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    Boyhood

    Anyone seen this yet? I just saw it yesterday. Linklater shot the film over 12 years, a little bit each year. I really enjoyed this reflection on everyday life, trading out the usual dramatic moves to engage an audience with more of a flat portrayal of things that might seem big in the moment but are really part of a series of minor highs and lows. I know that might not sound too enticing, but I thought the story was really nice and the film was one of the best I have seen in a long time. I'll add, though, that I am a big fan of his Before films (esp. the second one). This is less of a talkie, but driven by a reflection on experience in similar ways to those other films.

    #2
    Boyhood

    A friend of mine who's worked with Linklater in the past clued me in to this story a couple years back - I am looking forward to seeing it.

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      #3
      Boyhood

      This sounds fascinating as a concept but, having endured the first two "Before…" films, I am unlikely to go near it with a barge pole.

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        #4
        Boyhood

        i'm afraid this movie is a crashing bore. i thought, given that they've shot it over a period of about 12 years, surely somebody could have thought of some fucking plot points? after some good early scenes with the drunken stepfather, nothing happens. i felt like i was living out his easy, featureless suburban life in real time. then the story eventually putters to a halt in the middle of nowhere. i was hoping they would all fall into the canyon.

        i wonder was it always meant to be "boyhood". in the beginning he and his sister are about equally involved, but she disappears in the second half of the movie. was this always the plan, or did they change the focus when they realised to their horror that one of their leads was better at acting as an eight year old than as an eighteen year old?

        i should probably mention that i didn't like the "before" movies either; maybe someone who liked them would like this.

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          #5
          Boyhood

          …and would not be trusted.

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            #6
            Boyhood

            I seem to remember reading the other week in an article about the film that the daughter character is played by the actual daughter of the director or a producer, and she lost interest in the project partway through — so that might account for the partial change of focus.
            ...
            Ah yes, it was in the Radio Times TV listings magazine. Here's the relevant bit, from the same article on their website:
            On screen, Ellar’s older sister is played by Lorelei Linklater, the eldest of the director’s three daughters. They didn’t argue, he says – but unlike Ellar, in certain years his daughter was clearly “over it”.
            Edit: Also, apparently the working title was not Boyhood but the potentially more inclusive 12 Years. Richard Linklater decided to change it relatively late in the day when he heard about 12 Years A Slave, to avoid any confusion.

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              #7
              Boyhood

              My sense from reading various articles before seeing the film is that the boy was always going to be the primary focus. The sister is more of a focus early on but she's also present in his life more. Once she reaches high school, she starts to develop her own life beyond the family (verbally expressed when she didn't pick Mason up from school and said the walk was not that far and he's old enough to fend for himself). When he reaches a similar age, she's off to college in another city.

              Per my initial comments, I obviously disagree that the film was a bore, but these things are always going to be subjective. For me, the film turns on a variety of external pressures that Mason faces (people constantly trying to impress their vision of "work ethic" on him even though he clearly has some sense of what he wants to do, poor choices made by his mom, the ability of his dad to appear as a good time dad once every other weekend while mom has to struggle with the real problems). All of this is a bit general but I'm trying to avoid spoilers (although as established already, this isn't a film with major suspense devices used to move a story along).

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                #8
                Boyhood

                the ability of his dad to appear as a good time dad once every other weekend while mom has to struggle with the real problems
                well this is what i'm talking about when i say it was boring. this has got to be one of the most familiar movie themes of all time. zzz

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                  #9
                  Boyhood

                  That's what I found engrossing, though, Garcia: it felt authentic, and they were characters I could identify and empathise with. I think the point of the film is that, generally speaking, life doesn't happen in jump-out-of-the-screen dramatic moments, and yet when you take the longer view you see how far the sum of those 'normal' events has taken you.

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