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 Boyhood is a 12 year passion project from director Richard Linklater focusing on the life of a boy from ages 12 to 18. The thing is that it's not a documentary. Everything in the movie is fiction except for the amount of time that's passing. No one gets replaced. It's all the same people being filmed for 12 years existing in the eras they are being filmed in. You'll see the characters change with the world as the world is actually changing. If you know Linklater, you'll know there's not much plot here. It's mainly characters hanging out, talking and just sort of living their lives. The movie has a bit more drama than something like Slacker, but overall as we check in with characters, it tends to be just day to day stuff with an occasional big event to shake things up. I'm just gonna come out and say it, this movie is incredible and pretty much unlike anything you're ever going to see. The Up series is the closest analogue but that's still very different for obvious reasons. It is simply a joy to watch all these people grow. Not just the titular Boy (who they were lucky turned out to be a pretty great actor) but also his parents (played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke), his sister (played by Linklater's daughter) and everyone else that happens to wander in and out of the characters lives. It all just feels so genuine. Things that would otherwise feel like shallow nostalgia grabs are instead things that manage to perfectly capture a moment in time because they are from that moment in time. It's not just the characters that are changing but the world around them and the movie is constantly reflecting that. Not only do we get to see the actors grow but also Linklater himself. As the movie goes on you can actually see him get better and better at his art and more comfortable with the movie he is making. If I seem a bit all over the place talking about this it's because it's very hard to do this movie justice in a little write up. It's all almost just too much. It all just feels so genuine. Every character interaction, every fashion choice, every directions the characters lives go, every conversation just feels like a part of someone's actual life being lived out on screen in front of you. You should really just see it is all I'm saying. If for some reason you have an aversion to Linklater's style you should probably avoid it (I mean, it's almost 3 hours of Linklater being Linklatery as hell) but otherwise you really don't have an excuse to miss this one. Here's a trailer that isn't that spoilery but you still probably shouldn't watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiDztHS3Wos
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Jul 11, 2014 16:22
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Just came back from watching it. 3 hours long and I was very tempted to straight into the next showing. I'm an unapologetic Linklater fanboy, but that was loving amazing. One thing I noticed was how it's (obviously) a great document of the last 12 years or so, but in the little unexpected details. Like how Ethan Hawke was smoking in the bowling alley early on. In another film, that would be to show 'hey, this is a period piece, remember when you could smoke inside at public places?', but here it's just natural, because that's what people did back when they were filming that scene. Is the liqueur store clerk the same one from Dazed and Confused? Junkenstein fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 19:51
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IMDB says yes: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0085893/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t20
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Jul 11, 2014 21:11
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Just got back from seeing this (thanks for making the thread, axleblaze!) and yeah....wow. This movie is truly something special. I am also a Linklater fanboy (Before series is my favourite trilogy in all of cinema), but I think people will love it even if they're not so big on him - even the hipstery Linklater-esque dialogue near the end works because it's coming out of the mouth of a 17 year old and is clearly meant to be at least somewhat satirical (or at least knowing that it isn't actually how he will always feel). What I really loved about this was how it was an epic masterpiece without ever feeling like it was trying to be such a thing. There's no big grand unifying message, no attempts to force huge thematic points out of anything, yet it accomplishes it just from being an incredibly realistic depiction of life. There's no narrative, yet it never feels slow or boring - in fact, the weakest moments are probably the parts in the first hour that have a little narrative drive. All of the regular cast are perfect in their roles, but Arquette especially revealed depths I had no idea existed. And anyone who sees it will never properly be able to accept using different actors to represent different ages ever again. As Junkenstein says, the little touches that they could only get from actually filming in the time period make it feel so incredibly real. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out they went to an actual Half-Blood Prince book launch, for instance. It bums me out that I have to travel an hour on the train to get to a city that's screening this because I would happily go at least twice more. I spent most of it totally enraptured, and then from one scene onwards (for some reason, it was the one where we see Ethan Hawke with Arquette's mother for the first time since the beginning of the movie and she's happy for him) I was a total sodden mess. It ended on the perfect note too. This is definitely the best movie of the year and one of my absolute favourites of this decade so far, as well as Linklater's magnum opus. Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 11, 2014 |
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Jul 11, 2014 21:46
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I'm a huge Linklater fanboy and have been waiting to see this since I first got into him around '04 or whatever. Oh god my boy is ready.
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Jul 12, 2014 02:25
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Bown posted:I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out they went to an actual Half-Blood Prince book launch, for instance. They did, in fact. Same with the baseball game, although I guess that's more obvious.
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Jul 12, 2014 19:48
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My wife and I are about to head to the 8:25 showing with the Q&A and I'm so loving excited.
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Jul 12, 2014 22:46
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I'm hanging out for some kind of release here in Australia because, drat, I need to see this movie. All digits crossed.
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Jul 13, 2014 13:04
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Jewmanji posted:They did, in fact. Same with the baseball game, although I guess that's more obvious. Linklater mentions that [Harry Potter] scene in the Empire podcast. That year his daughter asked if her character could be killed off. Starts at 52:35
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Jul 13, 2014 14:34
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Are you posting loving spoilers!?
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Jul 13, 2014 14:55
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Trump posted:Are you posting loving spoilers!? This really doesn't seem like a movie where something like that happens, so I'm pretty sure it's just a behind-the-scenes story. it better be Calamity Brain fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 15:04
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Trump posted:Are you posting loving spoilers!? No? Edit: Oh, right, I can see how that could have been misconstrued now, sorry. Junkenstein fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 15:06
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While this I guess might be a spoiler in and of itself, I will say that, no, Linklater doesn't kill off his daughter's character in the film.
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Jul 13, 2014 15:19
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Can't wait to see this movie. Linklater is my favorite director and I don't think he's ever made something I don't like.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:59
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This movie apparently has the highest score on metacritic of any new release since at least 2000. Granted it's only 30 or so reviews so far, but drat.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:45
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Saw this Saturday afternoon at IFC Center in NYC with a Q&A from Linklater and Coltrane after. The Q&A was brief but informative, and Coltrane was very soft spoken and reserved which was surreal because I had just finished watching the story unfold and the Q&A felt like an extension of that in a way. The movie itself was an absolute joy to watch. Admittedly, I'm not sure I've ever seen another Linklater film so I don't know how like those Boyhood is, but everything felt incredibly natural and everyone simply nailed their parts. I felt like I, myself, was growing up and being lectured throughout the film and remembering all the moments in my life that coincided with Mason's. Hawke did a fantastic job with his character, I'd say he stole the show. A guy on the street passed my friend and I after we had left and asked how we liked it, and if it "felt" like it was 2h45m. I had no idea it was that long and it certainly didn't feel like it.
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Jul 14, 2014 07:56
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Really, really looking forward to this. Been looking forward to it for over a decade, in fact, and I had completely forgotten about it until earlier this year when I saw the trailer, and was amazed to see that it was not only done, but that it had been loving twelve years since I had first heard about it. Seriously can't wait to see this.
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Jul 14, 2014 08:10
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Just got back from seeing it. Holy poo poo, it lived up to the hype. That scene with Stepdad #1 was probably the most intense and suspenseful scene I've seen in a long time. Sure, in Godzilla you're dealing with a humongous kaiju, in Captain America 2 you're dealing with those villains, but this felt real. You don't know what that son of a bitch is going to do next and you don't just expect everyone to survive. It doesn't help that my dad was kind of like that (though he didn't even need alcohol). I know firsthand just how out of control those people can get, and how quickly, so I was just waiting for the next escalation. Mason and Sam then have to just evacuate that house and leave their step-siblings behind, never to be heard from again, and that's life. It is a little weird seeing Hawke again after watching Before Midnight just the other night. I kind of expected him to show up with Julie Delpy. ShoogaSlim posted:Admittedly, I'm not sure I've ever seen another Linklater film so I don't know how like those Boyhood is He loves dialogue based films and experimenting with how time is portrayed and plot focus. His film Slacker 20 years ago had random people playing tag with the perspective. You start following one character and then it just transitions to following another one and so on. The Before trilogy films all take place within one day, and the second movie is basically in real time. He went through a rotoscoping phase too. I encourage you to watch more of his movies. I'm not saying it's all gold, but he consistently puts out good movies when the studios let him. skooma512 fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 05:51
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Saw the movie tonight in Toronto and loved it. I think that OP nailed it with this comment:axleblaze posted:It is simply a joy to watch all these people grow. Not just the titular Boy (who they were lucky turned out to be a pretty great actor) but also his parents (played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke), his sister (played by Linklater's daughter) and everyone else that happens to wander in and out of the characters lives. It all just feels so genuine. Things that would otherwise feel like shallow nostalgia grabs are instead things that manage to perfectly capture a moment in time because they are from that moment in time. It's not just the characters that are changing but the world around them and the movie is constantly reflecting that. Not only do we get to see the actors grow but also Linklater himself. As the movie goes on you can actually see him get better and better at his art and more comfortable with the movie he is making. I would say that the entire time I was conscious of the "gimmick" of the movie but also so enthralled to watch the characters/actors grow up onscreen in such a natural, consistent way. There was the movie and the meta-movie (so to speak) going on at the same time and I really enjoyed both. I enjoyed all of the great little character moments - you really wish you could have seen a lot more of what they might have captured on film. I was intrigued by the choices Linklater made in keeping which scenes from certain eras in the movie and wondering how they actually serve the story (I thought that the overtly political scene in the bowling alley was a little too "told you so") and am interested to watch it a second time to see how the movie holds up on second viewing, but it's a truly great experience. I think that there's backlash coming as a result of all the super-positive reviews and that they'll focus on Mason Jr.'s lack of character or very apaethtic point of view, but I thought he was a very real and realized person in the movie as a result of the experiences in his life that we've seen. There are a lot of weird, noncommittal, mumbly teenage boys in the world.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:55
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el oso posted:
It doesn't look like they actually filmed that much. I read somewhere that the plan was to film ten minutes a year, but it's obviously more than that due the final running time. Regardless, I don't think there's a wealth of deleted scenes (although I'd love a director's cut), so the scenes in the film are what they decided to do that year, not picked at the end of it all to tell a story, which makes it all the more impressive how coherent it all is. I guess it was all about using that year inbetween filming to look at what they already had and the best way forward. http://collider.com/boyhood-interview-richard-linklater-ethan-hawke/ posted:Is there some epic four-hour or five-hour cut of Boyhood somewhere? Linklater posted:No. There’s very little on the floor. It’s just little bits and pieces ‘cause we just didn’t have the time or money to shoot a bunch of stuff. That year of thinking made it pretty finely honed, by the time we were shooting. There are some alternative takes that might be fun to put on a DVD. The first year, when Lorelei’s singing the Britney Spears song, ‘cause you never know the future or if you’ll get the rights to it, she did a number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, called “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” and I want to see that now. But, there’s not that much. There’s definitely a making-of, which according to the actors, should be called 12 Years a Slave. There’s some incredible behind-the-scenes stuff, but I don’t know what we’re going to do with it.
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Jul 17, 2014 12:32
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Saw it earlier and couldn't really do much when the credits rolled because I was stunned into silence. The most serenely beautiful film I've ever seen. Eventually was able to talk about it with the friend I saw it with and we were both just so happy that we'd had the privilege to share something so unlike anything else that's been made. There are so many different levels to appreciate it on that it's hard to know where to start. My friend and I being mid twenties loved the echoes of our naiveity and hope from a few years earlier, overlaid with the parents' story sweetly foreshadowing the next phase of our life. I imagine watching it as an 18 year old having lived through the same decade as Mason would inspire a different reading or reaction, and again watching it as a parent would create so many different emotions. Just loving superb.
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Jul 18, 2014 01:54
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A few of my friends saw it and are raving about it, saying it makes cinematic history, etc.
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Jul 21, 2014 04:08
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It's a weird thing to say, but I enjoyed how thoroughly mundane this movie was. There was no villain (except life itself, I guess?), there were no contrived dramas stemming from stupid misunderstandings or coincidences, no melodramatic tragedies. It was just life, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes annoying, sometimes absolutely frightening (God I tensed up hard during that dinner scene). What I especially liked were the musical cues, since they were a quick, efficient way to transport me to an era. Coldplay's Yellow? gently caress, I'm back in high school. The only thing I do wonder is how this movie would be perceived without the real time aspect. Like if they just used makeup and CGI to age people (and swapped actors out as necessary for the kids). I think I'd still like and appreciate it, but obviously the technical feat is what really pushes it towards masterpiece territory. But yeah, see it if you can. See it twice, even!
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Jul 21, 2014 07:01
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I took a day off of work and drove to the city to see this with my wife. Aside from the "gimmick" I wasn't really familiar with what I was going to see. I'm not terribly familiar with Linklater but I could tell from the trailer I would like this movie. Somewhere through the first hour of the movie I realized that there wasn't going to be some central event that the characters encounter and they band together to move past it, which I wasn't expecting. It's not really a traditional narrative piece but a documentation of a real life. I think the scene that got to me most was when Mason comes home from riding his bike with his step-brother and sees his mom on the floor of the garage. There were hints of something like this happening but this was like a fist to face. It took a lot for me not to lose it. Everyone gave excellent performances, especially Patricia Arquette. I really hope she gets recognized for this. If you are considering making the drive like I had to, I don't regret it at all. See this.
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Jul 21, 2014 15:02
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Yeah, echoing everyone else's sentiments - Boyhood was tremendous. I wouldn't call myself a Linklater "fanboy," but I like his output, what I've seen of it. I loved watching Linklater and the actors grow as artists and people, and I could see bits and pieces of the filmmaker in the father and son especially. One recurring thing I loved was the treatment of gifts - people give Mason a lot of gifts over the course of his childhood, and it took seeing this Cliff's Notes version of a life to understand that gifts are little pieces of ourselves that we give to others to, in whatever way, impose our own worldview on them. In that scene where they go to his stepmom's parent's place for his birthday, Ethan Hawke gives Mason two gifts - one from the 'past' him who wants to be the fun dad (the "Black Album"), the other from the 'current' him who finally understands responsibility and practicality (the suit); the grandma gives him a Holy Bible and the grandpa gives him a shotgun. All of those gifts are ways of shaping and molding Mason (which so many different characters do over the course of the film) into the man they want him to be, and it's fitting that Mason seems to reject all that. And yes, I was glad that the first stepdad was the most immediate tension and danger that the family received and the audience had to sit through; it was incredibly well-done, but it was best served by being a lone act of drama in this 12-year-long hangout movie about the beautiful banality of real life. Plus, once we saw Dad #3 crack open that beer, we understood immediately why he was out of the picture not long after - wonderful narrative economy on their part.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:03
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I remember feeling a little jaded about that plot device being used once again in the film, thinking that the mother character should have learned her lesson. Then I realized that people often repeat their mistakes in real life and the film was showcasing that. I know I've made plenty of the same stupid mistakes in my life and that was reflected in Boyhood. Perhaps the reason I was initially annoyed by the mothers inability to learn from her mistake reflected the annoyance I feel for my own foolishness. Thanks a lot, Linklater!
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Jul 22, 2014 11:01
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ShoogaSlim posted:I remember feeling a little jaded about that plot device being used once again in the film, thinking that the mother character should have learned her lesson. Then I realized that people often repeat their mistakes in real life and the film was showcasing that. I know I've made plenty of the same stupid mistakes in my life and that was reflected in Boyhood. Perhaps the reason I was initially annoyed by the mothers inability to learn from her mistake reflected the annoyance I feel for my own foolishness. Thanks a lot, Linklater! Plus, they don't seem like mistakes to her - even we, with the magic benefit of seeing Arquette got her face bashed in not an hour ago (for us), don't know she's making a mistake by remarrying. After she divorces Hawke towards the beginning of the film, she tries to find someone more responsible and authoritative to raise her kids. Once he turns out to be an alcoholic drunk, she shacks up with the Iraq vet, who we see in his first scene bases his life on "mutual respect" and seems to be an all around good guy. Hell, he even seems to get along great with Ethan Hawke! One of the credits of the film is that it shows you how, as someone says in the film, "life wears you down"; the two stepdads don't start out being that way, but are 'worn down' by time and life and responsibility, etc. They keep showing Army Stepdad wearing a corrections uniform; after his big moment in Iraq, he probably hates that he's relegated to getting a job as a security guard - just a little touch that really informed his motivations. That was what I really liked. (Side note: who would have ever expected that that Funny or Die 'Landlord' skit would be used as a parallel for real abuse?) Hewlett fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 16:17
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mason's hair goes from bad to good to bad again
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Jul 22, 2014 20:21
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Riptor posted:mason's hair goes from bad to good to bad again He really is a teenager. But nothing is worse than that nose ring he's currently sporting in the press junkets. But hey, it's the age to make those horrible fashion choices. Saw it this weekend, and I really liked it. It was weird realizing that "oh, he's making a reference to the elections in 2008. Wait, that's not a reference, it's actually completely current to the time this was shot." It was such a different feeling. And the current events they mentioned largely ended up being ones that are still relevant/memorable. I suppose Lady Gaga's Telephone video isn't particularly iconic, but the Funny or Die skit certainly is. But more than anything it was so cool to watch the way people changed over the years, particularly the parents. The whole thing was mundane but not in a boring way. Another cool thing for me is how, being 12 years older than Mason, the movie starts during the same time period where I personally was (starting college at 18) as Mason was at the movie's end.
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Jul 22, 2014 22:58
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It's sort of hard to articulate what's so special about this movie without sounding trite. There have been countless movies about growing up, or even larger scale bildungsromans that attempt to cover a wide swath, but the scope of this movie is sort of breathless. I regret knowing too much about the movie going in- for the person who accompanied me, they had no idea how long of a timespan the movie covered, and so experienced Mason's growth in "real time", so to speak, without knowing that you're on pace throughout the movie to reach year 18. There have been movies about little kids, and young adults, and adolescents, and college kids, but Boyhood felt like a disorienting blend between a novel, a documentary, and a photo album, at the end of which you feel like you've come to know a real person. Obvious Mason Jr. is a character, but being able to see Ellar Coltrane age and mature in very real, noticeable ways felt like a blurring of the distinction between actor and character that I'm sure I've never seen before. There were so many little moments, like in one transitional space where you suddenly notice Mason has hit puberty and his voice has dropped that you feel like you've been let it on an extremely personal document of a completely real person's life. I will say that I wish some of the secondary characters had been better cast (the "camping" scene in the house with the teenagers was delivered absolutely terribly- which is an extra shock given the naturalism of say, Dazed and Confused). But Patricia Arquette was magnificent.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:01
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Just came back from watching this on Tuesday. I was really suprised on the turnout, there was a huge lineup and the theatre was sold out. It really gave off a TIFF vibe while I was lining up, which makes sense I guess. The movie was just, amazing. I just can't believe Patricia Arquette has had this performance hidden from everybody for so many years. Definitely did not disappoint, even with my pretty high expectations coming into it.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:29
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Saw the film, loved it. Am a little put out that nobody seems to be discussing it here (while a 300 post debate rages about Wonder Woman's heels). I did note that in a pretty sick twist famed child molester Gary Glitter gets a shout-out in the credits - pretty loving dark if he's making royalties out of a film called Boyhood.
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Jul 27, 2014 13:28
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Gary Glitter molested girls.
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Jul 27, 2014 15:42
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Gary Glitter molested girls. Even so you must agree it's a bit distasteful that one of the most reviled paedophiles of modern times is getting a payday because of a film about childhood.
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Jul 27, 2014 15:46
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Didn't you see that TV show? He was executed!
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Jul 27, 2014 15:50
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I really like how little plot there actually was in the film, but I couldn't help trying to infer what was going to happen next as if it was a traditional narratively driven story. It made the scenes where they punch each other in front of the circular saw blades in the wall in the patially built house and where Mason was scanning through his girlfriend's phone at pictures of cute pigs while driving one scene after his dad told him about road safety particularly tense as I felt sure I knew what was coming next. I was sure we were about to see terrible accidents both times that escalated the tension for the family if only for a brief period in their lives, but nope I'm not the only one - people audibly gasped at the end of that first example.
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Jul 27, 2014 19:43
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Silver Newt posted:I really like how little plot there actually was in the film, but I couldn't help trying to infer what was going to happen next as if it was a traditional narratively driven story. It made the scenes where they punch each other in front of the circular saw blades in the wall in the patially built house and where Mason was scanning through his girlfriend's phone at pictures of cute pigs while driving one scene after his dad told him about road safety particularly tense as I felt sure I knew what was coming next. I was sure we were about to see terrible accidents both times that escalated the tension for the family if only for a brief period in their lives, but nope I'm not the only one - people audibly gasped at the end of that first example. Haha yeah, Linklater recently did a Fresh Air interview where he was really surprised at test audiences having that expectation. I was wary during those exact scenes too, and he specifically cites them as moments where people thought it was building up to tragedy.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:13
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skooma512 posted:Just got back from seeing it. Holy poo poo, it lived up to the hype. That scene is still replaying over and over in my mind. Something about the stepdad's first line - "I'm having a drink with my dinner! Does anyone have a problem with that?" - and then going on to ask the kids one by one - just perfectly encapsulated the evil and danger inherent in the situation. No more token attempts to hide his alcoholism and abuse; it's all out in the open from now on. And he singled out the kids to show how powerless they were and to disenfranchise mom. God it was chilling. So much more real and terrifying than the typical domestic abuse scenes you see in movies (unshaved, hulking dad in a stained wifebeater looming over a cowering wife). I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Even though my childhood had almost nothing in common with Mason's, for me it hit note after note of aching nostalgia of being a young boy. It struck me how seldom you see real people, as opposed to bizarrely perfect Hollywood kids, during their awkward 9-14 year old phases in film and TV.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:41
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Saw it a couple nights ago and loved it, already enjoyed the Before trilogy a few times over so I knew a little of what to expect. I agree with the poster above on the traditional 'tragedy' scenes, there was an audible intake of breath when the circular saw scene happened. We obviously expect tragedy in films, but in real life we are exposed to risk and more often that not nothing happens. Stepdad No.1 was chilling, although it felt a bit of a sudden occurance at first. Was it foreshadowed at all before the garage scene?
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Jul 27, 2014 21:07
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Slimchandi posted:Was it foreshadowed at all before the garage scene? I think that was one of the more traditional narrative elements, since hiding the fact you're buying alcohol is probably not a good thing. Something about the way that guy acted made him seem incredibly skeevy as well. Like he just set my douchedar off almost immediately. GrandpaPants fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jul 27, 2014 |
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Jul 27, 2014 22:12
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