Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood

Dir. Richard Linklater. 2022, 98 mins. DCP. With Milo Coy, Jack Black, Glen Powell, Zachary Levi, Josh Wiggins, Lee Eddy, Bill Wise. One of the most underappreciated films of 2022 finds American cinema’s deftest memory maker once again plumbing the depths of his own personal experience, in this case his recollections of growing up in Houston at the height of America’s space craze. Taking place in the feverish build up to the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, Apollo 10 ½ is a feature-length exercise in Proustian digression, deferring the central conceit of a young boy who imagines himself an astronaut on a secret mission in favor of a finely observed comic evocation of a white middle–class family’s insulated suburban existence, where all the tumult and excitement of the late sixties counterculture is held at a safe remove within the irresistible square of the television screen. Perhaps the culmination of Linklater’s experiments with rotoscoped animation, the film arguably surpasses both the surreal Waking Life and the nightmarish A Scanner Darkly in its level of detail and fluency of motion. 

Rated PG-13; recommended for ages 10+

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.