28 Up (1984, Michael Apted) (Patreon)

Second viewing, last seen 1993 (not long after first being introduced to the series via 35's U.S. theatrical release). Really hard to evaluate these individually, I'm finding—it's a bit like trying to assess each year of Boyhood on its own, rather than looking at the entire sweep of the thing. No question that Apted has achieved something monumental over the past half-century, but I'm not sure that I'll wind up considering any particular installment to be exceptional. This one's notable because Neil has completely lost his way; everyone else seems to have already pretty much settled into adulthood...though, again, that reflects to some degree my knowledge of where they are seven years later. Haven't yet seen any of the subsequent films (apart from part of 49, which experienced a digital-projection mishap at the NYFF '06 press screening; between that and my having missed 42, I opted to bail and come back to it later, i.e. now), so I'm curious to learn whether seeing them "properly"—that is, with all previous installments under my belt, but no future installments—makes any significant difference.

PERSONAL UP: I turned 28 in 1996, am now suddenly and unexpectedly living in New York City, having been accepted to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (Dramatic Writing program) in the fall of '92. (There'd have been zero hint of this at 21; I didn't even graduate from high school. Got into Tisch by scoring high on the GED and sending them a completed screenplay I'd written, along with recommendation letters from people explaining that my high-school record—which took a sudden nosedive junior year—did not reflect my abilities.) Am two years into a serious relationship with a future two-time Jeopardy! champ; I believe we were living together in North Bergen, NJ at the time, though she might have still been at Yale. Have been writing amateur film reviews online for a year or so, but the Entertainment Weekly article that launches my professional career is still months away (January 1997).