Boyhood

Posted on July 17, 2014 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including sexual references, and for teen drug and alcohol use
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen and adult drinking, teen drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Domestic abuse, guns
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 18, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	January 5, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00MEQUNZ0

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will/And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” (Longfellow)

We first see Mason (Ellar Coltrane) lying on the ground, looking up at the sky, and it is clear that his thoughts are very long indeed. We will stay with Mason and — in an unprecedented longitudinal form of filmmaking from writer/director Richard Linklater — portrayed by Coltrane for twelve years, until he leaves for college at age 18. This film deservedly appears on most of the year’s top ten lists and has been selected by several critics groups as the best film of the year.

Linklater has followed characters over the years before. We have seen the romantic relationship of Celine and Jesse in three 24-hour episodes (all involving walking through European cities) in the “Before” films, plus an intriguing segment of the animated “Waking Life.” That series is an extraordinary, and I hope, continuing undertaking, with stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke working with Linklater to create the storyline and script.

Hawke is in this film, too, as Mason’s father, Mason senior. Patricia Arquette plays his mother and Linklater’s daughter Lorelei plays his older sister, Samantha. All are superb. Linklater says that he knew what the last shot would be from the beginning. For the rest, he trusted his stars and the developments of the dozen years ahead of them. As the children got older, they joined Linklater, Hawke, and Arquette in helping to fill in the details.

And it is the details that are the story here, giving it a unhurried yet mesmerizingly enthralling feel and an unexpected power. At first, it seems like time-lapse footage of a flower blooming. Then it feels like watching someone’s home movies. By the end, we are so invested in Mason’s life we feel we are watching our own.

Linklater and his cast met for just a few weeks each year to film a little more. Unlike a conventional narrative, where, as Chekov put it, economy of storytelling means that a gun over the fireplace in act one has to go off by act three, this story is not linear. But non-linear does not mean random. The incidents chosen are not necessarily the high points of Mason’s years, but they are indicators that create a mosaic of the fuller picture. Mason sees his mother, who has gone back to graduate school, talking to one of her professors. But it is unlikely that he understands the meaning of the look they exchange. We are not surprised to find them married in a subsequent scene. And we do not need a slow build-up or full character arc to understand the import of the succeeding conflicts between the stepfather and stepson.

Meanwhile, Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater do something no one has ever done quite this way before on screen. They grow up. And Richard Linklater trusts the audience enough to let that in and of itself be the dramatic arc of the story. There were laughs and hoots in the audience over the antiquated look of the computers at Mason’s school. There are references to the first Obama Presidential campaign and the release of a new Harry Potter book. But these are all organic, as much as his first heart-break, his second stepfather, and new stepmother, and tough words from his teacher. There is no micro-managed re-creation of the past; this is the past, our past as well as Mason’s. It feels real, it feels lived in, and, as he leaves for college, it feels bittersweet but filled with promise.

Parents should know that this film includes domestic abuse, tense family confrontations, guns, very strong language, sexual references (some crude), and teen drug and alcohol use.

Family discussion: Do you agree with Mason’s photography teacher about what he should do? Mason had many different role models for masculinity — which do you think he will follow?

If you like this, try: Richard Linklater’s other films, including “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” and “Before Midnight” and “Waking Life”

Planes: Fire & Rescue

Posted on July 17, 2014 at 5:59 pm

The visuals are stunning, the details are witty, the 3D effects are splendid, the songs are lively, the voice actors are top-notch, but the storyline feels like an episode of “Thomas the Tank Engine.” That’s when it was still analog and old-school and before it went to animation, but still — especially as the gender politics of this film are uncomfortably old-school as well.

Last year’s Planes added another mode of transportation to the charmingly retro world of Cars. A plucky crop-duster named Dusty (Dane Cook) learned to race and became a champion. As this movie begins, he is an international superstar. But his vintage gearbox has been worn down by the races, and no replacement is available. Dusty is going to have to find something that is as meaningful to him as racing.

When he accidentally starts a fire at Piston Peak National Park, Dusty sees that old Mayday (Hal Holbrook), the fire and rescue truck is not quite up to the task. More important, he is not up to code. The stern Transportation Management Safety Team inspector informs them that they need more capacity if they are going to stay in business. That means some upgrades for Mayday and it also means a second firefighter. Dusty feels responsible. And if he cannot race, he has to find something new to do, to help make up for his mistake. So he agrees to take the training to become a certified fire fighter.

Dusty is welcomed by the team, including the flirtatious Lil Dipper (“Modern Family’s” Julie Bowen), the heavy-lift helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi), ex-military transport Cabbie (Captain Dale Dye) and The Smokejumpers, a brave collection of all-terrain vehicles who leap out of the planes and parachute down to the fire. But he stern Blade Ranger (Ed Harris), who is in charge of the training facility, is not at all sure Dusty is up to the task.

The action sequences are very well staged and the effects, especially the water and sky images, are truly astonishing. The usual pun-studded, meta humor for the series shows up throughout, from the show business trade news magazine titled “Cariety” to a female vehicle dismissing a lame come-on with a cool, “Pick-up trucks!” The choicest surprise is a videotape with a car-ified version of a classic television series, with that very recognizable series star contributing a character voice. Of course the television show appeared in the late 70’s-early 80’s, so it is likely to be over the heads of today’s children and their parents, too.

The real villain here is the fire, of course, but there is also a comic villain, a pompous administrator voiced by John Michael Higgins. But the movie never works up much interest in him or his schemes, and the post-credits stinger barely stings.

More troubling is the poor treatment of the female characters, despite being called out for that same problem in the first one. At least in the original, the female characters were capable and independent. Poor Bowen is relegated here to a role that recalls the man-chasing stereotypes of television in the 1960’s, often played by Rose Marie or Ann B. Davis. She is constantly trying to tell Dusty that they are on a date and, when he politely says they will be going as a group, dementedly agrees that it is a good thing for her to meet his friends until he reminds her that the firefighting team members are her friends. And a major plot twist occurs when the previously ultra-capable mechanic voiced by Teri Hatcher is casually outdone by a male character. It’s completely unnecessary, it subverts the primary premise of the storyline, and it demeans the female mechanic for no reason. It isn’t Dusty who’s got filings in his gearbox. It’s the script.

Parents should know that this film includes peril, including fire, collapsing bridge, rapids, engine failure, action and some violence (no one irreparably hurt, but a reference to a sad death), and some bathroom humor.

Family discussion: Who in this movie has to decide how to handle it when their plans do not work out? How do you think about your own back-up plans? What does “better than new” mean?

If you like this, try: “Cars” and “Planes”

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3D Animation Fantasy Series/Sequel

Tribute: Elaine Stritch

Posted on July 17, 2014 at 2:49 pm

The great Elaine Stritch has died at age 89. It is hard to imagine a world without that vibrant, brash, brassy, and utterly vital force of nature. She was the kind of woman about whom it was not just apt but the highest of compliments to use terms like “classy old broad” and “great gams.” She was frank about her many poor choices and wrong directions (she picked a date with Rock Hudson over Ben Gazzara and tells the story brilliantly in her one-woman show). But she did not need to be frank about the great passion of her life because it was evident in every breath and gesture: the theater.

Her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, is a master class in show business history. She talks about the highs and lows of her career with enormous insight and humor — and with every bit of the stage presence that made her a star for six decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciwf0ALd_rQ

The documentary, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, is smart, sassy, and lots of fun.

She was unforgettable as Jack’s mother in “30 Rock” and she appeared in films from 1953’s “A Farewell to Arms” to 2012’s “Paranorman” (including Woody Allen’s “September” and “Small Time Crooks”). But her home was the Broadway stage, and there she was dazzling.

Here you can see her incredible focus and commitment in rehearsing her signature song, Sondheim’s “Ladies Who Lunch.”

Watch her knock it right out of the park and into orbit.

My own favorite of her songs: If Trust me on this. It will knock your socks off your feet and into the next room.

May her memory be a blessing.

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Actors

Interview: Richard Linklater of “Boyhood”

Posted on July 17, 2014 at 8:00 am

Richard Linklater is one of my favorite directors. Films like “Waking Life,” “Before Sunrise”/”Before Sunset”/”Before Midnight,” “Dazed and Confused,” “School of Rock,” “Bernie,” and “Me and Orson Welles” display his restless intelligence and remarkable range. His latest film, “Boyhood,” was an under-the-radar twelve-year project, filming just a few days each year, so that we watch the main character, Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane, grow up before our eyes. It was an honor to have a chance to talk to him about the film.

“This is an odd movie, because it’s a period piece film, but we were filming it in the present tense,” he explained. “You don’t get that opportunity very often.” Knowing as you film that what you are shooting won’t be seen for another decade, “you kind of look at that differently. Film’s a powerful recorder of the present. If you look at a silent film, even if you don’t like the movie, it’s a great record of how people lived and what fashions were. I had no agenda, but I thought this would demarcate its era, just by its own existence.”

He said he wanted the film to reflect the way that children process time differently from adults. “When you’re young, you hear a song and it’s very specific — fifth grade, eighth grade. When you get older, it gets kind of mushy. It doesn’t mean as much. It gets a little more undifferentiated.”

It is an extraordinary, unprecedented form of storytelling but he said he wanted it to be an ordinary family at the heart of the story. “These are not superheroes. They’re people trying to maneuver through life like everybody.”

Mason’s parents, played by Ethan Hawke (Mason senior) and Patricia Arquette (just billed as “Mom”) are separated, at in the film’s first scenes, Mason senior returns after an extended time in Alaska, to see his children. He said he wanted “the off-screen separation to be a little mysterious,” to maintain the point of view of the children, showing us that children “just feel the effects. I didn’t want to give the audience information that is outside the viewpoint of the kids.” Because the actors themselves interacted so little in filming, they were each able to develop their own ideas about what had happened in the relationship. “Both of the parents are admirable and a little triumphant in varying degrees. He wanted to be a dad and he is. He is a big figure in their lives. And she wants to provide for her kids and get an education and she does. She’s kind of a great woman, flaws and all. Who doesn’t have that?”

He had the big picture, “the big issues, moving, the end, the last shot” early on. “I kind of work that way, big structure planned out, and then kind of macro/micro within it a lot of leeway to be inspired. In most movies, you’re very rushed during production. It’s great to work like a sculptor. I’ll work three days, and then edit, and then think for a year. Film doesn’t give you that and I wanted to take advantage of it! Watch at home at 2 in the morning, thinking ‘What does the story need? Is this part working? Oh, I need to put back in this relationship. I never made a film that felt like it wanted to be itself so much. They always say films are like your kids, but I never believed that before. With this one, I actually do. It’s its own living, breathing person who I’m now sending off to college. Reluctantly.”

And Linklater’s own living, breathing daughter is in the movie, playing Mason’s older sister, Samantha. Linklater said that as the younger brother with older sisters in his own family, “it was hard to carve out space for myself. They have such an impact on you.” The girls were such a powerful force in his life and he wanted Mason to have a sister who was part thorn in his side, part witness, part support system. “They have that rivalry, but as they get older they support each other.”

Mason sees a range of models of masculinity in the film — his father, two stepfathers, even a teacher who really takes him to task in a scene set in the red light of a photographic darkroom. “It’s a male world. They’re in your face. The male world is in your face, compelled to shape the youth and be in your face all the time. Men want to be mentors. Moms will still straighten you out, but they’re more accepting. A step-parent is a fraught relationship anyway. These guys who are suddenly in his life — no one asked him — they have influence and authority over him that he feels maybe they haven’t earned. That’s his perspective. They’re probably not as bad as he sees them.” In what Linklater called “one of the most violent scenes you will see this year,” Mason’s long hair is cut short at the direction of his stepfather. Linklater told us that Coltrane’s look of mute, impotent, fury was all acting. Linklater insisted that Coltrane grow his hair for a few months before the shoot so they could do that scene, and the reality was that he was relieved in the hot Texas summer to get it cut off.

Making the film this way meant no opportunity to go back and re-shoot a scene or add in something extra. That was fine with Linklater. “Work hard and if that’s the best you could do at that moment, you should be okay with it and make your peace with it. I’ve never done a lot of reshoots. I believe in making it work. That’s the good thing about movies and art in general.”

Many thanks to Rebecca Cusey for sharing this interview with me and for her thoughtful questions.

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Directors Interview Writers

Contest: Win a Plushie Echo from “Earth to Echo”

Posted on July 16, 2014 at 11:11 pm

I have some adorable plushies of the little alien in “Earth to Echo” to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Echo” in the subject line and tell me your favorite summer activity. Don’t forget your mailing address! (US addresses only) I’ll pick winners at random on July 31. You’ll even get a surprise bonus prize! So please enter, and don’t forget you still have time to enter the Earth to Echo GoPro contest to win a video camera!

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