Richard Linklater on Being Screwed Out of ‘Dazed’ Money and Why the Oscars Should ‘Get More Hardcore’

“It really is optimistic, isn’t it?” asks Richard Linklater.

I’ve convened with the celebrated filmmaker at a hotel in Austin, Texas, where his latest movie Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood is debuting as part of the SXSW Film Festival. Linklater’s lived in the area since attending film classes at Austin Community College in the early ’80s, and went on to inspire a generation of indie directors with Slacker, his 1990 portrait of the city’s colorful characters (including a young Alex Jones), before helming cult classics Dazed and Confused, the Before trilogy, and Boyhood.

And Apollo 10 ½, now streaming on Netflix, is a nostalgic journey through Linklater’s past and a celebration of childhood wonder and imagination. Narrated by Jack Black, it tells the fictional tale of Stanley (Milo Coy), a fourth-grader growing up in a Texas suburb in the shadow of NASA who, through a series of curious circumstances, becomes the first person to land on the moon.

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