Tag: Ellar Coltrane

The Circle came out earlier this year, with some amount of excitement. It had two big stars in it and it was told to be a modern thriller. Or even a technothriller , a thriller about technology. Ooooh, spooks.

And yet when it came out, it actually created no buzz, was swept under a rug, and forgotten about.

I probably would have never reviewed or remembered this film, if it wasn’t for my review of The Square. I decided I wanted a mini shape theme. First squares, then circles.

The Circle really enjoys circles.

Mae (Emma Watson) hates her temp job, hates answering calls, without benefits, and fear that she won’t be needed the next day. But her best friend, Annie (Karen Gillan), has the hook up. Annie works for The Circle, a company that you may as well consider to be Google/Apple of this fictional world. The CEO, Bailey, (Tom Hanks) is super famous, he is trying to help the world, and has the sweetest place to work. Annie is high up on the chain, she goes to all the top meetings.

Well, The Circle is hiring new customer support agents. It is what Mae is already doing, but this would be for a legit company, with benefits, helping her out immensely. And of course Mae gets the job! She knocks it out of the park!

She is initially worried about doing a good job and fitting in. She is slow to accept new things, so she finds the culture in The Circle to be overwhelming. Everyone loves doing stuff there, they have groups upon groups, they have so many weekend and night events. She is getting slightly shunned for just not spending more time at work off the clock. When she is pressured enough, she accepts the social aspects of the Circle, starts sharing her whole life, and eventually goes down a path she never figured out before.

But is it good? To be so open? You know the answer is probably know.

Also starring John Boyega, Patton Oswalt, Ellar Coltrane, and Glenne Headly/Bill Paxton as Mae’s parents.

What a goddamn good cup of hopes, dreams, and secrets.

First sad note, both of the people who played her parents totally died this year! Paxton and Headly! Shit, is this movie cursed? Do we have to be on the watch for Boyega, Watson, or Hanks? Oswalt has already had a rough time recently, so I certainly hope he doesn’t get involved with the curse.

When it comes to this film, it is about as subtle was a laughing and dancing clown. It is obvious where the film is going, but somehow it goes an even stupider route to get there. By ending it on a supposed happy note, it seems to have also avoided any longer lasting points about society.

The big shocker event that happens near the films climax is almost laughable. The entire thing could and should have been prevented, it didn’t make sense that it was happening. A goal was achieved, and yet it became excessive for no reason. I wanted to laugh, it became so cheesy. The spiral downward up to that point was extremely chill as well. To refer to this as a thriller, when hardly any sinister things really occur is just lying.

The Circle wanted to be socially relevant and give us something to think about. Well, it was slightly relevant, and I am left only thinking on so many things they could have done to make this movie better.

I FUCKING LOVE RICHARD LINKLATER.

It is a real love too. A similar love is only felt like that by me towards my future wife, my cat, and my movie collection. I cannot thank him enough for the Before trilogy. Another recent movie was Bernie. This man is a genius director, for sure.

So when I heard about Boyhood? I dang near shat my pantaloons. There are a lot of films about male adolescence and the pains of growing up. But never before has a movie like this been attempted. The movie took TWELVE years to film. TWELVE. The boy in question was 5 at the beginning, and finished with him becoming an adult at 18. It isn’t a documentary that shows his life or anything like that, he is an actor. But the story is based around the kids own experiences, cutting no corners as we see him in every grade before college.

If your mind isn’t blown by the shear magnitude of this movie, then you might enjoy Planes.

This movie has more family fun, because it has families, and they have fun.

Mason (Ellar Coltrane). Mother fucking boy wonder. Five years old, he could be anything he wants. His whole life is in front of him. He has an older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) by one or two years, is a brat and smarter than him.

He’s got a mom (Patricia Arquette), single and trying to raise two kids. Her ex husband, his dad (Ethan Hawke) is working in Alaska, away from their lives and late on child support. But he wants to come back into it, because he likes the kids, but hates the mother.

12 Years is a long time and a lot of things change. There are friendships that come and go and loved ones that come and go. Heck, there are step brothers/sisters too at one point. The mom wants to go back to school and make a career, but it is really hard with kids and no support, so some other lovers come into the scene (Marco Perella, Elijah Smith (That may be the wrong person. Trying to figure out his name, no imdb picture.)). They also have at least one grandma (Libby Villari) to help.

And Mason is kind of just along for the ride.

Through his twelve years you will see him gain and lose relatioships, struggle and excel at school, deal with the assholes that his mom brings into their lives, deal with his dad changing through the years and never always being there when he needs them. And you know, other growing up experiences like college, graduations, birthdays, first jobs, first cars.

Young Ethan Hawke. We don’t miss you that much.

Shitty plot descriptions aside, Boyhood was everything I could have hoped and more. I mean, how do I describe watching a kid grow up and make it seem exciting.

Well, IT IS. Knowing that it was pieced out and planned in such a way does enhance it as well, as we get snapshots of a life through 12 years. But the movie is not merely a nostalgia trip (although it does a good job of that, making sure the music is set to the right year with other events/cultural references being relevant in the filming). It has something almost anyone who is over 18 can find a connection with. Not just boys either. For a long period of time, the sister is also in the movie with him, so while not the overall focus, there are relatable characteristics in her as well.

The movie also doesn’t go to enormous lengths to create additional drama. It shows us what we need to see, but not excessively, especially in the later chapters. There are quite a few tense moments when the audience collectively gasped, thinking a few bad things were about to happen. But you know what? In real life, bad things like that don’t happen as much, except for in the movies. It knows what we would expect, and it sometimes delivers, sometimes does not. In that regard, it made it incredibly realistic, and amusing after the fact that when “Oh yeah, that would be silly, wouldn’t it?” thoughts ran through our head.

It is hard to convey my emotions about this movie. Especially in that it wasn’t one that made me cry a lot. I only almost came to tears once. But it was still quite emotional throughout the entire journey.

I mean. Shit. We got to know these characters for a long period of time in our lives. We got to see 12 years ago Ethan Hawke, who looked notably younger. It almost creeped me out.

Whether this is the movie of the year or decade, it is hard to tell. But it tells such a wonderful story that people can relate to, without any excessive Hollywood shenanigans, allowing for a realistic portrayal of life and getting older.