Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood

Growing up in Houston, just stone’s throw away from NASA, director Richard Linklater (‘Boyhood’, ‘Dazed and Confused’) was two weeks away from his 9th birthday when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. This loose, warm, funny, and occasionally moving look back to his coming of age at the height of the excitement of space exploration—a time when unsupervised kids had the run of the neighbourhood and no one wore seatbelts—focuses on a young boy named Stanley (Milo Coy) as he finds himself at the centre of every kid’s fantasy: being picked to go to the moon. But this nominal plot point is more or less just an excuse for a nostalgic look back at the pop music, the TV shows, and the antics of an energetic group of kids. Delightful. ‘Linklater makes his best movie since “Boyhood” with “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood,” a charming animated dramedy that combines the rotoscoped look of the director’s “Waking Life” with the “remember when” reveries of his “Dazed and Confused” … [Narrator Jack] Black (whose own mother was a noted aerospace engineer) gives a warm and engaging performance, sharing Linklater’s story.’—Noel Murray, The Los Angeles Times