By Rob Fagin
SUMMER NIGHTS
Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix in Explorers (1985)
Watching the right pair of movies (that are
somehow connected) back-to-back can illuminate
wildly different details, create a whole new viewing experience and, just maybe, BLOW your
MIND. Plus, it's fun! Here's your monthly
guide:
It is not really earth-shattering news that
in order to sell their monumentally expensive products, Hollywood executives often
rely largely on sequels, reboots and - at the
very least - a hefty sense of familiarity. This
month alone we'll see two sequels to movies
that came out last year (Planes: Fire & Rescue
and The Purge: Anarchy), the annual Woody
Allen flick (Magic in the Moonlight), a re-pairing of Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz (Sex
Tape) and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
doing his interpretation of the primevally
famous Hercules.
16 illinoisentertainer.com july 2014
What's weird, though, is the lack of "Event"
movies this summer. There's nothing that's
really saturated the market and colored the
mood of the season. Two of the biggest
domestic hits of the year, so far, actually
came from February and March (The Lego
Movie - $462 million, and Captain America:
Winter Soldier - $265 million, respectively).
Artistically, it doesn't matter whether or
not there is an Event to get amped up about.
But what about the 13-year-old kids out
there on summer break? When I was 13, we
got Jurassic Park!
Which brings me to Richard Linklater's
Boyhood (July 18), possibly the most thrilling
"event" at the Cineplex we will see this year.
Linklater (Dazed & Confused, Bernie) has
spent 12 years filming various moments in
the life of a boy who ages right before our
eyes, from age five to eighteen. Using the
same cast (Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette,
Lorelei Linklater, and the amazing Ellar
Coltrane), Linklater creates something that
is truly amazing and ground breaking.
We have seen slightly similar methods of
storytelling with the likes of Francois
Truffaut's legendary Adventures of Antoine
Doinel film saga, Michael Apted's 7 Up documentary series, Sally Draper's astonishing
growth into a young adult over nearly a
decade on Mad Men, and through the countless uses of SFX make-up or double casting.
However, following the same cast of actors
for so long, through such a huge time of
change in someone's life – and then saving it
all to show in one movie? Wow. The trailer
alone for Boyhood is mesmerizing and sort
of cathartic.
First up:
Before Midnight
(109 min)
Dir. Richard Linklater, 2013
Availability: Blu-ray/DVD
Linklater, a roving, experimental, but
always lively and warm director, created a
fascinating work that started simply as a
smart story of youthful roma