2008 - ME AND ORSON WELLES, a tribute to the theater

 To bad this very good film about a young man's first experience in the theater didn't find an audience.  The director Richard Linklater and his team did an excellent job recreating the New York theater scene of the late 1930's. This is a considerable achievement considering a lot of the film was shot at Pinewood studios in England.

The cast is very good particularly Christian McKay as the brilliant and flamboyant Orson Welles, trying to pull off a modern interpretation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar while juggling a wife, lovers,  jittery actors and a career in radio.  McKay also plays Welles as a man not lacking in an ego to put it mildly.

 

I suppose the subject matter was just a little to inside for the general movie going public.  Still, a very good film from a director who usually takes on interesting projects.

 The screenplay was by Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo, Jr., the running time is 113 minutes.

2014 - BOYHOOD, long but an impressive achievement.

The new film Boyhood is very long and at times it tends to meander.  The subplots with the mother's two additional bad marriages are a little more melodrama than the film needs but this is still a very good film. 

The film has received a lot of publicity for it's actual production situation.  Using the same actors in the same roles for 12 years, shooting on 35mm for continuity etc.  The marketing campaign has been playing up a lot of this stuff.  Still, it is interesting to watch the cast age throughout the picture.  Characters that show up early in the lives of this family return later.  It's kind of amazing that the director Richard Linklater was able to pull that off.  The transitions through the years are handled very cleverly with none of that "3 years later" title card stuff.

The film is called Boyhood but it is really about a family.  The mother, father and sister have equally important roles although the focus is on viewing the family's life through the boy.  Ultimately the film ends on a hopeful note and I have a feeling that Richard Linklater will probably follow up on the lives of these characters in the future.

165 minutes.

1995 - BEFORE SUNRISE, you will need to wake up from your movie nap before sunrise.

Out came the reviews, there is another one of these "Before" movies being released.   The latest in the series Before Midnight.  Before Midnight is getting good reviews, particularly by romantic liberal critics looking for a literate, smart love story about two sophisticated people.  

I headed to my collection and dusted off my old DVD's of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, eager to see the first two films before I headed out to the theater to see what everyone was raving about. 
"Gee I wonder why I never got around to watching these films before" I thought.  Over 90 minutes later I knew.  Before Sunrise is really boring.

The meandering talk of the two leads Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy is not in the least bit interesting.  It reminds me of the old definition of writing a lazy love story, get two people together and have them say dumb things to each other for a couple of hours.  

After forcing myself to finish this turkey I now realize that I am not giving Woody Allen enough credit for doing this kind of picture even is his stuff isn't always up to par.  The one positive of this film,  Julie Delpy speaks very good English.

101 minutes, written by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan.