WHY BOYHOOD WILL SWEEP THE OSCARS
Reading the reviews of Richard Linklater's Boyhood, you just start to get emotional simply getting the feel of what the movie is going to be about. For a while it had a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, a feat movies like The Godfather have only accomplished on the site. There's no negative backlash yet, nothing that could hurt the chances of everyone on board. Boyhood has all the elements of a movie that will win Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards.
Look at the facts: every single Best Picture nominee last year was released from October on, kicking off with the special effects extravaganza Gravity. A movie hasn't won Best Picture since 2009's The Hurt Locker, which got an extremely low-key limited release in the summer. I remember wanting to see it, then seeing it explode into pop culture once the Golden Globe nominations weren't released. The bottom line: you have to have your movie released later for the voters to remember you. But Boyhood seems like the picture that ingrains itself in your memory, despite a July limited release. It already made over a million dollars last week, arriving in 15th place at the box office, coming out in less than 40 theaters.
Experimental films do not usually come out on top come Oscar night...this is true. The Tree of Life, a movie which I have no understanding of when I viewed it or after thinking about it, was up for 3 Oscars a few years ago, including Best Picture and Best Director. But it didn't have a snowball's chance in ever being able to seriously win either of those too, despite getting very early praise from critics who pretended to know what it was about. But that's the thing: people still argue over what The Tree of Life truly was; everyone knows what Boyhood is about! It's literally a coming of age drama, where we see this family morph into who they have become, the cultural milestones around them revealing of the era. It's an experimental premise without being too pretentious, even for an event like the Academy Awards.
Despite the three hour running time (something that's never stopped the Academy from handing a trophy to a movie, i.e Titanic, Return of the King, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, etc.) critics say this movie has an organic flow to it, and the time, much like real life, goes by just like that. On this day in late July, I predict acting nominations for stars Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, with twin nominations for Linklater for directing and writing, and, in what I think is at least a lock for this film, a win for best editing, and a win for Best Picture. There might be some technical awards thrown in there, but for sure I think Boyhood will become the 87th movie to win the prestigious prize. I can't wait to see it and I can't wait to be proven right or wrong come February 22, 2015.
Look at the facts: every single Best Picture nominee last year was released from October on, kicking off with the special effects extravaganza Gravity. A movie hasn't won Best Picture since 2009's The Hurt Locker, which got an extremely low-key limited release in the summer. I remember wanting to see it, then seeing it explode into pop culture once the Golden Globe nominations weren't released. The bottom line: you have to have your movie released later for the voters to remember you. But Boyhood seems like the picture that ingrains itself in your memory, despite a July limited release. It already made over a million dollars last week, arriving in 15th place at the box office, coming out in less than 40 theaters.
Experimental films do not usually come out on top come Oscar night...this is true. The Tree of Life, a movie which I have no understanding of when I viewed it or after thinking about it, was up for 3 Oscars a few years ago, including Best Picture and Best Director. But it didn't have a snowball's chance in ever being able to seriously win either of those too, despite getting very early praise from critics who pretended to know what it was about. But that's the thing: people still argue over what The Tree of Life truly was; everyone knows what Boyhood is about! It's literally a coming of age drama, where we see this family morph into who they have become, the cultural milestones around them revealing of the era. It's an experimental premise without being too pretentious, even for an event like the Academy Awards.Despite the three hour running time (something that's never stopped the Academy from handing a trophy to a movie, i.e Titanic, Return of the King, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, etc.) critics say this movie has an organic flow to it, and the time, much like real life, goes by just like that. On this day in late July, I predict acting nominations for stars Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, with twin nominations for Linklater for directing and writing, and, in what I think is at least a lock for this film, a win for best editing, and a win for Best Picture. There might be some technical awards thrown in there, but for sure I think Boyhood will become the 87th movie to win the prestigious prize. I can't wait to see it and I can't wait to be proven right or wrong come February 22, 2015.
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