Tag: Richard Linklater

• Favorite Films of 2022

  Pretty much every year I’ve done this list (since 2007), I’ve published it soon after the beginning of the year to coincide with the bevy of other year-end lists. But every year I’d end up watching more movies after publishing that would have been eligible and affected my list. So I realized: what’s the rush?…

  Mar 9, 2023

  # Babylon, best of, film, lists, movies, review, Richard Linklater, Steven Spielberg

• Favorite Films of 2004

  I’m creating my annual movie lists retroactively. See all of them. As a freshman/sophomore in high school, this year provided me several memorable theater experiences, including the last great M. Night Shyamalan movie, some surprisingly excellent sequels, and a romance that inspired one of my very first blog posts. But chief among these theatrical outings…

  Aug 18, 2021

  # Anchorman, best of, film, lists, M. Night Shyamalan, movies, Pixar, Richard Linklater

• Favorite Books of 2020

  In his year-end summary of reading, Seth Godin wrote: “Books are an extraordinary device, transitioning through time and space, moving from person to person and leaving behind insight and connection. I’m grateful every single day for the privilege of being able to read (and to write).” I read 18 books in 2020. For some people…

  Jan 5, 2021

  # Alan Jacobs, best of, books, James Nestor, Jeopardy, lists, Max Brooks, parenting, reading, review, Richard Linklater, Steven Johnson, World War II

• School of Rock

  “We’re not goofing off. We’re creating musical fusion.” The video of a guy drumming to the “Just give up” speech from School of Rock inspired me to rewatch that 2003 Richard Linklater film for the first time in a while. It’s a meaningful movie for me, coming out when I was in high school and…

  Feb 1, 2018

  # film, Jack Black, movies, music, review, Richard Linklater, School of Rock, songwriting

• Favorite Films of 2016

  According to my records I watched 83 films in 2016, 33 of which came out this year. As is the case with my reading, I’m in a “watch as much as I can” zone because I love movies and there’s so much great stuff and there are too many movies and I’ll never have this…

  Jan 3, 2017

  # Arrival, best of, Coen Brothers, film, Hell Or High Water, Jeff Nichols, lists, Marvel, Moonlight, movies, review, Richard Linklater, The Wave

• Everybody Wants Some!!

  With its likable cast, meandering dialogue, and lived-in plotless feel, Everybody Wants Some!! is more than just a “spiritual sequel” to Dazed and Confused. It’s the middle sibling between that film and Linklater’s Before series, all of which seem to take place in the same film universe where everyone’s a peripatetic philosopher and life happens in the ordinary moments between…

  Jul 25, 2016

  # baseball, Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some, film, movies, review, Richard Linklater, sports

• Midnight Special

  It’s really a shame Jeff Nichols got bounced in the second round of the Filmspotting Madness directors bracket. Unlike the NCAA tournament, where success is tangible and stats-driven, there is no one way to account for which director is better than the other. Everyone voter is left to his or her own interpretation and taste. The one I’ve…

  Apr 4, 2016

  # film, Filmspotting, Jeff Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Michael Shannon, Midnight Special, movies, review, Richard Linklater

• Boyhood

  With respect to the late, great Roger Ebert, I’m taking the name of his memoir and biographical documentary and giving it instead to Richard Linklater’s new epic novel of a film, for it is Life Itself. Boyhood chronicles the young life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), who at the film’s beginning is a six-year-old on his back, gazing up…

  Jul 24, 2014

  # Boyhood, film, movies, review, Richard Linklater, Roger Ebert, Terrence Malick, The Brothers Karamozov, The Dissolve, The Tree of Life

• Love and Illusion in ‘Midnight In Paris’ and ‘Me And Orson Welles’

  Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy? / Caught in a landslide / No escape from reality / Open your eyes / Look up to the skies / And see.—“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen A few summers ago I was in Guatemala with my sister, staying with an older married couple near the…

  Jun 26, 2011

  # film, Me and Orson Welles, Midnight in Paris, movies, Owen Wilson, Paris, Rachel McAdams, review, Richard Linklater, theater, Woody Allen, Zac Efron