Apollo 10 1/2: Les fusées de mon enfance

I grew up in Houston from mid '50s to mid '70s and the nostalgic details in Linklater's great new animated feature was almost overwhelming. I'm sure many people will appreciate it, especially the visual style, but for us Space City kids, it is a real treasure trove of memories. Only one goof: the Majestic Theater did not look like that and was quite the opposite of the run-down theater he described. It was a magnificent movie palace in the heart of downtown.

Utilising the rotoscope animation style he perfected in his previous animated film efforts Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, famed indie director Richard Linklater brings colour and soul to his semi-autobiographical Netflix original Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure, in what is a nostalgia heavy trip back to the NASA obsessed state of Texas in the 60's where man's quest to conquer the moon was at the forefront of everyone's minds and hearts.

One of the most purely enjoyable and laid-back films I can recall watching, Apollo 10 1/2 finds Linklater operating back at peak form after a few so-so years behind the camera with the likes of Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Last Flag Flying as he here crafts a childhood infused love letter to his own experiences growing up in the space-age era that ensures his film is one that will feel relevant and understandable to anyone who has grown up in the great big world we live in and offers a nice alternative exploration of the well-explored Apollo mission that gives us a fresh spin on the world changing events of the late 60's.

Forgoing a typical narrative approach in favour of implementing a Jack Black lead voice over for virtually a full hour of the films 90 minute running time, a risky move that pays off big time as you are transported back to our lead protagonist and Linklater stand in Stan, Apollo 10 1/2 offers a mostly captivating experience that captures the 60's and the NASA space age as good as any film that I could recall seeing and regardless if your interest in space is minimal or obsessive, Linklater's film will grip when on land watching TV shows or listening to records just as much as it grips when venturing to out of space with its more fantastical elements.

One of those films you can feel coming about from lived in experiences and someones own personal memories and heartfelt musings, Apollo 10 1/2 is one of the most genuinely effective and touching features Linklater has ever produced, right up there with his most well-liked products such as the Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused and Boyhood.

While some may find the films lack of a hard narrative or non-linear plotline frustrating, for anyone willing to be taken on a trip back to a time and place that feels like a lifetime ago while also strangely feeling relevant and in touch with how life is now, Apollo 10 1/2 is an absolutely joy and a hidden Netflix gem that deserves to find as big of an audience on the platform as any of their recent Ryan Reynolds stinkers that would do well to employ some of the creativity and substance that is found in Linklater's beautiful little film.

Final Say -

It may not offer anything of a revelatory nature but Richard Linklater's newest film is a minor masterpiece and one of the best examples in recent years of a nostalgia lead trip back in time.

4 1/2 scoops of vanilla ice cream out of 5.

For more reviews check out Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

The best thing I can say about this one - and The Hand of God months ago - is that it made me want to a write a script about my youth and coming of age times.

Of course, I'm not American and this one is a very American culturally youth - and I would need to be a successful writer before having this script approved - but I felt this was much more about honouring a time and closing a chapter than about space. Linklater is a specialist about these stories and he knows how to keep us interested.

The title and trailer is definitely misleading by insinuating that this is some sort of space adventure. Granted, there are some fragments of space adventuring going on, but 95% of the film is basically a time capsule of the 60s which tells you all about what life was back then, filled to the brim with nostalgia.

As such it reminded me a bit of The Virgin Suicides in the romantic way it glorifies those long lost days, so stuffed with timely music, tv-shows and other pop-cultural tidbits that it successfully weaves a rose tinted memory of childhood, which will probably have most people create nostalgic connections to what all these references mean in their own life.

I didn't grow up in 1960s Houston. I grew up in 1980s Newcastle Upon Tyne. So a rather different environment.

However, I was still taken in by the more nostalgic theme. I don't know why but for some reason its fun to relate events in a movie to your own youth.

Like falling asleep in the back of the car and waking up in my bed, making prank calls (at least until '1471' was brought to our attention), comically sadistic teachers, brutal but awesome playground games, being blissfully unaware of any environmental hazard (breathing in smoke from a gigantic bonfire all day in your mate's garden) , daft TV programs, playing 40-a-side football in the street, my Nana visiting with her 'views', obscure board games, 6 hour games of monopoly, disappointing packed lunches...and so on.

There is in fact not much of a story to this movie, just an opportunity to forget the worries of the present and remember that you had a youth, stuff happened, and you survived. The 'kid going to the moon' was very much a side story.