Boyhood.

[Bonobo]

Just my personal opinion, but the film did not impress as a piece of work in general.

But in particular, I felt that the stereotypical portrayal of men was disappointing.

-Men were either drunken abusers (the two ex-husbands), or

-Generally irresponsible humans extended childhoods (Ethan Hawke character, son)

What we did not see:

Men toiling their lives away to support their spouses and children. THAT task was pretty much shown only to be dutifully performed by the mom. The dads were either, as said above, bitter and angry over their lives and responsibility and quickly turning to alcohol and physical abuse, or like Ethan Hawke, only PARTIALLY their, withholding their time and even possessions (as represented by the car).

Even the son was basically a responsibility-free slacker who just wanted to live a free life.

Not a good portrayal of man IMO.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Haven't seen it yet, although I like Linklater's other work.

Waking Life is about as much of an acid trip of a movie as has ever been set to film.

I admit I found the concept and execution on Boyhood impressive. Just the idea, and to pull it off.

[Bonobo]

3. It was impressive indeed.

Interestingly I saw two films back to back that influenced my feelings on "Boyhood".

I saw "Boyhood" and then saw "Mr. Nobody".

The difference in depth and maturity between the two was striking.

I realized, in retrospect, that Linklater's work was actually a lot more gloss to achieve the appearance of depth than actual depth. Wish I could put it into words better.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Probably the stuff of his I liked the most was the stuff that had no pretense of depth.

He did School of Rock and Dazed and Confused, right?

I enjoyed both of those movies. But.... I suspect I also lost a lot of my highbrow bandwidth when I had kids, which is sort of like getting a lobotomy.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. we (my wife and I) simply found it a rambling, unimpressive - sometimes boring - movie

with little real character development. Ho hum....tonight we watched Wings of The Dove - so amazing to see a movie with true depth of emotions and character development. Seems to be completely missing in the low attention span "twitter" age, sadly.

[Bonobo]

5. Yes, I wouldn't disagree other than admitting

that the feat itself of filming over that long period of time was impressive.

But the character development was particularly disappointing given the length of time of the film and the opportunity offered by the long-term filming.

As I said, I think his view of manhood is not particularly enlightened. He seems to see really quite little to celebrate in the male gender.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. One of my favorite explorations of the father/son topic was the movie "Big Fish" n/t

[RiffRandell]

7. I love that movie.

Great story and cast, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Ewan McGregor, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter and the rest were all great.

Lovely story, and makes me cry every time I watch it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. It resonated with me because my dad was a bigger than life character.

But unlike Albert Finney's character, his stories were true (apparently one doesn't want to be attacked by a Kangaroo) making it an even more challenging shadow to escape.

My takeaway was to accept that when it comes to family, remember a good narrative and don't dwell on the details.

[RiffRandell]

8. I haven't seen it yet so don't want to give an opinion

(not saying I don't believe you) as that's one thing on DU that really bothers me.

I haven't seen it, encountered it but this person who writes for this blog said it so it must be true!

I've heard mixed reviews from people that have seen it, like Warren am also a Linklater fan

Will give my 2 cents when I do see it, but if you are interested in reading the "discussion" of Patricia Arquette's Oscar speech and other comments she made, check out GD.