcos and it's very visible that she's learned from and to some extent adopted his style as a teacher, even as he turned out to be a drunk asshole and she got rid of him as a husband.

Yeah Drunk Husband #1 didn't strike me as immediately dickish

tend to think going out with a student is dickish even if the student is a real adult and not a teenager

Fair point, but I don't think one sees the mom as a fool for not anticipating what kind of dick he'd turn out to be. It's not a "don't open that door you idiot!" horror movie situation.

Similarly, the fact that some of the characters are depicted canvassing for Obama doesn't read, except to a few nutjobs, as evidence of zombification being passed between generations.

In the scene in his classroom, he seemed awkward and maybe a little bland to me, but I didn't foresee that he was going to be this tyrannical drunk, no.

I liked the Obama scene. Nothing particularly to do with Obama, I just thought the way the guy said "Do I look like a Barack Hussein Obama supporter?" was funny. Reminded me of the NWA line, "Do I look like motherfucking role model?"

BTW I am one of those people who thought this was a really, really great movie. Surely the best I've seen this year though tbf I haven't seen many movies this year.

I noticed during Arquette's classroom lecture that she's indirectly responding to husband #1's behaviorist tendencies.

It's not a "don't open that door you idiot!" horror movie situation.

That's exactly what it was for me

I liked the Obama scene. Nothing particularly to do with Obama

yep, you're Canadian

Before the Jim Beam-behind-the-Tide scene Husband #1 came off as bland and overeager, infatuated with the idea that in his own mind he's a good professor: exactly the man whom a woman in Arquette's situation would choose.

I'm still not sure why Arquette then took up with a second (albeit milder) drunk. If the idea is the obvious interpretation, that there was something about her character that sought these men out, that doesn't jibe with Hawke.

(xpost) We're gonna let that one pass.

Professor, yes, was the one case where she seemed to clearly be striving to build a family the responsible way. I read war vet as a backtrack to the same girlish attitudes that paired her with Hawke.

I thought both of them exhibited a certain maturity, integrity and discipline (at first obv) that would make them good stepdads...unlike hawke

there was also a whiff of the shorthand of Maladjusted War Vet that mildly rankled me.

Professor/Drunk Husband's classroom lecture had a I'm-funny-and-hot-shit air that would lead me to demand a return of tuition, or perhaps just get someone to take notes for me in absentia.

you haven't been to college either

I meant if I was going now in the wisdom of middle age obv

idk where yall are getting this "professor seemed cool at first" shit i immediately thought he was presented as sinister and a bit creepy

also lol at "does she seek these men out" wtf literally neither of them presented any sign of alcoholism until post-wedding from what we see, but sure let's find a way to blame her on some level

"obvious interpretation" gtfo

Where'd you get the idea he blamed her?

To choose these two guys doesn't mean she was a masochist

What are you talking about, Zach? If, in a film or a book, a female character becomes involved with two men in a row who turn out to be two versions of the same basic character--one extreme and one mild--of course it's an obvious interpretation that the director or writer might be saying there's something in her character that causes her to do so. If it's a man and the same pattern, same obvious interpretation. That's basic. On top of which, I was questioning the interpretation--pointing out that Ethan Hawke didn't fit the pattern--not endorsing it. A couple of people offered possible explanations that both seemed reasonable. Your indignation's a little misplaced.

quickest explanation: Texas

how in the world does she "seek out" two men who are nothing alike aside from their varying levels of alcoholism when both present themselves as perfectly charming and sensible men with no hints of impending alcoholism until much later in their relationships? how does that work as an analysis of her aside from some weird subconscious drive she has towards traits lurking deep in the depths of men

now i can sort of understand, and i suspect, that linklater was going for some variation of "poor single mothers tend to overlook/ignore early warning signs in their relationships" but your wording was that she "sought out" these men, which puts a bizarre amount of agency on her

If, in a film or a book, a female character becomes involved with two men in a row who turn out to be two versions of the same basic character--one extreme and one mild--of course it's an obvious interpretation that the director or writer might be saying there's something in her character that causes her to do so.

like how is it so easy to put that interpretation on her agency rather than her environment, her context and the opportunities they offer her? mb you are used to books and films that stick characters in a vacuum

If you had another interpretation--and I'm glad you do, and aren't going to try to argue that the similarity is meaningless, or an oversight by the director--then that's all you have to do: state it, without all that "wtf" and "gtfo" nonsense.

both present themselves as perfectly charming and sensible men

I didn't see the alcoholism coming either. But clearly there are people right on this thread who disagree.

i'm sorry i said wtfgtfo

this was very good
it made me anxious and uncomfortable in the first half and i'm trying to understand just why that is.

the whole point of this film is that there's no patterns to life, shit just happens. she ended up with two alcoholics and it could have been better, could have been worse. a lot of people in the world are alcoholics. mason turned out ok and so did she.

Maybe I'm making the mistake of treating it like a conventionally scripted film, where if A and B happen, and they're linked, they must happen for a reason. And it's not that kind of film, so maybe there's something to your randomness argument.

There was one part that really underscored for me how you're conditioned to expect certain things in movies, and Boyhood avoids that. (I'm not claiming it's revolutionary or anything; in general, good films avoid that.) It was the scene where Mason and his friend were sitting around with the high school guys, karate-kicking the planks and telling lies about all the girls they'd slept with. Towards the end, when his friend stood up to hold a board, he was positioned right in front of that sharp projectile already lodged into the wall. I instantaneously heard murmuring in the theatre where I saw it--"Oh no, there's going to be an awful accident here." That was my first reaction too; I just expect those things in movies. Of course nothing happens, and it just moves on to the next scene.

haha yeah I forgot about that scene and had the same reaction

xpost

Think that last point feeds into forks' observation abt the movie making him anxious - being a parent is to exist in a state of anxiety about your child's health, safety, development etc etc. You could say that the film's point of view is basically parental - and at the end Linklater frames his 'son' in the sunlight like any adoring, proud Dad would. I think this indulgence weakens the movie, tho I concede it's also easy to see it as Renoirian humanist sympathy.

That was my first reaction too; I just expect those things in movies. Of course nothing happens

one critic suggested that when Stepdad swerves the car it's too "movie big" for this movie.

Yes--I think the exact same thought occurred to me. Also, later, when Mason doesn't want to keep the first photo he took and Arquette breaks down crying, I thought that was a nice moment that would have been better without explication; she followed with a movie-ish speech that articulated all the things that were making her cry. I'd rather she had just waved him off and been left to think about that on my own.

It would've needed a couple more framing nuances to show this loneliness, though; otherwise the scene merely plays as Arquette's sadness at her boy going to school

no, prepared for or not I prefer "My fucking life is OVER" angle

otherwise the scene merely plays as Arquette's sadness at her boy going to school

Without her speech, some would interpret it that way, yes--and I don't see that as a problem. Others might think, "There's more to it than that," and see it as part of a bigger sadness--end up where Linklater evidently wants us to. The fact that it's specifically Mason not wanting to save his first picture that sets her off, that opens up other interpretations--except once she tells you exactly what's bothering her, those interpretations are closed off. No hard and fast rules, but I think it's generally better when an artist leaves you to mull stuff over on your own.

not every character has to be undemonstrative though

True. Circling back, it just felt movie-ish to me in a way most of the film didn't, like the words came from Linklater rather than the character.

Like many might say: overlong for what it was -- a series of scenes, some better than others, all periods in this film had their moments but also flagged too. Got very 'Before...' when Mason was dating Sheena, dialogue-wise. Looking at my watch with an hour to go: wasn't anything to do with the last section, more a realization the film wasn't going to say or do anything else.

Just to go back upthread it was totally worth doing. One thing Linklater did was to let the boy's personality get through in all its shades, so having the actor grow in real-time worked quite well.

This was really good.

Teenage Mason looked like/reminded me a lot of a high-school friend whom I had a major crush on. :)

I've seen dismissals of Lorelei Linklater's performance, and I feel like it's mostly sneering at nepotism? Because I thought her acting was totally fine, and I found her to be a welcome presence in the film.

If I have complaints, it's that the second and third husbands both seemed a bit cartoonish. I didn't have the same "Don't do it!" reaction as Dr. Morbius did to Professor Bill -- initially, I just thought he seemed like a big doofus, maybe a sleazeball -- but his big showy abusive-drunk scenes suddenly turn him into such a villain, in a movie that most of the time is more nuanced than that. Maybe the issue with both Bill and Jim is that drunk asshole-dom is a presented as a place that they linearly progress into, like their arcs are too mapped out or something. Thus presented in that way, it's time for the film to move on.

Struck me that so much of the film is about Mason's family and social milieu. There aren't many scenes without him, but there also aren't many scenes where's he by himself, and he's not even the focal point of a lot of the scenes that he's in. I kind of love that. It would be easy to approach this film much more as the Journey of an Individual, Seen Through His Eyes, and I think that could be great in its own way -- but I appreciate that it's not.

Got very 'Before...' when Mason was dating Sheena, dialogue-wise.

Ha, this is kind of true. At first, I was annoyed at Mason's monologues on the Austin trip as being overly Linklater-esque and then I justified it as something he inherited from his dad.

There was one part that really underscored for me how you're conditioned to expect certain things in movies, and Boyhood avoids that. (I'm not claiming it's revolutionary or anything; in general, good films avoid that.) It was the scene where Mason and his friend were sitting around with the high school guys, karate-kicking the planks and telling lies about all the girls they'd slept with. Towards the end, when his friend stood up to hold a board, he was positioned right in front of that sharp projectile already lodged into the wall. I instantaneously heard murmuring in the theatre where I saw it--"Oh no, there's going to be an awful accident here." That was my first reaction too; I just expect those things in movies. Of course nothing happens, and it just moves on to the next scene.

― clemenza, Friday, August 8, 2014 6:45 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yeah I forgot about that scene and had the same reaction

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 8, 2014 6:46 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too. Also, when Ethan Hawke warns Mason (I think it's when they're Skyping) not to text while driving, and then a few minutes later, they're on their way to Austin and talking about how smartphones and social media are distractions, and Sheena hands him her phone to show him a photo. And then ... they arrive in Austin.

the whole point of this film is that there's no patterns to life, shit just happens. she ended up with two alcoholics and it could have been better, could have been worse. a lot of people in the world are alcoholics. mason turned out ok and so did she.

― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Friday, August 8, 2014 6:28 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this. I didn't read the fact that these two guys turned out to be alcoholics as a comment on Arquette's character. If anything, what I found interesting was that she married her teacher, and then she married her student.

his big showy abusive-drunk scenes suddenly turn him into such a villain, in a movie that most of the time is more nuanced than that

I'm not disagreeing with this, but I at least appreciated the all important "I don't like myself either" admission from him.

Saw this last night. My wife had the same reaction in the karate scene. I didn't, because I don't expect those kinds of things to happen in Linklater movies -- though obviously it could've, and that could have been a good scene too, because crazy-bad things do happen in real life.

One thing that struck me was how much it consciously or unconsciously echoed so many of his other movies. Dazed and Confused in the high school section, the Before movies in his scenes with his girlfriend and also obviously in just about every scene with Ethan Hawke, Slacker in the college-visit scene where they're watching the crazy old guy in the booth (who could have been sitting there doing the same thing since 1991), Waking Life in the couple of classroom scenes -- it all seemed like sort of a summing-up of Linklater's whole approach to storytelling and filmmaking, which is to as much as possible just observe and listen to people, and let the cumulative effect create its own narrative arc.

I didn't think everything in the movie worked, and I could have done with at least one fewer stepdad -- but then so could Mason, I guess. But there are scenes I already want to watch again. Overall it's quite a thing.

I was thinking just the other day about how there hasn't yet been much cinematic depiction of the early '00s from a later perspective -- and exceptions like The Social Network and Moneyball are, I think, mostly interested in real-life events that just so happened to take place in the early '00s, rather than in the period itself. But here we get Coldplay and Britney Spears, cordless landline phones and first-generation iMacs! It's enough to make me misty.

And apart from the Coldplay, which I take was added in post, they're all in there, of course, because they were commonplace when those scenes were shot. The film can't make too many winking gestures about a previous era because it has to deal with the footage it has. I still love seeing an early '00s Mac version of Oregon Trail, though.

Like even the kid's name, Mason -- if the movie had been shot last year, I'd accuse it of picking a *currently popular* name for its protagonist, who was born in, what, 1995? Mason has been a top-5 name for the last three years but was outside the top 100 in 1995. But they decided on the name in 2002, when it was merely a fast-rising name! So I guess they were just ahead of the curve. (Mason for the dad's name, too, though? I dunno. Maybe in Texas.)

It will be interesting to see how this movie plays in 10 or 20 years, in terms of all those cues. Right now the timeframe it covers is so immediate that we can all say, "Wow, right, things have really changed since 2002." But to an audience a few decades out, I don't think that stuff will matter in the same way (even the "current" stuff will be so dated -- the whole thing will be a period piece anyway). Which in a way I think will make the movie better -- because the central idea of watching this boy grow up will still hold, and there will be less distraction in noticing which version of GameBoy he's playing or whatever.

I think that's true. All of that stuff is basically ambient (as much as it made me deeply contemplate what it was like to be a teenager in the late '00s who campaigned for Obama and listened to Phoenix and Vampire Weekend).

Loved Samantha showing Annie the Lady Gaga "Telephone" video: "Your mom lets you watch this stuff?" "Yeah, she likes it, too!"

I was disappointed by this. I agree with Aimless's view above - that using the same actors actually added bizarrely little to the film. At the end, it felt like it had been a bunch of different actors, or as though Ethan Hawke had had a lot of make-up applied. The whole schtick oddly didn't come through for me.

It was overlong, and somewhat tedious. The way it kept not ending was like Lord of the Rings. The dialogue was often banal, but in a way that was often OK because it was realistic. Maybe the film had some merits. But it wasn't what some people had cracked it up to be.

I was thinking just the other day about how there hasn't yet been much cinematic depiction of the early '00s from a later perspective

imo one of the most underrated aspects of The Big Lebowski is how its a 1998 film that is a period piece set in 1991.

I loved this movie. but I pretty much howled when Patricia Arquette asked her son if he had just toked, mostly cuz it woulda been a much diff experience in my household!

Felt sorry for the second drunk husband. he wasn't abusive so much (much of what he said to Mason was otm actually, except for the cracks about his personal style or the insult to his bio-father), actively defended his mother. just had an alcohol problem (any thoughts on whether PTSD played a role?).

Restaurant manager guy was hilarious.

imo one of the most underrated aspects of The Big Lebowski is how its a 1998 film that is a period piece set in 1991.

Yes!

what was hilarious about the restaurant guy?
i didn't find that scene unbelievable at all btw

also jaymc otm about teacher/student parallel with the men she became involved with
it also seemed obvious that 2nd husband was obsessed with his perceived role as protector given that he was sitting on his porch hours after being off work still in his correctional officer uniform

restaurant guy was hilarious in the restaurant scene just cos of his uber-serious demeanor about the job. it wasn't unrealistic at all, it was good-natured LOLs due to familiarity...reminded me of bosses I had, though granted the culture in restaurants there is diff than in FL.

he took his job super seriously because he worked hard to get there
i don't see what's funny about that but i guess everyone has their own impressions

srs question but did you work in restaurants? maybe it's just my own experience, but the way he treated the fry cook position as if he was offering Mason the Holy Grail is what made me lol. I worked at Steak 'n Shake as a kid and them offering crap like that to me woulda been met w/ a resigned sigh of 'lord I don't think I wanna be here any longer than I have to'.

it was only that scene that was funny to me, but I did like that he showed up to his graduation party. more than just a 'boss', but a friend/mentor, etc

Zach was right upthread (too aggressively so, so I kind of missed his point)--I shouldn't have said Arquette "sought out" these men. "Ended up with" was really all I meant--just typing. So I'm halfway on what that means. I think the randomness-of-life is a reasonable explanation, but part of me still thinks something like that isn't accidental in a film, that the director was trying to indicate something about Arquette's character. Zach's own suggestion, the idea that she might miss early warning signs because of her situation as a single mother, that's also a reasonable explanation. All of this is to the film's credit--that you can look at it two almost opposite ways, and they both make sense to me.

Great point about her moving from her professor to her student, didn't give that any thought.

faculty hanging out w/ their students other than an occasional wine & cheese party on campus seems crepey to me

(but I went to a megalopolis commuter school a looong time ago, so not a universal exp obv)

I suspect LL is talking about the other restaurant guy, the Latino dude

well that makes a little more sense then! forgot there were multiple restaurant scenes.

yeah that's what i was talking about
and yeah i have worked in restaurants and the other guy was pretty funny but also ultimately very supportive of mason! like he was fritzed out from years of doing that job, but he cared earnestly at some level.

Loved restaurant boss guy.

Having him show up at Mason's graduation was great. If he'd only been granted the you're-in-line-for-a-promotion scene, I would have viewed him as a caricature; he's like Judge Reinhold's two bosses in Fast Times at Ridgemont High ("Show some pride, Hamilton"). But the graduation scene redeemed him, and made you reconsider the stuff LL says.

xpost yeah he did turn out to be an endearing figure. I can't think of any boss of mine in restaurants that took any vested interest in my life, other than offering me weed to smoke w/ them.

I did also like how in that first scene, he went from ass-chewing Mason to immediately professing his belief in him. tired of the 'hard assed boss' cliche so it was nice to see him back off once he saw that he had Mason's attention. "Compliment sandwich" i guess.

iirc when he turns up at the graduation he just hangs in the corner because he doesn't know anyone and is pretty shy about making his speech; nice to see two sides of a marginal character

hah yeah I can sympathize w/ him there. been to a few graduation parties wehre I'm like "I wanna show up cos I'm honored he invited me but whodafuq am I gonna know here?"

lamest love interest was the original boyfriend. dude was as bad an actor as the dad from Chronicle, fortunately he was gone quickly.

oh yeah I'd completely forgotten that guy

I was waiting for him to say "can't the kids watch themselves?"

I think the randomness-of-life is a reasonable explanation, but part of me still thinks something like that isn't accidental in a film, that the director was trying to indicate something about Arquette's character.

I thought it was a desire for stability. She certainly seems to explain as much to Mason after he questions her motives post-haircut.

It is interesting that the student ended w/the prof. and the prof. then w/student. Not so much for creepiness -- as they seemed to be adult/part-time colleges -- but how that could affect the relationship throughout a course/people talk. Boyhood always seeks to avoid the usual drama (as I think Clemenza says somewhere). Except with drunk husband, about 10 mins or so in the piece.

Kind of wanted Arquette to end w/Mason's restaurant manager as the one final go @ this relationship lark!

I meant that, above and beyond the desire for stability that anyone in her situation would want, the odd fact that she ends up with two consecutive guys who have a mean-drunk side to them--one fairly mild, one severe. In a normal movie, I think the director would say we already checked that box, let's make the next husband a friendly, dog-loving eco-activist who kills Arquette with kindness.

glad I kept reading and saw the "with kindness" or this might have become a Cronenberg film

ah ok, see I thought the last guy wasn't even that much of a drunk. Just a guy from a small town who really wouldn't understand anybody too much outside his ow milieu and is simply weighed down by his supposed responsibilties. The end of their relationship isn't shown either.

he wasn't a drunk so much in that he didn't get rowdy or abusive when drinking but I took the frequent scenes of him looking deadeyed with brew in hand in the morning to mean he had an issue. my guess was Arquette dropped him either because she had bad memories of her prior husband, or that he grew colder and distant (as he had little of the warmth he showed in earlier scenes). she might have been worried about his relationship with Mason too, that he wasn't a good fit for him as a father figure.

"Parade of drunken assholes" line suggests he was an alcoholic too

The end of their relationship isn't shown either.

Another thing I found odd--he just disappears--but liked; no need at that point for another break-up scene, and you already get that he's something of a problem.

willing to bet he tried to throw Mason out of the house and she told him to fuck off

Also his marginality in the story reflects his marginality in Mason's life. The first stepdad is significant because Mason's younger, it's a bigger life-change, there are step-siblings etc. By the time guy #2 shows up, Mason's already more wrapped up in his own world and can kind of shrug at the whole thing. (I had friends in high school who acquired step-parents at that age, and the relationships were similar -- everyone just tried to stay out of each other's way.)

I agree with the Film Experience blogcast: the second husband is a better character and better drawn than the first, and Linklater's generous enough to give him the one scene in which I can understand the attraction: he speaks well and is hot and young. The movie's weakest moments of drama occur in the middle between the two husbands.

Am I the only one who was getting a goofy perv vibe from the restaurant manager?

i feel like an asshole writing this, but I thought this was... not very good? it all felt so willful, like every moment (esp. in last 45 minutes or so) was goosed to produce epiphanies and revelations. much of it was charming, I never hated it, but I also was a bit bored. it doesn't help that the lead actor was pretty wooden and didn't produce a sense of individual personality.

maybe i just have a contrary bug or something, but this didn't do anything for me

Am I the only one who was getting a goofy perv vibe from the restaurant manager?

― You are exactly why people root for the apes (Eric H.), Friday, August 15, 2014 4:47 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't think he was a perve. i think he was just an awkward guy. i got a bit of a closeted gay vibe.

I got the opposite impression: it was at times so devoted to an American kind of seventies fiction realism -- a lulling flatness -- that it drifted in the middle.

i think i'd prefer the movie where mason has a bite of the pot brownie and instead of having a bargain-basement epiphany he has a panic attack

the whole thing just felt so calculated. also, i kind of want my movie to be a bit more visually rigorous. linklater's capable of really interesting things visually but lately his films are kind pedestrian-looking

sorry for typos...

i can't read through this whole thread. was anyone else kind of indifferent to this? or am i the only person in the world who didn't think this was a masterpiece?

faculty hanging out w/ their students other than an occasional wine & cheese party on campus seems crepey to me

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Friday, August 15, 2014 9:31 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think she was making pancakes, not crepes btw

My initial reaction to the film was that this was good...has some cringy moments, but not bad and certainly nowhere near amazing.

It seems most on this thread liked it but I hear no one raving that this is a cinematic masterpiece.

So why the unanimous critical rapture ?

― oscar, Tuesday, August 5, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe i just have a contrary bug or something, but this didn't do anything for me

― I dunno. (amateurist),

Nah. This has been the only sane place in which to discuss this film without hyperbole.

i have to admit i was sad when patricia arquette left her monster of a 2nd husband and her kids asked if they would ever see their step-siblings again.

but overall i was barely roused... didn't really feel any emotions other than being faintly charmed and amused at times

First husband, no?

was she not married to ethan hawke?

oh right!

imo if you have to watch one new movie where "nothing happens," i'd recommend this one: http://www.fandor.com/films/the_strange_little_cat

yes, i prefer that one too

but you know, it's not an Amerindie and wasn't MADE FOR 12 YEARS

Well Linklater's aiming high, in his keep-Austin-weird way. It's not supposed to be a movie where nothing happens, it's a movie where Life Itself happens. I don't totally buy it, but the flaws are honest and obvious ones (and not surprising ones given his track record).

It still has a lot of great scenes and moments. And I think those come from the patience and the process of the whole thing.

oh shit you can watch The Strange Little Cat online. Been fruitlessly hoping it would come to DC but now I can see it at least. Cheers! xposts

Amateurist I agree with you pretty much, as noted above.

Oh I saw this, and felt the same way as I felt when watching Waking Life. It's impossible to really enjoy this dialogue-ultra-realism without feeling that you're being talked at instead of talked to. Most scenes and situations left me feeling with a desire to participate, like, converse with the characters, but feeling unengaged by the fact that this is meant to be performance, and there is nothing performative about it, it is a recreation of interactivity, but with interactivity removed. I don't know if I can type this as well as I can explain it verbally :/

as usual, i think my disappointment in the film (even though my expectations were low), and the pretty much unanimous critical praise, caused me to be a little harsh. it was definitely affecting at times, and i don't think i disagree with anything tipsy mothra says, although i admit to not being sure what distinguishes an honest/obvious flaw from a dishonest/nonobvious one. i think sometimes linklater coasts on good intentions, or very nearly, and doesn't apply enough filmmaking skill.

i guess the biggest flaw for me was how, for the last 45 or 60 minutes or so, the film felt less like a concatenation of micro-events than a deliberate attempt to track and take stock of "milestones." by the last few scenes this got rather oppressive, with the constant discussions of what college'll be like, etc. it's quite possible to defend these scenes (and all of the banal conversations that take place in them) in terms of "realism," but that doesn't make the experience of watching them any less torpid.

above all, i guess i thought the film could have stood to be a lot weirder--or just more distinctive. i think the childhood scenes in "tree of life" have some of the same flaws, but the scene where the protagonist sneaks into his neighbor's home, masturbates on her nightgown, then desperately flees with it and tosses it in a stream, had about 10x more energy than nearly anything in linklater's 170-minute movie... :(

in a way boyhood felt like observing childhood from the outside, from a distance even, rather than conveying a good sense of the inner life of its protagonist or his family. maybe that speaks to the limitations of the '70s-style realism that one of you points out above.

then again, maybe i just had it in for this film, and all the critics are right. i wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

the unvarnished acting was kind of interesting in itself, but definitely kept me from feeling like i was actually witnessing personalities taking shape.

the main boy grew into a pretty amazingly good-looking dude, i'll grant that.

i did like the moment when BAM! ethan hawke is suddenly uncool. moustache (not a hipster one, either), shirt tucked into pants, minivan.

re. all the "i remember the early '00s" stuff upthread, this film basically documents a period where i was to a greater or lesser extent detached from pop culture so i had few if any of those moments of recognition. this was the first time i had seen anything from a lady gaga video! and i've still never read nor watched anything harry potter. this is far from a criticism but maybe it goes a little way toward explaining why this left me mostly cold?

i'm talking to myself i guess, sorry all :(

i loved this film but it is pretty flawed. i think linklater was maybe so overwhelmed by the scope of the film or maybe he just thought that the concept itself was notable in itself that he couldnt/decided he didnt have to really do much work on the scripting/characters (id be interested to see how much of the screen time has dialogue, as it felt quite minimal). a lot of the plotting was rudimentary, its like a bullet point script of a coming of age movie, i would have liked there to be some more fleshing out. the latino restaurant guy coming up at the end was just bizarre and unnecessary (as well as kind of insulting), two drunks in a row might have been fine had we gotten to learn a bit more about their characters (and it also seemed like a bit of dad-bashing going on), the ending should have been cut when he arrives at uni, i didnt need to see the hiking romance stuff. but despite all that, the film did succeed in making me think that 'fuck, life is short'. and theres lots of lovely little observations and moments, like tolerating others views such as the ethan hawke's new in laws, and just seeing the care between them. it made a change from seeing father/son relationships that lack communication. also just seeing the acceptance of people changing and this not necessarily being a bad thing - i watched dazed n confused after this and it reminded me that RL is just really compassionate to his characters, which is something i really like about him. but the films main asset was simply documenting the passage of time, and that in itself was almost enough.

alternatively, the film also made me think that RL is still (just?) an indie filmmaker at heart... i wonder if the ambition here was too much for him to handle, but this is an indie epic, so i guess i can cut it some slack for being about little moments rather than the bigger picture perhaps.

Its a film that avoided drama - don't think what he replaced that with was that compelling (and not for nearly three hours) but that the attempt to do so was commendable.

But yes it is striking that the one moment me and the friend I went to see with remarked upon the most was the 20 mins of the falling out off 2nd drunk husband and Arquette => the most conventional of the piece.

By coincidence I saw a film about 'boyhood' that is nearly as long at the BFI last night. Hsien's A Time to Live and the Time to Die. Roughly similar times period, but just miles, miles better in nearly every department.

"Its a film that avoided drama - don't think what he replaced that with was that compelling (and not for nearly three hours) but that the attempt to do so was commendable."

thats pretty otm.

i saw that hsien movie at the bfi too. im still thinking about it but find it hard to say why exactly. it felt much less 'scrappier' than boyhood (much more thought behind it).

mark cousins was recommending jeff preiss' 'stop' which sounds very similar to boyhood too:
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/jeff-preiss

The last, most gruesome death, will stay with me for a long time. Just how he takes it further than you were expecting to.

Boyhood was made over a long period - both are unconventional in different ways (and w/additional cultural differences), the Hsien portrayed the growing in far more engaging ways, i.e. I do expect boys in films to get into trouble with other boys, which doesn't really happen - indeed Linklater specifically tells you as much in the scene where two boys get up his face in school, a line he will not develop because it appears to be too conventional. Linklater will be boring in other ways that don't justify the running time.

In Boyhood the adults are much more of a problem. In the Hsien I loved how you do things besides playing and fighting: you will cook and take care of the youngest and eldest - because that will be needed where there are no care services, where the weak and frail have nowhere to go. But still...correspondences are inevitable where you still need the space to 'make yourself': experiment with a new look, find a girl, pass an exam. I like how all that played out much more in the Hsien. In the Linklater there is never a scene as wrenching than the one where Ah-hsiao has to choose between taking part in a gang fight or whether to stay w/his dying mother. The later scene where Ah-hsiao hands over the letter to the girl and her reaction was funnier and more touching than anything going on between Sheena and Mason - of course its cultural differences informing the scenes but Linklater lamely chose to follow a 'Before..' pattern.

I liked it a lot, but I wouldn't sing its praises (and probably wouldn't run out to see it again). It was a... nice experience.
My favorite moments were the things left unsaid - Ethan Hawke jumping from hot redhead at the bowling alley to baby and minivan w/ different woman, "are we ever going to see them again" and never another mention of the step-siblings, etc..

W/ Linklater I'm never sure how much we're supposed to sympathize with the dumb things his characters say (p. much everything teenaged Mason says about the world, or any of the conspiracy theorists/etc. of other films), but I always appreciate his basic kindness - the churchgoing step-grandparents who've completely accepted Mason and his sister and there's never a hint of young liberal Mason rebelling against going to church that one day.

The first stepfather was the biggest misstep in the film - he came off with a creepey 'he's going to be an evil step-dad' vibe from the first moment.

xpost - the last scene in time to live is very gruesome, but also kind of odd and angering (though it made up for it when the doctor showed his judgement of the kids). hsien does like underplaying drama too though... the diff in boyhood is that where you might expect some sort of cause and effect ripples, it was absent. hsien also packed in a lot more political/family detail (at times i think everyone was just talking to each other in reminisces), but i see BH as a deliberate reaction to coming of age movies (like dazed and confused even, which didnt ignore tensions between characters), it just played it a little too neutral. its ordinary could look a bit mannered by the end of it (and the happy romantic ending also killed its previous stubbornness in refusing certain conventions).

in terms of LONG sprawling american teen movies, boyhood made me appreciate margaret more.

Hsien's A Time to Live and the Time to Die

sorry to be pedantic, but the family name is Hou, and his given name is Hsiao-Hsien. so it should be Hou's Time to Live and a Time to Die. that's a devastating film.

btw the Chinese title translates to "some memories from childhood" or more idiomatically "childhood memories." which is a heck of a lot better (and more modst) of a title than the biblical reference that Edward Yang suggested and that ended up as the English title.

modst = modest

but yeah remembering the hou film kinds of puts any interest in reconsidering the linklater to rest. the films aren't in the same league... as formal achievements, as emotional experiences.

speaking of boyhood, how long was she supposed to have been married to husband no. 2 (jerkoff alcoholic professor)?

I haven't seen the Hou film. Boyhood isn't as good as Pather Panchali, The 400 Blows, or Naked Childhood, either. It's an achievement, though, I think, and I'm not so eager to brush it aside.

Yes I agree that was unfair, it was just weirdly coincidental to see these within the space of a week.

Seeing Hou's (take your point on the name amt) follow-up to that @BFI. In fact I've always wanted to see all these early Taiwanese new wave films (having only seen a couple before) and find many are to be screened in the next two weeks!!!

Yeah I was talking with a friend of mine about this movie yesterday and he said he was a bit underwhelmed by it for similar reasons like amateurist said. When the kid became a teen, it got boring as he felt he wasn't that interesting. There was no freaking out on drugs/alcohol moments. Maybe that was too obvious, maybe it was down to the fact he had 2 step-dads that were fuck-ups or maybe it was the kids unusually chill temprament, I dunno.

For me the overall experience of this film outweighed any particular flaws -- I felt almost like I had taken some kind of a time-lapse/voyeurism drug. I also liked the big-heartedness of the film, e.g. as some observed above the way the bible-n-guns grandparents were also very loving and accepting toward a kind of misfit kid who wasn't even their own blood. The worst thing was probably the bit with the mexican gardner who went back to school solely based on what angelic white lady told him. I also thought the film was a little unfair to dads and male authority figures. The men of the film seemed very rigidly divided into two types -- controlling authoritarians who needed alcohol to smooth over the pain of holding it together and who had violent tendencies, and loose, liberal types who were full of good intentions but not really responsible or consistent. I mean I guess the dad does eventually turn into a kind of happy balance of the two, just too late for Mason. But anyway it was believable from the character's point of view that male authority figures in his life would be divided along those lines. Overall I liked the complexities of how Mason turned out, and the ambiguity around what he might be destined for - whether he was a "serious artist" or an artsy kid who was going to fuck around a lot.

i expected to find this movie hugely moving no matter what, just because at the start of the movie the kid is only a little older than my son is right now, so the idea of following a kid from that age to 18...forget it. but it started out with the production values and acting/plotting of a Lifetime original movie and even as i warmed up to the characters and got pulled into the story it still just seemed so substandard in so many ways other than the obvious ways in which it's ambitious and exceptional. felt like there were more laughs in the second half as you got to know the characters, though. i liked it overall, but it took me a while to get past how amateurish and hamfisted it felt.

It definitely started out feeling a bit like Every Divorce Movie Ever. I had my doubts in the first 15 mins or so, but as the characters got more fleshed out I warmed to the a lot. There were a lot of nice observations too, like the fact that after leaving a drunk and violent stepdad, the adolescent daughter is mostly just pissed that she has to go to a different school. I thought there was a lot if subtle stuff about the resilience of kids in the real world, as opposed to the overly mythologized view of "trauma"

The daughter was credibly unbearable in that scene.

Kids are amazingly resilient. I've had many students who by grade 6 are attending their sixth or seventh school. Sometimes more--I remember a girl who, no exaggeration, was on her ninth or tenth school, with, not surprisingly, a rather hellish homelife to match (which I didn't fully learn about till just before she once again left for another school). But on the days she attended, she did her best.

i liked it overall, but it took me a while to get past how amateurish and hamfisted it felt.

the overall experience of this film outweighed any particular flaws

^^co-sign both of these

Saw it on Friday and was generally underwhelmed too. I actually wish it was even less eventful, because the dramatic moments (ie drunk stepdad) felt really cheezy, while the nothing moments felt more real and interesting. I personally got more enjoyment out of the middle stretch that had less drama. A lot of the problems came from trying to strike a balance between the overarching concept of just following along a boy's life without trying to "tell a story" (don't know how to phrase this) and the practicality of having to cut in at certain moments in the life, which are obviously going to be more dramatic/meaningful moments. An awkward compromise between dramatic storytelling and omniscient observing.

Ethan Hawke was fantastic. I felt bad for Patricia Arquette since she didn't really have as much room to stretch out in her character, I wish they had given her more warm moments with her kids. I could relate to the passivity of Mason Jr.'s character.

An awkward compromise between dramatic storytelling and omniscient observing.

I don't know if this was Linklater's intention at all, but I saw the film as being about the narrative that everyone imposes on their own life.

i expected to find this movie hugely moving no matter what, just because at the start of the movie the kid is only a little older than my son is right now, so the idea of following a kid from that age to 18...

Yeah me too. I did find some of it very true-to-life (kids fighting scenes, the sort-of wannabe profundity of teenage Mason), but never really got moved in the way I thought I would. OTOH, broke into tears while watching the original Muppet Movie on Saturday (at the Castro theater) with my boys.

There was definitely something interesting going on with all those moments of tension -- the board doesn't break in the kid's face, the texting while driving doesn't cause an accident, the second stepdad gets a little menacing but not violent, otoh the first stepdad does get violent. I felt like there was something there maybe about randomness/chaos theory, the way each moment has the potential to lead to multiple outcomes. Most dangerous moments don't lead to harm, a few do.

I also thought the kid's passivity was not only relatable but made sense as a response to his life -- he was someone who had learned to go with the flow because so much was out of his hands.

the overall experience of this film outweighed any particular flaws

i guess i had the opposite reaction, my general boredom outweighed the mildly charming or moving moments

i mean there's no way that i actively disliked most of this movie, it's too good-natured and the actors too affable for that. but given all the accolades i think it's understandable that i expected a lot more. or... actually... i didn't expect a lot more, necessarily. i got more or less what i actually expected. but the critics really seem to be reviewing some other, much more achieved, film.

the last few music cues were pretty overbearing, i thought

in general i thought that the last 45(?) minutes betrayed the film's concept, at least what i understand to be its concept, in that the dialogue was constantly circling around questions of life's meaning... and of the changes that were taking place and were about to take place in mason's life. it felt like a very self-conscious, and very conventional (and tedious!) coming-of-age film. something a little more random, stranger, and/or less forthcoming would have been more interesting.

i dunno, i guess my general feeling is that good intentions only get you so far, and this film was running mostly on good intentions. :(

and honestly i've been kind of revising my opinion of linklater's films lately and this one doesn't help matters. the only one i really like anymore is slacker, and maybe i'll keep the torch burning for before sunrise. but i'm scared to revisit it.

I liked Arquette a lot, in part because the disappearance of intimate moments with the kids in the middle stretch were a result of the movie's shift in pod to Mason, so we see her through his eyes as a woman who by the time of her second marriage is good at her job, confident, and an excellent host. That's why her bitter confession in the last 15 minutes had more power for me. For about an hour we've thought she'd found fulfillment beyond her children.

*shift in pov

i think that's really otm and also what made my heart break for my many mom friends

Yeah, I'm a sucker for "Is That All There Is" moments.

me too

hopefully she'll spend the rest of her life breaking out the booze and having a ball

My wife and I had differing reactions to that moment, she was like "this is sad and tragic, she didn't find a companion and wound up alone in spite of her best efforts" I was more like "this is how she feels atm because her kids are leaving but she still has healthy life ahead of her, and we all die alone anyway." Neither seems "wrong."

tough but fair, salud

Hold up. You told your wife "we all die alone anyway"?!

lol yeah, it's no darker than the stuff she says

jeez Eric i thought you liked the Addams family

the first drunk dad was fine bc believe it or not over the course of 12 years a kid will often have to deal with one or two straight up villains in their lives and sometimes (against the notions of a lot of quiet, nothing-happens cinema), excitement (the bad kind) happens. also i don't understand the urges people have to making mason's story more indicative of what's "normal". sure, keep the era and cultural cues around him normalized for common experiences (i don't really like that either) but there's no reason for that to bleed into his individual story, when individual stories never actually reflect ultimate, lowest common denominator normalcy and it'd be creepy if linklater was going for such universality

also youth trauma is not "mythologized" get that shit out of this thread

Sorry I think "mythologized" is not really the right word for what I'm talking about. More like making certain "traumas" central to the childhood narrative, as though all people are shaped primarily by the relative presence or absence of "trauma" in their childhoods, as though the defining categories of person are "person whose parents divorced" and "person whose parents did not divorce" or "person whose parent hit them" and "person whose parent did not hit them."

I went into this movie with excitement, which I've never had with a Linklater film. And even with shared childhood experiences, drunks and abuse, for some reason I wasn't moved by much. I don't know why. It was a nice movie.

What is Boyhood?

There are nods to Linklater’s previous films dropped in for fun (David Blackwell reprises his role as the liquor store clerk who sold Wiley Wiggins’ Mitch a sixer in Dazed and Confused), but it’s the feeling that Boyhood functions as part-autobiography that’s most intriguing. Linklater was born in Houston and raised in a lower-middle-class environment by a single mom (who was surely the model for Arquette’s Olivia), and the economic constraints of the family’s living situation that we see in the film are depicted in a way that seems to come from first-hand experience. Beyond that, Linklater has remarked that specific scenes—such as when Mason Jr. digs up a bird that he buried a few days earlier to see how it’s decomposing—are recollections from his own childhood. Mason Jr.’s development as a photographer, however, is distinct from Linklater’s trajectory as a high-school baseball prodigy: if the film were strict autobiography, Ellar Coltrane’s character would have evolved into a jock who goes to college on a sports scholarship.

http://cinema-scope.com/features/boyhood/

I was hedging on seeing Boyhood a second time--I got through it once and liked it, and thought I might be pushing my luck--but I did tonight and I’m really glad. Removed from all the build-up, and from sitting there the first time measuring it against whatever masterpiece I thought it was supposed to be, I just found myself appreciating the many great moments (not a detached appreciation, though; I was very moved at times). I won’t make a long list. My favourite would be a half-minute probably no one else would even notice: Mason and girlfriend leaving the late-night restaurant as Yo La Tengo’s “I’ll Be Around” plays.

There was still the occasional thing here and there that bothered or puzzled me, but not much. I’ll stand by something I wrote earlier: Patricia Arquette breaking down crying after Mason shrugs off the photo is exceptional, and what she goes on to say by way of explanation is not necessary.

One thing I like much more than other people on this thread is the scene in the restaurant where the guy thanks Arquette for changing his life. I think it’s an important scene. In a way, the film is much crueler to Arquette than Hawke; his second marriage is a dream, he’s given that scene where he and his new wife and the kids all sing together--domestic tranquility--and by the end of the film, when he talks to Mason about Mason’s break-up, he’s like a font of easy-going wisdom. Arquette, meanwhile, is always scrambling around, and she doesn’t get a whole lot of sustenance from the two kids. The guy in the restaurant is the moment where someone really stops and appreciates her. What he says to the kids--“Listen to her, she’s a smart lady”--is a great, necessary moment.

And the ending--the sustained last shot after "It's like it's always right now" (Google autocomplete already kicks in if you go to check that)--is as good as it gets.

I had a long post about this but ILX ate it for some reason. So I'll just say I liked this; drunk dad was too hammy and a big overactor though.

nice post clemenza

I had a long post about this but ILX ate it for some reason. So I'll just say I liked this; drunk dad was too hammy and a big overactor though.

― akm, Monday, 8 September 2014 22:55 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no way dude, his Charades game was next level

couldn't figure out why i felt differently from everyone else re: arquette/restaurant scene till clemenza nailed it just now, kudos

Thanks, schlump and gr8080.

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says, and she has it again (though a little more ambiguous--there's a trace of "You're telling me this now?") when Hawke thanks her at Mason's graduation party; she really is overlooked by almost everyone in her life.

Something else debated earlier: whether or not the drunken father's eventual behavior is telegraphed immediately. Again, I don't think there's any indication in his first scene at the university: the worst you can say is that he's bland and kind of full of himself. It's the next scene, where he seems a little too sharp at the restaurant about his son's unfinished homework, that a red flag is thrown up. (But it's not a straight line from there--in the charades scene, he's a good guy again.)

she really is overlooked by almost everyone in her life

this point was not lost on me btw
i didn't type it out bc it was too depressing (and i thought clear?!) but yeah

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says

I like your read of the scene and all, but I did not get that from Arquette at all.

To me it felt like a mix of gratitude and surprise/shock. The one thing I'll say is that I think it's a film that deserves a second look; felt I got much more out of it the second time. (The three hours went by unusually quickly, too.)

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says

I'm with Eric, it was more like "Who IS this guy?"

Patricia Arquette breaking down crying after Mason shrugs off the photo is exceptional, and what she goes on to say by way of explanation is not necessary.

This doesn't make any sense to me either; words are necessary sometimes, and her dialogue is what reveals the point of her reaction and what the writer and actor intend (if I'm correctly assuming you wouldn't have gotten "Mom realizes she will die alone" from the crying).

I'm with Eric, it was more like "Who IS this guy?"

It's possible to think both: "Wow, that's sweet. Who IS this guy?"

if I'm correctly assuming you wouldn't have gotten "Mom realizes she will die alone" from the crying

I might have, I might not have. I prefer it that way. (To use an exaggerated example, Stanley Kramer always tells me exactly what to think.)

I'd have to look at it a third time to be sure--I'd never even considered the other possibility--but to me it seemed clear that Arquette knew who the restaurant guy was.

Because she's a teacher and she remembers people!! It's a job skill. Her transformation from student to teacher was rly poignant IMO.

I mean, I sometimes have a hard time remembering students when they come up to me five years after they've left my school--sometimes just the name, but sometimes who it even is--but there you're talking about people I knew when they where 12 or 13 who are now 18; the change is sometimes incredible. I thought the restaurant guy looked more or less the same as when he was working on Arquette's house.

For the record, she didn't teach that guy for an entire year. More like she said two sentences to him while standing outside her house.

That's all we see, but fair point--we don't really know how long he's been doing work for her. Could be a few weeks, but maybe it was just one afternoon.

i really don't think they showed her advising a guy to go to school and then showed him thanking her for advising her to point out that she DIDN'T remember him

this is a richard linklater movie not a todd solondz movie

it was part of the whole "belated appreciation of mom" element of the last part of the film, and it resonated for me

i really enjoyed the film, and enough rang true that i don't want to critique the parts where i'm not in a position to say whether it did (i.e. mom's bad boyfriends). But I will say I felt less and less sympathy for the guy as he became more and more of a babe magnet.

Like, when his roommate shows up with two models and mushrooms ON THE FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE, he could have been shot in the head and i'd have been like, "welp, he had a good run...guess heaven needed an ethan hawke jr...lets get dinner"

i think linklater was totally aware of that though, based on hawke's reaction to the break-up

I know! But it isn't absurd to think she might have remembered him bc they had a meaningful interaction.

Todd Solondz's Bernie might've been good.

ll you were x-posting to eric, right? cuz i'm definitely on Team Mom Recognized Waiter (at least by story, if not on sight).

as a teacher myself who also sometimes forgets students I learned it takes a while to develop the public face when a stranger approaches and praises me; Arquette captured that awkwardness.

i'm definitely on Team Mom Recognized Waiter

let's have a softball game

as a teacher myself who also sometimes forgets students I learned it takes a while to develop the public face when a stranger approaches and praises me; Arquette captured that awkwardness.

otm. my mom was a prof and used to laugh about these kinds of public interactions. If anything I think she'd be more apt to remember this guy's story than she would a student she didn't have much personal interaction with.

otherwise the implication would be that arquette was blithely going around pitching night school to everyone she meets, and i don't think that was the intended takeaway

One thing that confused me both times were the exact details of Mason's break-up. I get the general outline--she sleeps with a university lacrosse player--but the prom figures in, and friend of the girlfriend's who gossips, and I didn't quite get how all that figured in. They talk about it while sitting on a bench.

i don't think we're really supposed to care about the specifics of the drama any more than his dad did.

ll you were x-posting to eric, right?

yeah sorry -- i was typing that on my phone after my class let out :)
i grew up with the sort of parents who couldn't go ANYWHERE without strangers (to me) coming up and talking to them, so i identified with the kids in that scenario too. when people dismissed the scene as contrived or cheesy, it didn't seem that way to me at all.

No, I think the thing that kept it from being contrived and cheesy is the seeming ambivalence or puzzlement Arquette greets the moment.

i mean, it was contrived in that out of 12 years of experiences, linklater chose to show us a moment where arquette did something nice and a moment years later where someone thanked her for it. that she didn't recognize him on sight and wasn't expecting the praise is just...believable.

one scene that kind of bugged me was the brief bit of bullying in the bathroom, just cuz there was no real second moment that followed. he just kind of shrugged, and got into sex and photography. never seemed at a loss for friends or anything.

Hadn't given it any thought, but yeah, the bullying scene was odd--detached from everything (except, I suppose, drunk dad's behaviour).

Another odd moment for me was Mason's reaction to his dad selling the car. It seems out of character that he would have been thinking about inheriting that car for years and years--the reaction of a son who's a jock, who lives for cars, and Mason is anything but that person. But I'll put it down to something someone posted upthread: the randomness of life. Sometimes you push a hidden button with someone, and upset them over something that seems to come right out of the blue. Also, dad's promise of the car works as something of a symbolic link between Mason and the absent father he misses.

I saw it as one of the unexpected and thoughtless ways in which parents can be cruel.

yeah it worked for me just as an example that while ethan hawke was obv a dream of a deadbeat dad, mason would still have some resentments

def had some "oh come on! how do you remember that?" "i was five, dad, not two" convos with my dad

man, that song at the family hootenanny

that alone may prevent a second viewing for me

I thought it was a decent Moldy Peaches thing. I did question the daughter's participation--even more than Mason, I would have thought she'd beg off.

That song didn't bother me too much, but I was damn glad that Ethan's "ohh baby boy cryin in the window thinkin of meeee" number was followed by the reveal he was now working in insurance.

i wonder if he was always intended to wind up in squaresville or if they rewatched the song footage and realized there was no other possibility

is that about Morbs?

They talk about him going to school to work in insurance during the camping trip when Mason is like 10? 11? years old

Or maybe earlier? It's mentioned pretty early on.

yeah, wasn't that after the Ode To Neglected Children? Don't think he was in school when he had the roomie

"hey, so i was thinking next year mason could visit me and charlie sexton on the road...that the band's taking off..."

"...uhh...yeah...about that, ethan..."

I should be able to remember from last night where exactly Hawke first mentions that's he taking actuarial courses, but I can't. Maybe the day they play football and go to the Astros game?

bullying scene wasn't weird to me, he wasn't the kind of kid who gets bullied all the time as part of hierarchy reinforcement but he wasn't the kind of kid assholes aren't assholes to. the shot right after, of him leaning against the wall after school w vonnegut under his arm, was just right: he had a shitty, lonely day. but it wasn't The Plot. whole movie was p much like that.

croup otm re the breakup. there were a bunch of elisions like that that made me feel like entire sections of other movies are just totally wasting my time. (no shit.) i was bored thru most of the second half of this movie but in the weeks since i saw it lil shots/lines keep coming to me unexpectedly and i like that they had such space to happen in, that they weren't propelling an Arc or even pointing in the same direction for the character. part of what the gimmick did for the movie was allow for a realistic level of personal selfcontradiction that would have maybe seemed more incoherent had it been different actors contradicting each other instead of literally the same kid.

also loved what others have described upthread, the moments when it would quietly tease you with a more dramatic version of events that doesn't happen, as in the scene w the circular saws or whatever. the scene towards the end w the cell-phones-while-driving was absolutely eerie: a whole alternate terrible universe is born in yr mind and mason is teenagerly oblivious to it. parent's-eye view.

yeah it wasn't a big thing re: bullying just that high school seemed like pretty smooth sailing afterwards, model girlfriend leaving him for a lacrosse player aside

what a difference Ethan Hawke's yapping puppy dog act makes when he's trying to keep his kid and himself entertained instead of Julie Delpy.

well really the big diff is that the kids aren't gonna call bullshit as much

well Mason Jr's silences and uh-huhs make him look more fatuous (see Annie Hall every time Alvy complains/promotes a book/advises).

xxxp ha well yeah i also feel u on the churlish well-fuck-THIS-kid-then feeling of the last few scenes. but then i thought abt it and was like haha i did alright in high school too i guess, despite having a dece handful of scenes like the one in the bathroom. ymmv tho i would that it did not.

there's irony in Linklater's approach to the same actor and schtick this time

i almost was surprised we didn't get at least one scene where hawke had to deal with them all tantrumy, but considering their homelifes i guess weekends with dad were pretty uniformly a relief.

The daughter aggressively whining as Arquette drops her off at her new school--a day or two after she's been beaten by her husband--is unbearably authentic. No, Hawke got none of that.

(I don't know if "authentic" is the right word--seemed more real than a movie.)

Maybe the day they play football and go to the Astros game?

yeah it's this -- it's after "dad, do you have a job?"

there's sort of a fitzcarraldo aspect to this whole thing where on one hand we're watching a fictional account but on the other it does feel like we're seeing what happens when a kid spends a month a year as the star of a richard linklater movie. from what i've read linklater already has his Burden of Dreams ready for the criterion blu-ray

with Mick Jagger originally cast as Mason, Sr.

yeah it wasn't a big thing re: bullying just that high school seemed like pretty smooth sailing afterwards

which ime is what a lot of experiences with bullying are like, esp for someone like Mason. It fits.

another instance of the "alternate universe" thing. sure, some kids are perpetually bullied/crash while texting/impaled by circular saw...but most have a brush with it her or there.

"Your mother....IS A PIECE OF WORK"

i liked it overall, but it took me a while to get past how amateurish and hamfisted it felt.

the overall experience of this film outweighed any particular flaws

^^co-sign both of these

― ╲╱\/╲/\╱╲╱\/\ (gr8080), Monday, August 18, 2014 9:52 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree

didn't even feel that amateurish and hamfisted to me either

don't really get the complaints about the acting, especially linklater's kid; i thought both she and coltrane sounded like kids. especially at the end when getting 'profound'.

it moved me a lot, most movies don't.

begins to get nominated for awards

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/gotham-nominations-2014-awards-full-list-1201337272/

Fine, fine, I'll start the detrius thread.

since i'm on the cutting edge i just watched this last night. LOVED IT. my thoughts are:

- i liked the debate upthread about using the same cast over a period of 12 years has on the film. some thought it was pointless or had a pretty minimal effect on the final film, but i disagree. i haven't read any "making of boyhood" articles or anything, but i imagine that linklater was open to the idea of letting the story evolve according to real life events. for example, if the guy who played mason had ended up being a real life jock, or a very shy introverted kind of person, or realized that he wanted to be a woman, that would have substantially changed his character in the movie, and the way he would react to things. i can't imagine linklater ignoring the real life actor's personality and making him play the role of "Mason" as he imagined it when he started filming. so yeah, i think the methodology of filming for so long and using the same actors has an enormous influence on the movie. part of the reason the dialogue sounds so amazingly REAL (imo) for so much of the movie might be that linklater had a chance to live and grow up with the actual actors and write things that they would actually say. it's impossible to say what specific differences the methodology made, but it's certain that the way the film came out was different than it would have been if they shot the whole thing in summer 2003 using different actors.

- i loved how there are so many scenes that show the flaws of the characters, like teenage mason's idiotic pseudophilosophic monologues, or how EH is a struggling musician and plays 2 terrible, embarrassing songs in the movie. and i love that the obama campaign scene is so cringeworthy. i'm glad that he included it, because that was totally a thing in 2008! i STILL have friends who refuse to acknowledge that period of time when they thought obama was going to save the world. there aren't many non-documentaries that address that moment.

- someone upthread said 'By the time Ellar Coltrane hits 15, I had lost the connection to his younger self', and i think that's sorta true, not a big deal, and also another result of the filmmaking process. 15 year old me was completely different from 7 year old me, personality wise, everything. using the same actor and letting him grow up reveals those kinds of crazy jumps that really do happen. writing a script and filming all in the same year tends to erase those kinds of jumps, i think, because it's kind of confusing for the audience, or perceived as a flaw in the narrative/character building.

- i didn't like the restaurant owner scene too much either, but only because it was one of the few scenes that felt pre-planned, like a "movie". earlier in the film, when arquette told the gardener he was smart, it seemed predictable that there would be a scene later that resolved that particular (minor) arc. so it was a bummer when that actually happened. i think a more believable way to resolve it, if it had to happen, would be to have the restaurant owner on the screen, demonstrating that he apparently "did well" (although as my gf said, maybe he was fine with being a gardener?), but without any conversation between the two. but eh, it's not really a big deal either way.

- two thumbs up - WAY UP!!

also i suppose it helps that i realize sympathized with mason's character throughout the film. without getting all TMI there were various things that happened that i know a thing or two about, and so the film functioned as a mix of trauma-revisitation, nostalgia, and alternate-reality. (an example of the latter is that part where EW is driving his kids around and they're giving perfunctory responses to his questions and he's like HEY, TALK TO ME FOR REAL, I'M YOUR DAD, QUIT THIS SHIT, which is what i wished would have happened with me and my dad in a car at some point)

btw aimless, if you're reading this - did you ever watch the movie? and if so did it confirm your pre-viewing opinions or were you surprised by anything?

lol

that part where EW is driving his kids around

oops, typo, sry ethan "the stinkster" hawke

MoMA screened this a couple weekends ago w/ RL and Hawke doing a Q&A after, but I couldn't fit it in. Disc release is Jan 6, i guess that will be fine for a second viewing. I would recommend theatrical viewing if at all possible; I thought the audible reactions of the audience were actually valuable here.

Scrolling through this made we think: Is the series of HP films basically Boyhood with a much better plot?

holding out for proust

would love to see mundane bits of harry potter cut into a boyhood-style trailer

Boyhood had a HP scene iirc.

xpost - yes!

Maybe the first scene where I really loved the movie--about 20 minutes into it?

An interesting take:

Arquette’s character is the hero of Boyhood, and the movie seems to punish her for it. She raises two kids while she gets her undergrad degree, then PhD, and becomes a beloved professor. While we are charmed by Hawke’s ability to “try,” we see Arquette study and study, and pity her for where her decisions lead her. Over twelve years, she has two more failed marriages, one with a husband whose abusive behavior is made explicit, and a second wherein abuse is strongly implied. The echoes in later scenes of Arquette’s second husband don’t feel fatalistic so much as unimaginative. We fill in that the third husband was another abusive man, another bad decision.

Fundamentally, I don’t like what this implies about the filmmaker’s ideas about abuse and women. If being a victim of domestic violence is the supposed flaw in Arquette’s character, that’s a dangerous line of thinking. It’s the textbook definition of victim-blaming, and it invites whatever preconceived notions of violence against women the audience might have to fill in the gaps.

I didn't say it the right away, so somebody jumped on me, but that's exactly what I was trying to say earlier in the thread--and why I think the one guy's belated appreciation of her in the restaurant is so important. It's a very generous moment, and at least softens the sting of those legitimate questions (questions as to the filmmakers' intentions, not flaws of Arquette's character, just to avoid making the same mistake again).

If being a victim of domestic violence is the supposed flaw in Arquette’s character, that’s a dangerous line of thinking.

I don't think this appears in the writing or the performance...? I'd love for someone to dispute this.

it's also a slightly muddled take, suggesting that her victimization is both her "punishment" and her "flaw." it can't really both.

it's true the movie could allow an audience member to look down on her for marrying abusive men (though the brevity of her 3rd marriage seemed especially pointed - we never saw him be more than boorish and after the previous marriage that alone might have been enough for her and the family to drop him fast) - it's about her child, and people think mothers should protect children. but it's also from the pov of the kid, and kids don't always see their parents actions in the most sympathetic light. did people want a scene where a counselor tells the kid in detail that the mother was not to blame for getting into bad relationships?

my mom awent through grad school and became a professor during my childhood and adolescence as a single parent. that her son doesn't really seem to appreciate what she went through until he's older was pretty resonant for me. it's a thankless job compared to weekend dadhood, and i thought the film captured that well.

probably the most affecting scene for me was her speech as he's about to leave for college, and some of the funniest was hawke's awkwardness at the graduation party (the relative saying his new wife "got him at the right time," him not having any cash, etc)

the one guy's belated appreciation of her in the restaurant is so important.

except that that scene seems to condescend to the latino character. and the scene is horribly staged and unconvincing, which unfortunately was a problem in other scenes as well. i just don't think the execution of this film merits the kind of praise it's getting.

we discussed several months ago that scene with the student. I thought it nailed what it's like for a professor to confront praise, politely and awkwardly, often not knowing who the fuck is talking to you (and I endure this at least twice a year).

except that that scene seems to condescend to the latino character. and the scene is horribly staged and unconvincing,

I didn't look at it this way at all. We saw him once before. He came off believably (over)enthusiastic. Again, I've endured this. I didn't think Linklater staged the scene unconvincingly either: medium shot, he got his say, cut to a dumbfounded Arquette trying to look polite and empathetic.

if you want a scene that DOES look condescending, remember the Asian alum of Marge Gunderson bumping into her in the restaurant in Fargo.

ugh I garbled the verb order but you get it

i don't think the film is perfectly executed by any means - the "thank you" moment is one of the most chekhov's gun in it - but i appreciated it, and recognized similar ones in my own experience as a prof's kid

I mean, the scene is inherently condescending: dark-skinned guy thanking white woman. But context matters too. The movie is in part about Arquette's bad decisions. I thought it was a quiet irony that she doesn't even recognize one of the people who have benefited from her quiet determination to make her career work.

we discussed several months ago that scene with the student. I thought it nailed what it's like for a professor to confront praise, politely and awkwardly, often not knowing who the fuck is talking to you (and I endure this at least twice a year).

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 16, 2015 7:45 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on her side yeah the scene felt true, but the actor playing the guy who was thanking her was off by a mile, in both of his scenes.

have benefited from her quiet determination to make her career work.

but he wasn't one of her students! he was a workman who she gave a generic, and more than faintly condescending, piece of advice to

that makes it kind of gross IMO, like all this latino dude needed was some white woman to say "you're smart, go to school"

tbh the problems with that scene seem symptomatic of linklater's limitations (and i admire him, generally)

well, that's the lacunae in the narrative, right? Life's full of odd bits of shit that don't make sense. I know this goes a long ways towards mitigating narrative problems in this film, but, again, context matters.

Wow, I don't see that scene as condescending at all. He was great, Arquette was great (whether or not you think she has no recollection of him at all--I still believe she does remember him, even if it takes a few seconds to click in). It's the two kids who come off poorly, in a good way for the film: "You need to listen to her and appreciate her more."

otm re linklater's limitations. though that the moment of appreciation she gets is relatively hamfisted makes the idea the film is punishing her all the more ironic

part of the backlash its getting is definitely the title's fault. just as Girls wouldn't get as much as shit if it was named The Lena Dunham Show, if this movie had been named Mason people wouldn't be so quick to note which aspects are and aren't universal and see them as faults

Like, the restaurant manager's couple of scenes suggested the arc of a life. It's probable that he will disappear and never be seen again. Knowing this made the graduation party scene a little more poignant for me.

i don't know if it necessarily would have been better if she'd been blindsided by a student previously unseen, but it might have

"You need to listen to her and appreciate her more."

frankly if some random dude told me that i'd be all "fuck you, buddy" (well, i wouldn't have said it out loud...)

i didn't mind that the film wasn't universal. if anything i wish it resisted that urge more, and felt a bit more specific and peculiar.

i don't know if it necessarily would have been better if she'd been blindsided by a student previously unseen, but it might have

― da croupier,

I've thought about that, and def it would come off more poignant to me, suggesting layers to her that we haven't seen; but would it have mattered if the student were as white as Ethan Hawke?

Sorry that universal comment wasn't respective to this discussion but general grumbling being heard

also, it's a movie. Kinda think he was talkking to the audience.

Movie shoulda been called The Mason Family.

A Mason's Grace

Mason Derrière

http://reverseshot.org/features/1988/two_cents_2014

do agree with what this boyhood review says about that lamer than lame scene, though as far as what else he writes, rather than expect a movie about a white kids life to include POC, it would just be better if there could be a few movies about non white kids growing up too. this film might reinforce the dominant monoculture (but every film posits that its reality is definitive - my issue isnt that linklater suggests this as a universal coming of age tale, but that critics might believe it to be, but then that just tells you more about the background of critics than anyone else), but its telling one particular (white/middle class/male) story. i wouldnt really want linklater to tell someone elses story. if only because, while linklater is a nice liberal guy and everything, when he does try and include POC, it just ends up a bit like the Random Black Dude in dazed and confused, who doesnt really do anything except appear as a bit of tokenism.

The scolds again have nothing to say about Arquette's reaction during that scene, which like others in the film don't provide the payoff one might expect, but is the kind of wrinkle a critic might omit if his reason for singling it out is to rake Linklater over the coals.

there are crix (OK, one?) complaining it isn't Girlhood starring L Linklater

I wasn't posting here when I saw this, but I honestly remember coming to ILX to try and find some fellow dissenting voices on this absolute piece of shit. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and that's not me being facetious.

I don't think I've ever walked out of anything and I was very close to doing that, as was my friend and she'd been mad keen to see it and is a Linklater fan. It was laughably bad, almost throughout, cliched, no sense of reality to it, it was like an episode of MTV The Real World with the actions removed and only the emotional segueways left, used music as a crutch throughout to imbue it with emotion that it just didn't otherwise have.

The cardboard cutout dense racist scene at the end was just the moneyshot - the whole movie was dumb in that way. I can't believe more people don't hate it - I don't think I've ever felt so irritated by something - I was watching through my fingers by the end.

This isn't me trying to go against the grain, I feel quite at peace about it, I'm just genuinely mystified as to how people didn't think this was total dogshit.

i liked it. i was moved by it. but it is kinda whimsical, and assumes that it doesnt need to do much with itself to impress you other than show a series of schematically arranged plot points and the changing face of its lead actor year to year. its all about the concept really rather than anything special that it does or shows. which is a shame, as it could have been more, but it is a bit lazily drawn. i guess thats what happens when you get an indie director trying to stretch himself and hoping that the limits he usually works within will still be enough when working on a much grander scale. its a big movie of very little moments.

its main problem is might be that its trying a bit too hard to appear 'real'

it would be nice if certain things were less clumsy or Linklater-y, but the basic poignancy of seeing people age onscreen (esp. Arquette, because i didn't care so much about the kids, and Ethan Hawke forgot to age) carried it through for me.

I think if you go in expecting a lot from this movie, or for it to precisely your own experience of life, you're gonna be let down. I thought it was absolutely brilliant with a couple tonal exceptions. But then, you know, I'm a Solondz stan, so maybe not to be trusted, etc.

"precisely mirror"

(Also I should mention that while I like Linklater's stuff, I've barely seen any of his films somehow. "Boyhood" was maybe my third Linklater.)

Admired this more than liked it.

LocalGarda, i didn't hate it nearly as much as you did, but i didn't like it, either. i thought it was kind of crudely executed and not very compelling apart from the main conceit.

i think i wrote about my disappointment upthread.

er, some of my comments upthread:

i have to admit i was sad when patricia arquette left her monster of a 2nd husband and her kids asked if they would ever see their step-siblings again.

but overall i was barely roused... didn't really feel any emotions other than being faintly charmed and amused at times

i guess the biggest flaw for me was how, for the last 45 or 60 minutes or so, the film felt less like a concatenation of micro-events than a deliberate attempt to track and take stock of "milestones." by the last few scenes this got rather oppressive, with the constant discussions of what college'll be like, etc. it's quite possible to defend these scenes (and all of the banal conversations that take place in them) in terms of "realism," but that doesn't make the experience of watching them any less torpid.

I wasn't posting here when I saw this, but I honestly remember coming to ILX to try and find some fellow dissenting voices on this absolute piece of shit. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and that's not me being facetious.

I don't think I've ever walked out of anything and I was very close to doing that, as was my friend and she'd been mad keen to see it and is a Linklater fan. It was laughably bad, almost throughout, cliched, no sense of reality to it, it was like an episode of MTV The Real World with the actions removed and only the emotional segueways left, used music as a crutch throughout to imbue it with emotion that it just didn't otherwise have.

The cardboard cutout dense racist scene at the end was just the moneyshot - the whole movie was dumb in that way. I can't believe more people don't hate it - I don't think I've ever felt so irritated by something - I was watching through my fingers by the end.

This isn't me trying to go against the grain, I feel quite at peace about it, I'm just genuinely mystified as to how people didn't think this was total dogshit.

― Moyes Enthusiast (LocalGarda), Thursday, January 22, 2015 8:51 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tell us about your experience as a teenager in America, let alone Texas

(feel free to substitute parent)

People in this country really do mark time, to a degree, by milestones, but there's other stuff there too.

Finding this "clearly the film of the year" doesn't surprise me coming from ppl who see six annually; critics who see a few hundred have me baffled.

people who say "clearly the film in the year" need to be bonked on the head

of the year

"this was clearly the bathroom break of the year"

Tell us about your experience as a teenager in America, let alone Texas

I don't have any - but given the unprecedented near-unanimous praise for this movie, that fairly niche experience is quite far from being a prerequisite for enjoying it. i also didn't read any of the reviews prior to seeing it - it wasn't like i turned up ready to hate a big hyped movie or something - and generally i wouldn't be moved to such dislike, i just would think it wasn't for me and concede that was fine. it just honestly riled me in tone - and then that annoyed me more as i struggled to find a view that reflected that, and friends accused me of being contrary.

i mean i've definitely been contrary with things over the years - but i was actually uncomfortably disgusted by this. the noted stupid scene was like a sort of perfect cherry on top at the point where how bad it was started to become sort of fun. the stoned scene near the end was also fairly low.

it was like a worse damsons creek or something. sorry, i'm not trying to ruin it for anyone else or claim to be right. nor am i trying to point out my own individuality. i just really expected more people here to hate it. i did speak to some friends who kind of wavered 50/50 on it, but even googling it, it was very hard to find a decent thrashing of it by a critic who could write. i thought about writing one at the time but i don't really want to write about movies/music etc ever again.

lol damsons creek - thanks autocorrect

amazing characters. the angry drunk stepfather and the.. other angry drunk stepfather.

if anyone can find a good critical review of this (that doesnt simply critique it on grounds of being too much about a white person/boy - clue's in the title guys), id like to read it.

the only critical review I found contained the words "as a conservative mother of two"

it is probably linklaters worst film.

I reckon people may look in time at Before Midnight as Linklater's worst, maybe because its possibly spoiling the earlier films in that trilogy people are fond of.

Friend I watched Boyhood with said she is pretty much finished with long-ish films, something 'broke' and she was a huge Linklater fan.

did people hate BM? i loved it.

after watching last of the unjust, i think im pretty much done with 3 hour films too.

he peaked 20 years ago.

I've come across BM hate here.

haha Lanzmann has always struck me as worthily boring but I've never seen Shoah.

I've seen La Commune and you could quibble and disagree with a lot of it but I'd see it to revive the faith in the long long film.

am never watching anything by lanzmann again (especially not in the bfi studio). 3 hour art films are mostly just a guarantee against poor critical reviews. hit the 180 min mark and sight and sound reviewers will immediately grant you a pass.

Just checked and Yi Yi comes in at 173 mins so you are ok then.

hit the 180 min mark and sight and sound reviewers will immediately grant you a pass

This isn't remotely true - just last year Norte, the End of History got a negative review in S&S - but you carry on telling us what an independent spirit you are, please.

lol i was obv being facetious, though im surprised norte got a bad review in S&S (i actually liked it very much). i would like to see the correlation between wider critical consensus and running time though.

there is something about an increase in running length and filmmakers thinking it increases the profundity of their work though and this isnt just limited to arthouse directors. just look at all the long hollywood movies of the last few years (though thats also due to wanting to please franchise fans, people who read the book and need every page in there, and other reasons like maybe wanting to appear good VFM for the dvd release etc).

Lol @ that review. S&S are attacking a versh of what StillAdvacnce is talking/being facetious about.

Alas, this cannot be said of much else in Norte. Diaz is championed – sometimes excessively, without discrimination between his major and minor works or assessment of his strengths and weaknesses – by many critics who carry the torch for challenging, progressive cinema.

But then the reviewer goes onto to praise his much longer films. He is more conventional, but not doing conventionality properly like er Pedro Costa.

His longer films are just the kind of stuff the BFI won't screen..

i missed his new five hour one at the LFF last year

its a side topic and prob for another thread so sorry, but the BFI could do more to show interesting new films year-round, rather than just at the LFF

isn't it also something to do with research/evidence that shows that the home viewer/s will cheerfully sit through 3, 4 or 5 47-minute episodes of a Sopranos/Breaking Bad/etc DVD box set without breaking a sweat? so you know, 'why wouldn't they watch a 3 hour plus movie'. this doesn't allow for the crucial going-for-a-bathroom-break factor though! Scorsese wanted Wolf.. to be *4 hours* with (i think?) an intermission.
i'm totally down with intermissions coming back as an idea.

you *need* intermissions with longer films. even nuri bilge ceylan has said he is okay with people watching his movies in separate sittings, as they would read chapters in a novel.

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

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.

wasn't that the idea actually? 10-12 short films or something.

When I watched Norte... it was a hot summer's day at the tiny room at the ICA and we had a cooling off break mid-way through. I assume it would usually not have that break.

That's not the issue. In a lot of those three plus hour films we have a narrative that is told in a very different way to your 50 Hours HBO box watching. I've been watching a couple of Margerite Duras films over xmas and they are 90 mins but people will just struggle with it.

yeah, there is a diff demand on you watching a one hour episode of a bigger series, even if it is 50 parts, vs a 3 hour film. prob there is a belief that boxset popularity has made people think they have to compete with that sort of immensity or that people want more/can handle more demanding viewing, but one is broken into chunks, and its also still tv, so it just isnt as compressed as a film is, even a four hour one...

but yeah there is a big diff between norte and boyhood, never mind between, idk, a rivette film and breaking bad

Increasing length of cinema films traditionally tied to the decline of the 'full program' cinema evening - second feature, newsreel, cartoons, etc etc. For a time, one and two screen cinema-owners were also pushing for shorter films so that they could cram in more screenings, but this became less of an issue with the rise of the multiplex.

ok, StillAdvance needs to be bonked on head

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

really, sod off

A lot of movies today would work well as a web series, but Boyhood def isn't one of them.

Finding this "clearly the film of the year" doesn't surprise me coming from ppl who see six annually; critics who see a few hundred have me baffled.

Not within earshot of my top ten or anything, but when it comes to selecting the best of the consensus picks of the year ... really, it's a choice between this and Budapest.

this conversation about movie lengths and S&S is dumb, let's move on.

all movies are long these days, it's almost impossible to find a mainstream release under 2 hrs unless it's a kid's/animated film, or by wes anderson.

We were talking about foreign releases, and most of those usually come in at about two hours.

Yes, complaining about Boyhood being three hours when that's the average length of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean instalment or whatever strikes me as odd.

complaining about modern films being too long in general is perfectly reasonable i think and actually kinda interesting, considering how longer lengths are accepted in a way that would probably not have been expected even a decade or so ago

uh since when have awards-bait life chronicles not been long

boyhood is basically the same length as best picture nominees Munich (2005), Out Of Africa (1985) and Nashville (1975) and shorter than braveheart (1995)

the only BP winners of the last 40 years less than two hours are, what, Annie Hall and The Hurt Locker?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Best_Picture_milestones#Milestones_related_to_superlatives

hurt locker's over 2 hours but the artist wasn't

oh for the days of Cary 'n' Mae: She Done Him Wrong was "shortest film to be nominated for Best Picture (1 hour 6 minutes)"

jesus christ gone with the wind is almost four hours and all i ever hear about it are two quotes

never seen it, might be riveting but y'd think there'd be a sequence that came up now and then, not just the most baller thing each of the leads says

"Don't cut!!"

("never go hungry again" and "frankly, scarlett...," are my points of reference in case you're unsure)

sure, but its not just award bait, and thats the difference

It's ideologically putrid, but it moves as briskly as any four hour soap opera ever made.

Cleopatra is longer and has Rex Harrison instead of Clark Gable.

bad boys II was 148 minutes in 2003

the firm was 154 minutes in 1993

the pelican brief, 141

The Firm is the one where they destroy several Cuban villages, right?

man Hollywood was reluctant to trim one word of Grisham novels in the nineties

the client they got down to 119

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/cut-why-its-time-to-snip-the-bloated-blockbusters-6289981.html

If you look back at the 1980s, a heyday for economic storytelling in which even The NeverEnding Story could be told in little more than an hour and a half, the average length of the decade's 10 top grossing films was 119 minutes. In the Noughties, however, the average top-grossing blockbuster came in at a buttock-numbing 149 minutes.

Gandhi and Out of Africa have some things to say

there are also simply more megafranchise BLOCKBUSTERS now than there were in the 80s, but why the hell is that coming up here

point being that movies of renown have always been long, and boyhood is no breakthrough on that front

the top ten grossing films of the 2000s include avatar, two pirates, and four harry potter movies so obv you're going to get a relatively EPIC average

oh and two lord of the rings movies

Why are we comparing Boyhood with Gandhi?!

or any of this blockbuster stuff - I'd rather be boiled alive than watch it.

we're talking about movie length, and gandhi and boyhood are both relatively long oscar-nominated movies. is it really that confusing

The discussion of movie lengths first came up when we were talking about Boyhood with other art house films that play around London so yes why bring that up. I didn't know Boyhood had been nominated for Oscars actually.

well don't be mad, you learned something

Its why I come to this place you know.

To be mad.

Nah its cool. I know the Oscars are happening soon now, why would I be mad at that? Its a great event in any calendar year.

It's one of the only 3 days per year I let step foot in my place.

we won't be able to sort this out by cherry-picking

there are always longer and shorter films

certain genres tend to get longer running times: epics (duh), biopics, "serious" movies of all kinds

comedies, animated films, films for kids, and—until recently—"genre" movies (i.e. action/mystery/suspense) tend to be shorter

that said, my guess would be that mainstream hollywood films have been getting longer over the past 20 years or so

i dropped by the multiplex the other weekend, and literally the only films under 120 minutes were the animated films, and the grand budapest hotel. this wasn't limited to "oscar bait"

FWIW, 20 most popular per IMDB:

american sniper, 132m
int the woods, 125m
birdman, 119m
boyhood, 165m
taken 3, 109m
imitation game, 114m
inherent vice, 148m
gone girl, 149m (this seems like precisely the sort of movie that would've been 100–105m not so long ago)
hobbit: battle of five armies, 144m
whiplash, 107m
unbroken, 137m
foxcatcher, 129m
theory of everything, 123m
selma, 128m
john wick, 101m
grand budapest hotel, 100m
cake, 102m
guardians of the galaxy, 121m
interstellar, 169m
fury, 134m

now, 1994:

Shawshank Redemption - 142 min
Pulp Fiction - 154 min
Forrest Gump 142 min (so, top three are all quite long films)
Little Rascals 82 min
Leon: The Professional 110 min
The Lioon King 89 min
Dumb & Dumber 107 min (is this the release length or the "director's cut" length btw?)
Stargate 121 min
Interview with the Vampire 123 min
Natural Born Killers 118 min
legends of the fall, 133 min
the mask, 101 min
the crow, 102 min
ace ventura, 86 min
four weddings and a funeral, 117
flintstones, 91 min
rich rich, 95 min
true lies, 141 min
speed, 116 min
ed wood, 127 min

2014 average = 128 min (7 of 20 films under 120 mins)
1994 average = 115 min (12 of 20 films under 120 mins)

that's a pretty significant difference, I think. obviously it's not bollywood length—not yet—but i don't think i was wrong to note that it's increasingly difficult to find a mainstream film (again, not children's fare) that's under two hours long.

i should note that the IMDB "most popular" lists tend to underrepresent animated and children's films, which would no doubt bring down the averages of both years.

never seen it, might be riveting but y'd think there'd be a sequence that came up now and then, not just the most baller thing each of the leads says

The burning of Atlanta sequence in GWTW is pretty well-known, isn't it?

GWTW has an intermission, but you might as well not come back for the second half - the film REALLY falls apart after Atlanta and that incredible image of Scarlett walking through rows and rows of dead soldiers.

FWIW

family films of 1994:

little rascals, 82m
lion king, 88m
flintstones, 91m
richie rich, 95m
angels in the outfield, 102m
little giants, 107m
baby's day out, 99m
D2: the mighty ducks, 106m
santa clause, 97m
camp nowhere, 96m

family films of 2014:

big hero 6, 108m
night @ museum, 97m
annie, 119m
maleficent, 97m
penguins of madagascar, 92m
kirk cameron's saving christmas, 80m (way to go kirk!)
alexander and the blah blah blah, 81m
song of the sea, 93m
rio 2, 101m
boxtrolls, 96m

1994 average: 96.3m
2014: 96.4m

so much for /that/ theory, maybe.

xp yeah, the second half of GWTW does sort of dissolve into who cares, but there is that fantastic moment when she walks into Ashley's (Melanie's?) birthday party dressed in what must've been the Civil War-era equivalent of edible underwear

i think it supports your argument, with the caveat that children's & family films haven't been subject to the protraction affecting "adult" genres. which makes sense, if the attention span (or willing-to-sit-still span) of children is a limiting factor.

xp

amst, i think that comparing the faves is also skewed because 1994 actually has more children/teen films, probably due to imdb voter nostalgia - the shortest films on the 2014 list are grand budapest, john wick, cake and whiplash. the shortest films on the 1994 list are lion king, flintstones, ace ventura and richie rich

also how are they defining "popular" there? it can't be box office and flintstones has a 4.8/10 rating on imdb, surely there are 20 movies that are ranked higher

The thing is, Flintstones probably did have big box office. A future Forgotbuster, for sure.

"Future"?

yes but the 2014 list includes films that haven't even made a million dollars

almost offended someone would i think i didn't know flintstones did well

also

gone girl, 149m (this seems like precisely the sort of movie that would've been 100–105m not so long ago)

please go back to the lengths of those grisham thrillers

ok, how about highest-grossing movies from each year? it's not a random sampling (too lazy for that), but it might be less skewed than IMDB faves:

20 highest grossing films of 1994:
forrest gump, 141m
lion king, 89m
true lies, 144m
santa clause, 97m
flintstones, 91m
dumb & dumber, 101m
clear & present danger, 141m
speed, 126m
mask, 97m
pulp fiction, 154m
interview w/vampire, 123m
maverick, 127m
client, 122m
disclosure, 129m
star trek: generations, 117m
ace ventura, 87m
stargate, 121m
legends of fall, 134m
wolf, 125m
specialist, 110m
AVERAGE = 118.8m

of 2014:
mockingjay, 123m
guardians of galaxy, 121m
cap'n america, winter soldier, 136m
lego movie, 100m
hobbit, 144m
transformers, 165m (wtf)
maleficent, 97m
x-men: days/future past, 131m
big hero 6, 108m
dawn of planet of apes, 130m
amazing spidey 2, 142m
godzilla, 123m
22 jump st, 112 min
TMNT, 101m
interstella, 169m
how 2 train dragon 2, 105m
gone girl, 145m
divergent, 143m
neighbors, 96m
murican sniper, 132m
AVERAGE = 126.15m

of course, either of these years could be outliers, but I'm guessing the avg running time of mainstream movies has crept up past the 120-minute mark in the past decade or so.

and for kicks, 1984:

beverly hills cop, 105m
ghostbusters, 107m (this would surely be 120+m now)
temple of doom, 118m
gremlins, 106m
karate kid, 127m (really?)
police academy, 97m
footloose, 107m
romancing the stone, 105m
star trek 3, 105m
splash, 111m
purple rain, 111m
amadeus, 158m
tightrope, 115m (btw what the hell is this movie?0
the natural, 138m
greystroke, 137m
rvng of nerds, 90m
2010, 116m
breakin', 86m
bachelor party, 105m
red dawn, 114m

AVERAGE = 112.9

so, it seems like a slow creepy upwards, if anything faster in the 1990s than now

at least 2mins of that increase are longer tech credits crawl

destroy thread

there are also simply more megafranchise BLOCKBUSTERS now than there were in the 80s, but why the hell is that coming up here

― da croupier, Friday, January 23, 2015 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my guess is that the average hasn't been 90 minutes since the mid-late 1930s, at least if you're talking highest-grossing films (which have a disproportionate number of "A+" expensive films, epics. etc.)

but yeah someone needs to do a randomized selection.

there are also simply more megafranchise BLOCKBUSTERS now than there were in the 80s, but why the hell is that coming up here

― da croupier, Friday, January 23, 2015 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― da croupier, Friday, January 23, 2015 1:47 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that doesn't invalidate anything. it just means that the films people are going to see these days tend to be longer.

i wonder how the # of tickets sold each year (not for individ. films but in aggregate) correlates to film length.

it's not just that they're longer, they're also franchises, epic tales told over multiple movies

so yeah, you make a bunch of those and films like Bachelor Party get knocked out of the Top 20.

but again, wtf does this have to do with boyhood, which is at a common length of oscar faves

it is neither a groundbreaking length for this kind of film, nor is it evidence of hollywood creep

hollywood bloat, rather

IFC FILMS ARE GETTING LONGER

number of films from each year's top 20 that are sequels/later films in extended franchises:

1984: 3 (temple of doom, star trek 3, 2010; of course, a number of the other films ended up spewing sequels, but that's not the same thing)

1994: 2 (clear&present danger, star trek: generations)

2014: conservatively, 10 (mockingly, cap'n america, hobbit, transformers, x-men, planet/apes, amz spidey 2, 22 jump st, how 2 train dragon 2); more liberally, 12 (guardians/galaxy part of "marvel universe"; maleficent "prequel")

in this thread, i don't care about boyhood btw

I liked Boyhood

It could've been shorter.

I'm guessing the avg running time of mainstream movies has crept up past the 120-minute mark in the past decade or so.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, January 23, 2015 11:41 AM (2 minutes ago)

I'm almost certain that this is the case. I expect we'd see even shorter average running times if we looked at other decades past. Lemme see here...

[crunch crunch]

Based on Wikipedia's lists of the highest grossing films for each year, during the eleven year period from 1974 through 1984, the average length of a "top 10" film was 115.8 minutes.

Breakdown by year shows a fairly clear drop from a high of 126.1 min. in 1974 (at the peak of the disaster epic boom) to a low of 108.4 min. a decade later, in 1984.

I picked this period because it covers my coming of age in the American cinema, so I expected it would validate my vaguely-formed sense that "movies used to be a lot shorter". And from what I can see, it does - at least so far as the late 70s and early 80s are concerned. If I cared to carry my data gathering forward, I expect I'd see the trend hold over the remainder of the 80s and even into the 90s, with the length of the average top grossing American film beginning to climb back over the two-hour mark sometime after 1997, when Titanic brought the "old-fashioned Hollywood epic" back into fashion (a trend that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films would throw into overdrive).

And I think it's absolutely appropriate to use only the top-grossing films as a sample here. They're the films most seen, often by an enormous margin, and they therefore provide an ideal indicator of the overall American filmgoing experience. They're the films that will have most profoundly affected our overall (national) sense of cinema.

welp, that settles it. i hope the no one who thinks high-grossing movies haven't gotten longer on average has learned a valuable lesson from the boyhood thread

And I add a couple posters to my shit list.

and Ethan Hawke forgot to age

Jordan, see an ophthalmologist NOW.

welp, that settles it. i hope the no one who thinks high-grossing movies haven't gotten longer on average has learned a valuable lesson from the boyhood thread

― da croupier, Friday, January 23, 2015 3:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey, i thought the exercise was beneficial. certainly more so than writing any more about boyhood.

"IFC FILMS ARE GETTING LONGER"

prob a fairer and closer comparison. i know it's epic in length but boyhood is still a US indie.

http://www.sundance.tv/festival/top-ten/best-festival-fiction-films#/11

smiley face - 84m
savages - 113m
sleepy time girl - 108m
half nelson - 106m
in the bedroom 131m
police beat - 90m
old joy - 76 m
donny darko - 113m
primer - 77m

avg length = 89.8m

boyhood = 166 mins

actually, nelson is 106m, half nelson is 53m

Ugh

jesus christ, it was shot over the course of over a decade and came out the length of one of altman's bigger movies. it isn't some bellwether of how the times are a-changin

i'm reaching orson welles levels of annoyance with the depths of the ignorance here

well i didnt post that last set of running lengths to indicate a great new world where people wont sit through a new hunger games movie unless its 240 mins (though that might not be far off), more just to show that yknow, in terms of the world (ie US indies) boyhood comes from, it is a bit of a special case.

anyway, i want to see this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3655522/

yeah btw my discussion of film lengths didn't really have anything to do w/ boyhood, which is clearly some kind of special case

i just wanted to see if my sense that american movies in general were getting longer had any empirical justification

i.e., flaunt the depths of your ignorance

amazing they found three good hours in the decade's worth of material. must have been hell deciding what to fit in after the amazing end of racism scene.

prob should have backed themselves and played "something inside so strong" just as the worker thanked the mom for her advice though - they were way too arty and subtle there.