Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater, 2022)

[hearthesilence]

I can't believe Richard Linklater's Apollo 10 1/2 snuck up on me - it's been out in theaters in NYC for the past week but I haven't noticed since I've been completely remote. Will have to catch it on Netflix this weekend, but it's gotten some great reviews...and yet not a whole lot of press coverage either, at least compared to a lot of his work.

[PfR73]

It's slight but it's enjoyable. There isn't really much of a story, just mostly Linklater guiding the viewer (via Jack Black's narration, of which there is a lot) through anecdotes of growing up in Houston in 1969.

[Q Pete Mitchell]

I can't believe Richard Linklater's Apollo 10 1/2 snuck up on me - it's been out in theaters in NYC for the past week but I haven't noticed since I've been completely remote. Will have to catch it on Netflix this weekend, but it's gotten some great reviews...and yet not a whole lot of press coverage either, at least compared to a lot of his work.

It's slight but it's enjoyable. There isn't really much of a story, just mostly Linklater guiding the viewer (via Jack Black's narration, of which there is a lot) through anecdotes of growing up in Houston in 1969.

I thought this was a wonderful, moving film, and not "slight" at all. Linklater's typically gentle touch is not the same as slight, and the understated approach here is one very few filmmakers can match (nor do many try, which is what makes Linklater's work so special.) Saying there's "no story" sort of misses the entire gist of Linklaters career, which has always been more concerned about relationships and themes, times and places, even when there's a more traditional through line (Bernie, Scanner Darkly).

This is his Tree of Life, his Sans Soleil, his For All Mankind, where the main character tries to find his place in the current of history, revels in the swirl of pop culture, realizes how lucky he is to be living (or to have lived) in a particular time and place, and in the end bittersweetly wonders for each of us if it was still "all a dream."

As I've gotten older, I find myself appreciating Linklater more and more, even if I don't like all of his films. He may be the only genuine humanist in all of cinema. His love and curiosity for these characters - every member of the very large family, the neighborhood kids, even the glanced-upon minorities and protesters on TV screens - feels so real and welcoming. It's interesting to compare his work to that of Malick, or the Coens, or Tarantino; all are Boomers, but the latter filmmakers are much earlier in that cycle, whereas Linklater comes in right at the end. Linklater exhibits none of the Olympian remove of Malick, nor the condescension of the Coens, nor the grandiose self-regard of Tarantino; he handles big ideas with humility, embraces every individual's peculiarities with compassion, and uses fantasy not as a corrective but as a means of empathy.

Well, as much as ten-year old can have empathy - or maybe they have more than most adults? This is a film about being open to the world and all its possibilities... even if you sleep through it.

EDIT: I Just realized Tarantino is actually younger than Linklater. My points of comparison remain, though, as far as the relative value of the historical/fantasy devices used in something like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and the new Linklater film

[hearthesilence]

I have to concur with Q Pete, maybe not to the same extent, but this had a lot more depth than I anticipated. It has a light feel, but there's a lot to this film underneath the surface. On paper, I was worried that the bulk of it was going to be a rotoscoped version of The Wonder Years, but the similarities are very superficial - Linklater's film never devolves into self-involved or self-pitying nostalgia, it's a great film about pop culture as a shared and ephemeral experience, and you can even see the individual growing awareness that suggests a collective one that ultimately creates the social and political sea changes we have in culture. It really is apiece with his best work.

EDIT: Also one thing that popped out was how many of the '60s day-to-day experiences are actually relatable to the '90s. Maybe they were rooted in new inventions at the time, but playing music on a push button phone? The board games that were still common in suburban households? I forgot what it's like to collectively watch TV, especially before big screen TV's (and having more than one "screen" or viewing option at home) became much more prevalent - even details like sitting without blocking someone's view. It feels like the real break from the past came with the internet, iPads and iPhones, and online video games.

The only experience that seemed completely alien to me was corporal punishment in school, which is fucking barbaric.

EDIT 2: I didn't realize CBS re-broadcast their Apollo 11 coverage, and I guess they preserved the commercials, including this one, which all carried over to Linklater's film. Meanwhile record collectors have found a few amusing errors - the Monkees record has a Sundazed label, which is a reissue company that was founded in 1989, and one of the other records one of the sisters handles is the first Souther-Hillman-Furay Band album which wasn't released until 1974.

[knives]

It’s hard to formulate an opinion about Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2. On one hand it’s this hyper uniquely Linklater essay film that seems only to not be a documentary in order to capture the mundane feeling of big events. The film is more visceral and exciting the more it gets into the unique details that only Linklater could have experienced. In a sense it explains why nostalgia is so powerful.

That’s part of what is pushing me away though. Nostalgia as a concept has become a four letter word and while this film is just as much about why nostalgia is bad, the film makes 1969 seem like a truly painful and deadly time of mass ignorance and clearly assumes that most memories of experiencing big events are false, it also has a sincere love of nostalgia. The big question now is when is nostalgia good?

[Michael Kerpan]

I love mindful nostalgia -- so I look forward to seeing this film...

[Persona]

A film that is simultaneously innocuous and bizarre in its narrative and structural approach. It's basically Wonder Years Narration: The Animated Movie, with a NASA theme.

I was bored and charmed, in equal measure.

[swo17]

It's basically Wonder Years Narration: The Animated Movie

The Academy disagrees

[knives]

The academy is clearly just ignorant. Have they never heard of rotoscoping?

[domino harvey]

I don’t care about about the film and find rotoscoping annoying, but it’s clearly animation. This is a ridiculous ruling

[diamonds]

It's basically Wonder Years Narration: The Animated Movie

The Academy disagrees

Academy reverses decision; Apollo 10½ now qualifies.

[Kracker]

As does Marcel the Shell and a couple of others. They probably realized it doesn't matter since those are going to lose out on nominations to films that went through a more intensive animation process anyway. People can go on about rotoscoping, but no animated film that utilized even the traditional rotoscoping has ever won an animation category Oscar or let alone been nominated, save for a couple that may have used it. So congrats on Linklater for achieving consideration.

[knives]

In this case love to be that guy.

Actually, most Disney films used rotoscoping to some extent so several nominated films have used it. I count at five where it was essential component.

[Zot!]

In this case love to be that guy.

Actually, most Disney films used rotoscoping to some extent so several nominated films have used it. I count at five where it was essential component.

Yeah, already in Snow White (1937), which won some kind of Oscar.

[beamish14]

In this case love to be that guy.

Actually, most Disney films used rotoscoping to some extent so several nominated films have used it. I count at five where it was essential component.

It’s not merely rotoscoping; Disney constantly recycled animation from older features. Robin Hood (1973) is one of the biggest offenders, and I know that shots from The Black Cauldron were taken from The Sword in the Stone, which was released 20 years earlier. People like to criticize Ralph Bakshi and more recent rotoscoped features, like Shunji Iwai’s The Case of Hana and Alice, but it’s often essential to cut certain corners when engaged in the incredibly arduous process of making an animated feature

[knives]

In this case love to be that guy.

Actually, most Disney films used rotoscoping to some extent so several nominated films have used it. I count at five where it was essential component.

It’s not merely rotoscoping; Disney constantly recycled animation from older features. Robin Hood (1973) is one of the biggest offenders, and I know that shots from The Black Cauldron were taken from The Sword in the Stone, which was released 20 years earlier. People like to criticize Ralph Bakshi and more recent rotoscoped features, like Shunji Iwai’s The Case of Hana and Alice, but it’s often essential to cut certain corners when engaged in the incredibly arduous process of making an animated feature

or even makes it possible to animate. Techniques for smoke and wheels until recently weren’t well developed enough to do without rotoscoping. That famous wagon shot from Pinocchio is a great example, but I remember as recently as Return of the Joker Bruce Timm talking about the need to rotoscope smoke.

[domino harvey]

As does Marcel the Shell and a couple of others. They probably realized it doesn't matter since those are going to lose out on nominations to films that went through a more intensive animation process anyway.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Marcel got nommed, it was more widely seen than a lot of the non major studio titles I see on the eligibility list

[Kracker]

That's not what they look for when judging Best Animated Feature though. Last year's Flee wasn't something widely seen but took Animated, Foreign, and Documentary, a first. Since the category is judged by animation experts in the film industry, they look at how animation is used to tell the story, how much animation is involved in the process, and how much of an essential component it is in telling the story. Marcel was mainly about the script. Watching Marcel I wasn't enamored by the composited animation so much as Slate's acting and the story/script itself.

In this case love to be that guy.

Actually, most Disney films used rotoscoping to some extent so several nominated films have used it. I count at five where it was essential component.

Yeah, already in Snow White (1937), which won some kind of Oscar.

Snow White won an honorary Oscar for being the first and only animated film. Not in any kind of animation category. Same with Pinocchio, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. which won Oscars for score and/or song, which have nothing to do with animation or rotoscoping.

Also as someone who actually worked as an animator in the industry (yes, if you get to be 'that guy' I get to be 'that guy'). there's a HUUUUUUGE difference between the 'rotoscoping' in Snow White and that in Apollo, and even that of the very last cel-animated Disney films. In Snow White it was their only way to track movement, which it turns out you have to do in every animated film involving bipeds or quadpeds. Every animated film uses some kind of reference to get movement and timing done right, even and ESPECIALLY stop-motion animation. Because if they are going to spend an entire workday on a few secs of footage, they are going to plan out exactly how frames a character takes a step and how exactly the leg moves by acting or rehearsing it out on video. Calling it all rotoscoping just because you are aware of the term is just irresponsible in my field.

With Apollo, Linklater is basically taking an entire finished film, down to the edit, and having a small army vector tracing on top it with the footage determining everything: lighting, costume, character, cinematography, backgrounds, as well as the edit; the 'animator' isn't making any decisions. Its a complete post-production process as opposed to the production process of a traditional animated film. Soon, you'll apply a toon filter or AI to video footage and say 'its rotoscoping just like Disney did with Snow White'.

Furthermore, going back to my original point, the animation isn't an essential part of Apollo at all, Linklater could have released this as regular Wonder Years-style coming-of-age story and it wouldn't have taken anything away from it. It doesn't serve in telling the story. The animation is just a gimmick. A gimmick that actually served better on A Scanner Darkly where the animation was essential in everything from creating the Scramble Suits to turning Robert Downey Jr into a giant aphid.

[knives]

I wasn’t referring to Snow White in my original post. I was thinking more along things like Popeye the Sailor meets Sinbad the Sailor.