Filming the same kids grow up and discover themselves is a huge project. I would have written a large fantastic story with many characters to bring such a concept to its fullest possible creative apex. Perhaps Id set it at some kind of Wizarding school?
I was actually about to make a comment about how Harry Potter does an amazing job of showing children growing up and developing. While the books do it better I'm fairly certain that's just because Rowling was able to put such detail into it, the movies did a fairly decent job.
Jay makes a joke about seeing "Gardens of the Galaxy" where people go across the universe planting seeds...so, did he predict the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy 2?
"A once-in-a-lifetime movie." - Huffington Post "There has simply never been anything like this movie." - Rolling Stone "The movie fucking sucked so hard." - Mike
A once in a life time movie to me has the same energy as "They Don't make them like this anymore....for legal reasons" There is a reason no one will make another movie like this
Boyhood. "Soulful." "Beautiful" "Dazzling" "Extraordinary" "Boyhood is just like life. By the end, you just want to die." "Perfect" "It took 12 years to make"
Boyhood was a little like watching someone else's family photo album. You could tell they'd put a lot of love and care into it, but without wanting to sound like a monster, well, it's hard to really engage with the superficial lives of bland strangers. The British documentary series "Seven Up!" does a much better job of it. Partly because they contrast kids of different social backgrounds, partly because they don't stop the show when the kids turn 18, which is an awkward time for anyone, and not a great look to end on.
Seven Up is amazing. Also helps that they didn’t focus on just one kid. No one is interesting at every stage of life so featuring several subjects takes some of the pressure off.
@T D I only know The Wonder Years as that show with the actor who plays Columbo's grand-kid in the Princess Bride, but I've never seen a single episode. Now I think I might check it out. French director Truffaut also made a series of films with the same actor playing the same character at different times in his life. Starting with him as a kid in the 400 Blows.
From looking at all these comments saying that you must not have a soul if you don't like Boyhood, I'm guessing the appeal of this movie is equal to that of a stuffed animal. It has no character and is generally boring when you look at it, but it's cute and you should like it or you have no heart. But that's just my impression anyway.
sonicjrjr14 Calm down, I'm not judging anything. I already stated in my original comment that guessing from these comments, it seems that most of the appeal comes from the movie's feel good factor. It was just a guess.
Thagomizer That's because the movie would be different, and would suck! That's why the gimmick works. We see the family grow up organically. If we saw a completely different cast through each time period, we wouldn't feel anything for the characters. So many people didn't get what Linklater was trying to do, and that's a shame.
“Half the shit on RU-vid” ? Half in the bag is better than 99.999...% of the shit on RU-vid. There’s an incalculable amount of shit on RU-vid. But yeah I do too OP, I totally agree with your sentiment
Boyhood was extremely ambitious, took a lot of effort and dedication, was a project done by very driven and passionate people and was the result of many years of work. Now replace "Boyhood" in that sentence with "The Holocaust". Now you see why none of that shit matters when determining whether or not something is good.
i'm sorry but i really don't buy the "boyhood is supposed to be true to life and life is boring, it would have ruined the movie if stuff happened" excuse. i know life is boring. i fucking live in it. i don't need to sit through a two and a half hour movie to tell me something i already know and show me something i've already lived through.
I once saw a 2 hour video that was based on 1 year worth of melo-drama...I find it hard to recomend to people. I can barely even imagine the idea of watching a 3 hour movie based on 12 years of someone's life! Even if fictional...like good gosh give it a break people! :O
The biggest problem with Boyhood was that every line of dialogue sounded like someone reading a film script, which is really the worst thing that can happen to dialogue. I am not really sure that Linklater has ever actually listened to a human talk to another human.
@@krombopulos_michael you've had a great life then if those issues are something so weird and horrible. For most people those kind of issues are just normal stuff.
In reality, they only spent 39 days filming Boyhood and then just waited big periods of time for the actors to age and change physically. Someone's already done it before with a documentary series called "Seven Up", where they filmed the same group of people every seven years, up til the actors were about 56, so wtf?! xD
THE GREAT CORNHOLIO I bet you've never had to watch someone on their deathbed before. It can be exactly like that. The scene captured the immense weight of dread that hangs in a room like that.
i didnt expect them to hate boyhood that much. i mean, boyhood had a 100 on metacritic. are critics just on the biggest and most pretentious bandwagon ever, or are mike and jay missing something? who cares? im going to see guardians of the galaxy instead
I don't see how they could dislike it so much, I've seen it four times and it's fucking fantastic. Movie of the year for me, but then again I'm a pretentious film snob that likes subtleties in character development. They must not have souls.
I've watched Linklater's "Waking Life" because a lot of my high school hippy friends thought it was, "like, the most far out movie ever, maaaaaan..." - and it was basically the same thing. A unique filmmaking concept, being, "let's film a bunch of people having spontaneous conversations about dreams and the meaning of life and more pseudo-philosophy, and throw a bunch of artsy rotoscoping over it" which was semi-interesting when I watched it, but now I think back on that movie and have just one thought: "what a bunch of pretentious bullshit..." because it was basically only the gimmick that fooled me into thinking the film had anything insightful to offer. I would rather have just read a book about the philosophy of dreams than stare at that boring acid trip of a film.
Withstand I don't know if you can call a film's "dialogue" bad when there's no script and the director is just filming people interview-style. At least, that would be weird. Like evesdropping on someone's conversation and saying their dialogue was bad. I guess you could do that, but...people would think you were strange :P
Half in the Bag started March 2011, so we are VERY close to it officially being better than Boyhood by all possibly arty farty standards, as it'll have taken over 12 years to make!
The plot of guardians of the galaxy 2 is literally a person planting gardens throughout the galaxy... this vid is prophetic. Marvel owes Jay royalties.
I like when they explain the infinity stones. idk why people consider that a negative. It's the elemental force that ties all the Marvel movies together. Because if they didn't explain it and Thanos shows up with 6 infinity stones and starts wiping out half the universe they'd go "Hey why didn't they explain the infinity stones in earlier movies.
The sad fact of the mater is that the joke of "You guys don't get it: Boyhood took 12 years to make!" is *actually* the whole point of the film. It literally has NO other reason to exist. It just follows the regular, boring life of a regular jack-off kid as he grows up into a regular shit-head teen. Nothing special or dramatic happens...it's just a regular boring kid's childhood. The movie is given SO fucking much love and praise because....it took 12 years to make. How impressive that they were able to keep calling back the same actors...over TWELVE years!
***** I think you're actually on the right track. The whole point, to me, was to present life just as it is (for many people). It's just this kid's life. Just like a real person, some people love him, some people think he's a prick. His life isn't interesting, it's just realistic.
***** It doesn't matter if it was difficult to make and took a long time and whatever. The existence of a movie can be very impressive, but that doesn't make the movie itself a good movie.
+Theevil6ify It's not just that it took twelve years to make. It's that *every single year is so dense, there are so many things going on.* You have to understand that *the boy is the key to all this.* *If we can get him working...because he's a douchier character than we've ever had before.* You can't criticize the movie because *it's stylistically designed to be that way.* Anyway, Linklater has already started filming a sequel, and *it's gonna be great.* *It's gonna be great.* *It's gonna be great.*
+Theevil6ify I don't care that RedLetterMedia and their fans don't like this movie that I like (I love RLM and this doesn't change anything) but man do you guys like to hate on people who do like this movie.
I find RLM's review of Boyhood very spot on... I write reviews regularly but I struggled with formulating words when leaving Boyhood, mostly because I can't remember the last time I squirmed uncomfortably that much in a theatre. The dialogue is cringe worthy, the characters in focus are not interesting with the exception of Arquette and Hawke and the concept over-shadows the execution. I really didn't like the film and I feel like it gets a free pass with everyone due to Linklater's, albeit impressive, approach to the filmmaking.
TheGoldenCaulk he played the character so well, it's very impressive, if you've seen interviews with batista, you'd know he's a very emotional person, I wonder if he tapped into that to play this character
I never expected he would play the role competently, sure he won't win an Oscar but he made me care for his character. But let's not forget Vindiesel he made Groot such a compelling character. :-)
Even his out of character wrestling interviews, I watched his DVD documentary and the dude's very emotional and an overall sweet guy, which is weird cause he's a freaking monster, but yeah hopefully this develops into a good acting career for him
Guardians feels like the Star Wars of our generation. This year had a lot of good movies, more in a long time and this movie really tops off the summer blockbuster season as being one of the best.
The people who use the "It took 12 years to make" to deflect criticism of Boyhood are stupid. You know what else took 12 years to make? Duke Nukem Forever. Just sayin'.
I remember I was slow cooking a leg of lamb, for 12 hours in the oven. We had guests staying over. I started it in the morning and it was supposed to be for dinner. In the afternoon for lunch we had a barbecue, chicken wings, thighs and drumsticks, the marinade was Portugese and just delicious. When I sampled my lamb in the evening after about 10 hours in the oven, the meat was so tender, it just melted off, tasted great but I couldn't ignore the fact that the flavor was inferior to the barbecue, despite my red wine, roasted vegetables and all the meat juices. I decided to take the lamb leg, coat in left over marinade on the barbecue and finish it off for an hour on the residual heat from the coals. Result: UNSPEAKABLY DELICIOUS That is what Boyhood needed, an editor that cut the movie in a slick way, an editor who doesn't give a shit that his/her material spans 12 years.
Boyhood wasn`t bad, but it is overrated for sure. Richard Linklaters "Before-Trilogy" is waaaaay better. As someone who loved those movies I have to say I was kind of disappointed of boyhood... You could cut scenes from "Malcolm in the middle" to a movie and it would also be a movie with a actor actually growing up, just a lot more entertaining!
Generally, television pulls off the "lack of a central plot" thing better for obvious reasons. Stuff like Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld, or even cartoons did a great job of showing characters grow over a period of years while remaining interesting. If you want a good example of what Boyhood should've been like, you should watch Hey Arnold. Sure, it was an old Nickelodean cartoon, but you can't get something more intelligent, clever and emotionally engaging than Hey Arnold. It's brilliant.
unknown unknown That's the only cartoon where I actually liked the 'bully' characters. Helga and Harold are too damn funny. Helga's dysfunctional family was so depressing but hilarious and accurate. Overbearing dad who never pays attention to the younger child, and a washed up alcoholic mother. And yes, this was on a Nickelodeon show somehow.
The McGuffin trend in Marvel movies is because they're setting up for the Infinity Gauntlet, and all the McGuffin's are part of the Gauntlet in a weird way.
5:13 I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to notice this, there was so many times I this movie where it felt like a car crash was set up BUT IT NEVER HAPPENED a example are the father is driving the miny van and he tilts his head back and closes his eyes the camera then changer so your looking head on into Trafic but then the scene just moves on
Boyhood was like a continuous supply of dissappintment for me. I accepted the meandering plot becaus all I knew was "It was just about a boy growing up" and I was in theatre school so people said it was good for monologues. It was like reading a textbook. It was boring homework. Then I discovered it was some meaningful art piece that you couldn't talk shit about because it took 12 YEARS TO FILM. But you know what, that really is life. It's a bunch of shitty cliches that play out over stupidly long waiting periods, and it's almost never satisfyingly melodramatic. We saw some boy growing up. Art imitates life, this movie is a work of art, and important, even though it's not remotely entertaining.
Kind of surprised you guys didn't mention how amazing the sound tracks were. The whole time I was thinking "Damn, they must have spent a fortune getting all these tracks".
Finally, someone who hated Boyhood as much as I did. I really don't get all the praise it's getting. Do people like it just because of the unique way it was filmed, or does indie movie automatically equal masterpiece for everyone.
StupidDontBe Most reviews just talk about the way it was filmed. It's an interesting concept, but once the novelty of it wore off, I was just watching a day in the life of this kid. I've already lived the life of a boring, suburban kid; I don't want to watch a movie about it.
There's plenty of reviews out there pointing out why it's interesting to them and why it worked as much as it did. If you want something more in-depth, you find post/discussions where spoilers are permitted. The internet is filled with such things. And regarding the subject matter, I'll just throw a Roger Ebert quote out there that basically sums up my feelings on the matter.. “It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.” Yep.
It's pretty alright for what it is. I didn't feel anything with any of the characters except a little from the mom's mental breakdown, seeing her kid go to college. Also, Ethan Hawke is awesome.
"12 Years a Boy had me sitting there staring at a screen and wondering when something was going to happen for hours on end a wonderful experience 10/10" - film critic, probably
I just saw "Boyhood". Totally agree with you guys. I wanted more melodrama, too. The best part of the movie was the Lifetime-movie-esque bit with the alcoholic stepdad, because it at least had dramatic tension.
Finally someone honest about Boyhood. It did get a 100 on Metacritic, but most of those reviews were just dancing around the hate, pointing out all that bad stuff but eventually giving it a positive. Ifyou did like it fine, but don't dance around the points you hate because I can tell where the BS is Boyhood is one of those films nobody WANTS to hate due to its concept and effort. But maybe we should take a look back and see the emperor has no clothes after all. And now I'll be honest, I was one of those people too. Before I decided to be honest with MYSELF.
Watching this 7 years later and I have no memory of the HitB lore during this moment lol. Doesn't matter, it didn't take 12 years to make boyhood boyhood
You guys, you're all picking apart Boyhood, but you guys need to realize: It took TWELVE YEARS TO MAKE. TWELVE YEARS! That's 12 (twelve) YEARS. Like HOLY SHIT you guys. TWELVE WHOLE YEARS!
Its probably silly me thinking but Jay made a joke here were he suggests a movie named Gardens of the galaxy were people go around the galaxy planting gardens, and in Guardians of the galaxy vol 2 thats pretty much the villian's plan all along.
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of those rare examples for me of the trailer making me NOT wanna see the movie, but the movie itself turned out to be awesome, and it remains one of my favorite MCU movies.
I watched Boyhood when it first came out, and I still remember how much I was constantly expecting/ hoping the movie to end during the last half of the movie.
Guys, these "McGuffins" are actually incredibly important to the larger plot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that is going to tie into Avenger 3, the climax of the enormous arc created by the MCU, in actuality, the villains are the McGuffins even though some of them will return...
Ernest Goes to Madeas I know what they mean by McGuffin, however, I can still enjoy the movie on its own, but I like it even more on account of it being a part of a larger universe, same with comics in general, they tease a shitton more than these movies do
I disagree, I went to see the premier of The Avengers, and so many people that were there either dressed up as an obscure Marvel character, or had brought their favorite comic
GodzillaGuy92 I never said that the nerds are the SOLE source of income, I think these films are genuinely captivating people due to the fact that the idea of a shared film universe is rare in the mainstream
GodzillaGuy92 I completely understand and I agree wholeheartedly, but I do think that a comic book film's success doesn't just hinge on it being well made, the Dark Knight trilogy for instance barely had anything to do with the comics, but people didn't care because it was so damn exciting to see a new interpretation of Batman. But with the Avengers, it just seems like Marvel cares about its fans immensley, as well as caring about making a genuinely good film, which will draw in more people who will understand the little easter eggs hidden in the films, and get a kick out of feeling appreciated, but the movie will also draw in the mainstream moviegoers due to the fantastic reviews I'm just saying that I agree with the fact that it isn't any one thing that makes a Marvel movie great, it's a multitude of things
Have you guys heard of the Up series? It’s a documentary that was filmed in Britain that features 8 episodes filmed over 49 years, starting in 1964. Every episode they interview the same group of people, starting when they are 7 years old, and ending at 56. It’s interesting seeing how their lives unfold and how they view the world over the length of a lifetime.
I saw the movie with a Q&A afterwards with Linklater. He said he had an outline for the script with certain big events (ex: divorce, graduate high school etc.) but the rest was written in as time went on. Once he was done filming one year he would figure out where the characters could go. Also Ellar Coltrane (Mason) had a large influence on his character as much of him went into the final script accruing to Linklater.
