before kevin and i went to see richard linklater’s new film, “boyhood” yesterday, i knew three things about it:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 linklater had a fantastic, brilliant idea to create a piece of fiction about a boy growing up using the same actor.\u00a0 so when the actor, ellar coltrane, started shooting the movie, he was 7, and it was shot over 11 years, so you literally see him growing up on the screen.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 i looked up the film on the rotten tomatoes website, and it got a 99% “fresh” rating; of the 200 reviewers who had written about the film, only two of them didn’t like it.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 i knew it was going to be long.<\/p>\n
i went in with pretty high hopes.\u00a0 but then – the concept of the movie was completely unique, groundbreaking, a fascinating way to make a film.\u00a0 but…it was way, way too long.\u00a0 after a couple of hours i just wanted the characters to shut up already.\u00a0 the lead character kept getting to places and i kept thinking, ok, surely this will be the end, but no, it just kept going and going and going…<\/p>\n
i had a vague flashback of linklater’s movie “before sunrise,” and remembered that in this movie, too, the main characters, played by ethan hawke and julie delpy, just talked and talked and talked and talked…<\/p>\n
it’s ironic, since i go on and on about things, and my one-woman shows have all been called “gracetalk,” and i talk and talk…<\/p>\n
but it became painful to just sit there in the theater and listen to the neverending babble.<\/p>\n
yeah, it was about a kid growing up, and having all these experiences, and all of that…but i just wanted it to end.\u00a0 when the kid, mason, got older he started talking more, and he’d just go on and on and on.<\/p>\n
last night i read a few of the reviews.\u00a0 usually i just read the “top critics” on rotten tomatoes, always joe morgenstern from the WSJ, plus a handful of others.\u00a0 but i had to scroll through the 10 pages of all the reviews to finally find one person who didn’t like the film.<\/p>\n
everybody else, they couldn’t say more glowing things – this film will get at least one oscar, and everybody who knows anything will love it…<\/p>\n
except me.\u00a0 a couple of reviewers.\u00a0 and kevin, who said last night, “i want that three hours of my life back!”<\/p>\n
i read one of the two reviews that didn’t like the movie so much.\u00a0 it was written by a woman who didn’t think the plot was very strong, and didn’t identify with the kid.\u00a0 she pointed out the fact that all the other reviewers loved the film, and she said that, you know, it’s good to have different opinions.<\/p>\n
but she got plenty of comments on her post, the vast majority by people who didn’t think that it was a good idea AT ALL for her opinion to be different, that she was clearly a complete moron for not loving this movie!<\/p>\n
whew. i felt bad for her, and also glad that i’m not a reviewer because i wouldn’t want to be eviscerated by all those very very angry people.<\/p>\n
many years ago, i went to see a movie with a friend in L.A.; he was a brilliant and very successful literary agent.\u00a0 on our way to the movie, we talked about some film that had gotten unanimously glowing reviews, and i told him i didn’t like that movie.\u00a0 i wish i could remember what movie it was.\u00a0 but the guy was shocked and outraged that i didn’t like the movie, especially because everybody who had a brain LOVED it.\u00a0 he said to me, “if you read 100 reviews of the movie and everybody loved it, wouldn’t that change your mind?”\u00a0 no, i said.\u00a0 he just couldn’t wrap his head around my stubbornness and clear lack of understanding.<\/p>\n
but now, instead of a measly 100 reviews, i’m going against the vast legion of 200 reviewers.<\/p>\n
well, 198 anyway.<\/p>\n
if you live here in springfield i guess you’d better go see the movie soon, because independent movies don’t stick around here for very long.\u00a0 but then again, since it’s clearly going to win many awards, maybe it’ll be here for a while. and you will probably love it, because most everybody does.<\/p>\n
whew.<\/p>\n
ok then,<\/p>\n
mrs. bucking against the tide again hughes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
before kevin and i went to see richard linklater’s new film, “boyhood” yesterday, i knew three things about it: 1.\u00a0 linklater had a fantastic, brilliant idea to create a piece of fiction about a boy growing up using the same actor.\u00a0 so when the actor, ellar coltrane, started shooting the movie, he was 7, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-2It","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}