THEY’RE EITHER TOO YOUNG OR TOO OLD: Movie reviews of Boyhood and Land Ho by Howard Casner

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Warning: SPOILERS

Two movies have opened recently in which your equal and opposite reaction to them will probably depend on how you feel about the central characters. In both cases, I have to admit that this was the one area where both films came up a bit short for me.

boyhood“You gotta have a gimmick/If you want to get ahead”

                              Stephen Soundheim, Gypsy

In Boyhood, a coming of age drama written and directed by slacker fabulist Richard Linklater, the same cast was filmed over a period of one year minus a baker’s dozen in order to make the movie. By doing so, Linklater created his story in such a way that we see the same actor, Ellar Coltrane, grow and change right before our eyes as he plays the lead Mason.

In other words, Boyhood is a movie with a gimmick. Read the rest of this entry »