Ryan McNeil
Part of what I like about podcasting is the way they become snapshots of one’s thoughts and opinions.
This episode, for instance, was recorded a few days before I sat down to write my final review. I’d had a chance to sit with the film for a little while, but hadn’t fully hashed-out where it was sitting with me. Like many of the films that have stuck with me the most over the last several years, BOYHOOD required thought and consideration. Not as to whether-or-not I liked it (that much was clear), but how much I liked it and what ways it had affected me.
So within the span of this episode, you’ll hear a mild amount of uncertainty between really-goodness or greatness. While that uncertainty would dissipate in the days that follow, and disappear completely by the time I published my review, it is recorded here for posterity to remind me that love and appreciation for art can grow…in days as easily as it can in years.
So while an article or essay can be revised, re-edited, re-considered, and re-published…what one says on-air is caught and released out into the world.
It almost makes me wish I had more episodes on films like FARGO, THE THIN RED LINE, or 2001; A SPACE ODYSSEY that I initially disliked.
Here’s what’s in store in episode one-hundred-and-seventeen…
Runtime
85 minutes
Up for Discussion
1. Introduction
2. KNOW YOUR ENEMY– Q& A with this week’s guest, Andrew James (2:59)
3. COME TALK TO ME – Fielding some listener feedback on spoilers (15:42)
4. THE NEW SLANG – Review and reaction to BOYHOOD (32:49)
5. THE OTHER SIDE – Andrew couples BAMBI (57:36)
6. THE OTHER SIDE – Ryan couples SLACKER (1:09:26)
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Comments and feedback are welcome, and thank-you very much for listening.
Enjoy!
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As someone who took film studies, I can say that the movie was NEVER stopped in the middle and lectures didn’t really go into spoilers until after the fact (even though there were plot details in the readings).
Also, many of the less dedicated students (or production students more concerned with making films than watching them) would just outright leave before the film screening.
I was never a “film studies” major per se, but I did take a few film courses. I remember one in particular the prof paused and rewound Battleship Potempkin and Metropolis so many times during the movie it got annoying. The points were good, but I feel like they could have been made after the fact.
Sorta further to what Andrew said, I’ve been at Lightbox screenings where they bring in a U of T professor to give a short lecture before the film, and he literally gave away the last moment of the film claiming “it’s not a spoiler because it’s right there in the title”
Guess what – if you haven’t seen the film? It’s totally a spoiler.
It drives me crazy that we’re not going to get Boyhood in Sweden for yet a couple of months, at which point everyone will be done talking ablut it. But that what it’s like when you live in the outskirts in the far north.
Regarding your question about a movie you’d like to see made into a series my answer is Star Trek, the rebooted version, with all the new actors and JJ Abrams as director. AND that budget for special effects.
Realistic? No. But you asked for our wishes.
I’ve been bad at listenin to podcasts for a while, but now I’m goig to catch up, working my way backwards!
A lot of great episodes await you. Feels like my guests have been bringing the goods all year long!
I just watched this movie for a second time. Absolute masterpiece (I’ll get to your other post in a moment).
It is so damned amazing it’s now officially #5 on my all time favorites list. I also put it on my litmus test list. While that list is somewhat tongue in cheek, I would actually take real issue with someone who actually dislikes this movie. If someone who was close to me didn’t like it I would literally feel a little hurt by that sentiment.
I’m planning on taking another friend to this next week for my third viewing.
In the two weeks that have passed since I first caught this flick, it has totally stuck with me and risen in a lot of regards. This is going to be a nutty few weeks, but I really hope I can get out and see it again.
It didn’t hit the emotional note to get high on my all-time rankings, but the so few films do (the last to do so was 500 Days of Summer)…but I’m certain I’ll be talking about this one at the end of the year.
Question is a strange one but I got an answer, strange mostly because while it gets asked all the times and brought up whenever a movie feels constrained or to small I don’t want it to happen because of how different the two mediums still are.
That being said my answer would be something taking place after Princess Mononoke, because having read all of the Nausicaa manga (that was both worked on before and after the film version came out) the example for this kind of thing it is clear Mr. Miyazaki is excellent at world building and conflict expansion.
I don’t have an answer to your question again. Simply because I prefer movies to television. There are a few shows like Game of Thrones that work better in a long form than they could in two to three hour movie, but I still prefer film. To be able to introduce and develop characters and plot within the confines of restricted runtime forces a level of creativity that makes
You said Richard Linklater wouldn’t make a film about the starting quarterback, I give you Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd. It isn’t just who his characters are that matters, but how he uses them. I would have picked Dazed and Confused as the other side, with the characters of various ages all at an important juncture un their life it makes for a good comparison. There is also an interesting contrast, one film was set around twenty years before it was made and has a characters looking forward to the future, the other is a contemporary film that is more interested in the moment.
I’m not sure if it became unclear in the editing or if I just misspoke. When I said “Linklater wouldn’t make a film about a quaterback”, I meant it specifically where it pertains to Boyhood.
My thought is that if he was dedicating three hours to the story of one boy’s life, he’d want it to be “one of us”. H wouldn’t want it to be one of the 10% of misfits that make up the freaks and geeks of our teenage years, nor the 10% of beautiful people that become prom queens and stud jocks. He’d want it to be about the other 80% of us who make up “the middle” – which is where I see our hero fitting in.
Watch Linklater’s Tape, underseen gem. Came out same year as Waking Life, his two punch of greatness.