‘Apollo 10 1/2’ Film Review: Richard Linklater’s Nostalgic Reverie Is Less ‘First Man,’ More ‘Crooklyn’

Despite heavy lobbying, the UK government has confirmed the closure of the £500M ($657M) Film & TV Production Restart Scheme at the end of this month.

Jack Black's new animated Netflix film, , is about the Apollo 11 moon landing, but hits surprisingly close to home for the actor and musician, who has a personal connection to the historical moment.Black's late mother, Judith Love Cohen, was an aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo space program in the 1960s and is credited with helping to develop the Abort-Guidance System in the Apollo Lunar Module. «She worked on an Apollo mission at that time, but the stuff that she did wasn't used until Apollo 13, a few years later, when the astronauts were in an emergency situation and her Abort-Guidance System that she worked on as a programmer helped save some astronauts' lives,» Black explained when chatting about his upcoming film with ET's Matt Cohen.In fact, Cohen was such a devoted worker, that her son recounted, «There is the legend of how when she went to the hospital to give birth to me [on Aug. 28, 1969, just one month after the Apollo 11 moon landing], that she had some paperwork, she was still working on a problem. And after she delivered the baby, she called into work and they said, 'Hey, congratulations, you just had a baby! How are you?' And she goes, 'Fine, fine, I'm faxing you over the papers, the mathematical equations.'»Black and his mother at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.«She was much smarter than me, I did not inherit those mathematic genes,» Black added with a laugh, «but there's a sense of pride and connection to telling this story, 'cause I know my mom was in there working on it too.»In which was shot in live action by writer and director Richard Linklater, and later animated in a process similar to his early 2000s films and, Black narrates the story of an elementary-aged boy growing up in Houston

Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? Do you remember what adventures you fantasized about having? While some of us may not recall the answers to these questions, Richard Linklater (“Boyhood“) has used his childhood fantasy to create his new film “Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood.” While the space race reached its peak with the launch of NASA’s Apollo Program (1968-1972), the wonder of those years carries on.

NEW YORK -- Bike rides, kickball, Jiffy Pop, Jell-O and other well-remembered details crowd Richard Linklater’s “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood,” an affectionate ode to his own childhood growing up outside Houston in the late 1960s.NASA and the moon mission are just next door, as are other scientific marvels (Astroturf!). But the sense of wonder that permeates “Apollo 10 ½” is felt just as strongly in the neighborhood streets where kids roam with skinned knees.

Despite the presumed thought that the Richard Linklater ‘Before’ trilogy is over, maybe due in part because of comments Julie Delpy has made semi-recently, suggesting she nixed the idea, actor Ethan Hawke seems to be still open about the potential to continue the romantic journey of star-crossed lovers Jesse and Céline that started with the 1995 film “Before Sunrise.” While Delpy sounded pretty cynical about the entire thing last time she was asked, Hawke suggests there’s still life in the tank for the franchise.

National CineMedia told advertisers today that it can help them reach “the unreachables,” aka 18-to-34-year-olds who are drawn more to movies than to linear TV.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.MOVIES— Richard Linklater returns to animation with “Apollo 10½,” which comes to Netflix on Friday. But this is no “Waking Life” or “A Scanner Darkly,” though parts do use the rotoscoping technology he used in those films.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticFor 20 years, ever since Gilbert Gottfried made the tasteless crack that inspired it just a few weeks after 9/11, “Too soon” has been the mantra we use to jokingly suggest someone is making a joke before the time is ripe for it. But the phrase could also be applied to certain music documentaries.

X directed by Ti West, is a new love letter to the slasher film genre. This movie within a movie that aims to tackle the strict relationship between sex, violence, desire, and the rage that manifests when one’s life lacks all of those things. West employs all the tropes involved with pornography and horror and tries to inject personal hints of creativity and originality into the narrative. Will it age well if I watch it again in five years? Probably not. But it provides enough fun and excitement in the current moment to keep audiences engaged.

Director Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”) is known for his versatility; romantic and coming-of-age films, animation, studio films, personal projects, etc., but it looks like he’ll be getting into the business of social documentary filmmaking next. While he’s promoting his upcoming animated Netflix film, “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” (read our review), which obviously further evinces his adaptability, Linklater revealed to The Hollywood Reporter podcast, Awards Chatter, a new project titled “Letter From Huntsville” for HBO.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAmazon is making some changes atop its movies team.Julie Rapaport, who previously served as co-head of movies, will become the sole chief of the division. Matt Newman, Rapaport’s fellow co-head, will transition to a new role at Prime Video’s global sports group, where he is being tasked with developing original sports docuseries, films, and scripted projects.

Richard Linklater’s periodic forays into animation (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) have been distinctively imaginative, and that goes double for Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood. A nostalgic but not in the least sentimental look at Texas life when the American space program was at full thrust, this highly personal but entirely accessible account of growing up in a culture both historically momentous and banal has something to offer all audiences in terms of its vivid portrait of a very specific place and time. But most receptive of all will be viewers in their 60s and beyond who have personal memories of the July 20, 1969 moon landing and a of milieu both memorable and banal.

There’s a genuine, welcome sense of play to Richard Linklater’s “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood,” and it’s present right off the bat, from the opening frames. This Netflix production marks the filmmaker’s return to rotoscope animation, the ingenious and striking drawn-over-the-top method that he brought into the mainstream with “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly.” The technique’s real-but-not qualities were just right for those films, cranking up their (respectively) dreamlike and paranoid qualities; here, the M.O.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticEverybody knows the name of the first man to step foot on the moon, but how many have heard the story of the kid who walked there before him? Richard Linklater’s “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” reflects one of the director’s childhood fantasies, informed by growing up in South Texas, a stone’s throw from Johnson Space Center, at the time NASA was trying to do the impossible. “Houston, we have a problem,” he playfully imagines the organization’s top scientists saying, “We accidentally built a lunar module a little too small.” Ergo, they need a 10 1/2-year-old to go up in Neil Armstrong’s place.As someone slightly younger than Linklater who also spent his formative years in Texas, it’s impossible to overstate how much I adore that premise and the collection of associations it brings up for the “Boyhood” director.

If you go to see this, The Prank’s on you.