I’ll finally be seeing Richard Linklater’s Boyhood sometime today at the Arclight Hollywood and I’m expecting to have my mind blown. In case you’re wondering about the movie or why it currently has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 99% on Metacritic, here’s the synopsis:
Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before our eyes. Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents and newcomer Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha, Boyhood charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before and is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. [IFC Films]
I’ve been hearing about this movie for YEARS and now it’s finally here! And if you’re wondering what makes this different from Michael Apted’s 7 Up documentaries or the “Antoine Doinel” films or even Linklater’s own Before trilogy, the answer is simple: time. No other single film has spent this long capturing as many moments in the life of a single person as often as this one does. Period.
And listen, you’re not seeing this movie “instead of” some other movie. This doesn’t have to be a “fuck you” to the studio system or Summer blockbusters. Like Snowpiercer, this is just a great film that’s currently playing in a handful of theaters (with more to come). If you have the chance to see it, you should.
Here’s the list:
New York, NY, Lincoln Plaza Cinema
Brooklyn, NY, Bam Harvey
Brooklyn, NY, Bam Rose Cinema
Los Angeles, CA Landmark
Los Angeles, CA, Arclight
Next weekend (July 18th) it opens a little wider:
Chicago, IL, River East
Chicago, IL, Century Centre
New York, NY, Empire
New York, NY, Chelsea Cinemas
Boston, MA, Kendall Square
Boston, MA, Boston Commons
Washington D.C., DC, E Street Cinemas
Bethesda, MD, Bethesda Row Cinema
Austin, TX, Violet Crown
Austin, TX, Arbor
Austin, TX, Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane
Dallas, TX, Magnolia
Plano, TX, Angelika
Houston, TX, River Oaks
San Diego, CA, Hillcrest
San Francisco, CA, Embarcadero
Minneapolis, MN, Uptown
Scottsdale, AZ, Camelview
For the complete list of theaters, check out the film’s official tumblr.