TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: (Edward Norton, Ethan Hawke, J.K. Simmons, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Duvall) Should Win: J.K. Simmons or Edward Norton. Simmons, similar to his band teacher Fletcher, has been dominating this category since day one. It's his to lose, but I wouldn't be sad if Edward Norton pulled a huge upset. His Mike was an endlessly interesting actor with a massive ego. Will Win: J.K. Simmons. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: (Patricia Arquette, Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Keira Knightley, Emma Stone), Should/Will Win: Patricia Arquette. Laura Dern was delightful in Wild , but Arquette had the strongest role out of all these ladies as a very human mother. When you can make the audiences sympathize with you after you refuse to see your kid off to college, you deserve an Academy Award. BEST ANIMATED MOVIE: ( Big Hero 6 , How to Train Your Dragon 2 ,   The Lego Movie ,  The Boxtrolls , Song of the Sea , The Tale of the Princess Kaguya ) Should Win: I've only seen How t...

Hype for a movie varies a lot nowadays. Social media, and websites like this one, blogs and whatnot, can carry a movie a long ways. Movie stars aren't enough in today's world I don't believe. You don't really need an A-listers presence to tell a good story anymore, and the ushering in of special effects has also helped in this. Websites like Metacritic, IMDb and primarily Rotten Tomatoes tell you if you should invest your $8.50 into a couple of hours of entertainment. Part of Boyhood's strategy, at least some of it anyway, of getting butts into seats was toting its incredibly rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, which has since dropped to a much less impressive 99% after two critics disliked it. And you can listen to those two people, who I'm sure have very valid opinions...or you could listen to the other 176 people, make that 177 now including me, who are citing Boyhood as one of the finest movies this year, and an accomplishment in the world of cinema. It'...

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...