Boyhood

The emotion I felt most after seeing Boyhood was heartache for Texas. I missed it terribly. The film showed Texas is all the ways I remember it. The country roads cut through thinly wooded forests. The middle of Houston. The small lakes and ponds that dot Texas away from the Panhandle.
When describing the movie to friends, the thing I kept repeating was that it showed Texas the way it really is, the way it isn't protrayed in travel shows or Walker Texas Ranger.

I was never much of a fan of Texas while growing up there. I found it all a bit ordinary, much of small town Texas still stuck in the pre civil rights movement America. Everything about the countryside was colored by that view, and its stain kinda papered over whatever beauty was present.
Now when I go back, I am struck by the beauty of Texas more and more. I've driven Highway 7 between College Station and Houston hundreds of times but its not till I moved away and returned that I am really blown away by the scenery that I pass on that drive: the cattle ranches, the one room clapboard bbq joints, the sky that streches forever.

As a film, Boyhood is amazing. The storytelling, the story, the acting, the portrayal of growing up in America. It felt real to me. More so because it took place in Texas.

I've just started watching "Fresh off the boat". A cross between Boyhood and that show would be a god approximation of being an Asian immigrant in Texas.