Boyhood continues to be the darling of Awards Season. Earlier today, the film picked up a total of 6 Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor.
This week’s Entertainment Weekly features Ellar Coltrane, the film’s star at the ages of 11,12 and 20.
Here are some facts from the film:
- Filming started in 2002 and finished 12 years later.
- Lorelai Linklater who plays Samantha in the film is Richard Linklater’s real life daughter.
- Ellar Coltrane was just 6 when Linklater signed the untested boy to play Mason.
- Jonathan Sehring (President of IFC) gave Linklater $200,000 annually to film Boyhood.
- Each shoot took between 3-4 days.
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You are my hero, WW, for most of what you said: “Sadly, there is a two-tier system at the Academy. Indies dominate the ”major” categories, while the giant box office hits are largely relegated to visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.”
The relegation to, for lack of a better phrase, Usual Suspects Boulevard. Been that way for years. I don’t want to be un-PC and come out and say ghetto. You’ll take these awards and you’ll like them. I feel if there were younger voters in the Academy membership and who took the time to appreciate all genres of moviemaking, that will be the day the discrimination against sci-fi pictures will end (Sorry, Gravity isn’t a sci-fi movie as much as it is a drama about a Shuttle mission gone horribly wrong. You do know, WW, since you took my side, you’ll be in for verbal pounding. 🙂
Gee, I doubt ”Boyhood” will lose Best Picture over a magazine cover. Instead of running another posed shot of Hawke, Arquette and Coltrane, Entertainment Weekly did something that tried to capture the essence of the movie: that you watch this kid grow up. My only quibble: There isn’t enough of a difference (to me) between the ages of 11 and 12. I would’ve included a shot of Coltrane at the age when he first began: 6. … Otherwise, there isn’t another Oscar-contending movie that wouldn’t kill for the cover of Entertainment Weekly (and a making-of feature story).
That cover is really awful. If “Boyhood” loses, they can site that cover. They did this in the past. Remember the over of George Clooney and Viola Davis as the presumptive winners?!? I always feel that EW cover cost them the Oscars that year.
But this is in a whole different area of ick. It makes “Boyhood” look like a horror film.
Is it EW or Fangoria?
Good god what is wrong with 20 year-old Ellar Coltrane’s hands in that picture?
@JIMMY JIM… That is also true. They’re all on the Top 100 Films of all time for a reason.
Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders and E.T. are high quality films in my book, blockbuster status or not. I haven’t seen any blockbuster films in the past several years as good as those films. In my book.
That’s why they need to go back to that method of nominating because for 2 glorious years it actually worked. Sure a turd (or dare I say Dick Poop) may have shown up on occasion, but the overall variety and quality of the rest compensated for that. My favorite BP nominee since the category expansion has to be “District 9”. I never would have seen that coming. But it deserved it. A lot more than “Avatar” IMO.
When the Best Picture nominees were 10 we did get that mix.
A Serious Man to Avatar.
Winter’s Bone to Toy Story 3.
I can understand the argument that not enough “blockbusters” get into the BP race nowadays. The thing I’ve never seen anyone bring up is the fact that blockbusters aren’t special anymore. There’s a dozen of them every year and only a couple are usually really, really good. Back in the day of “Jaws”, “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” it was an impressive feat for those films to reach the popularity that they did. They were ACTUAL BLOCKBUSTERS they created the term in the first place. When 5-10 movies a year make over $200 million dollars the one or two actually good ones (if there are any) disappear into the pile of crap surrounding it. “Avatar” is the only true blockbuster that has been nominated in recent years. And “The Dark Knight” was a genuine snub because of it’s impact. I’ll bet if The Dark Knight’s gross had passed that of “Titanic”. It WOULD have gotten in due to the fact that it was the biggest movie of all time. Same goes for “Avengers” too. All in all my point is; No matter how entertaining some may be… BLOCKBUSTERS AREN’T IMPRESSIVE ANYMORE!
@ASHWINPINTO – actually, though Birdman won for ensemble, and Keaton won two Best Actor awards, it lost Best Comedy at the Critics’ Choice to Grand Budapest Hotel (just as it did at the Globes). If anything, I think the Critics’ Choice awards solidified Boyhood’s seemingly inevitable Best Picture Oscar.
Ideally, the Best Picture nominees should be a mix of the best of the year from smaller critically acclaimed movies … and pop-culture blockbusters. And there was a time when they were. In 1975, there was ”Jaws” and ”Nashville.” In 1977, there was ”Star Wars” and ”Julia.” In 1981, ”Raiders of the Lost Ark” and ”Atlantic City.” In 1982, ”E.T.” and ”Missing.” Somehow, the Academy voters managed to balance the two with just 5 Best Picture nominees. But I’ll agree with this: The indie movies have taken over the Oscars, and the snobby tastes of its older, conservative voters (who probably don’t flock to the younger-skewing blockbusters) have become very highbrow. The Academy expanded the field in hopes that a couple of the more popular (and critically acclaimed) popcorn movies would get to enter the race, but that has proven to be a dismal failure.
Case in point: ”The LEGO Movie.” It was the 4th-highest grossing movie of 2014 ($257 million) AND had won many awards: Broadcast Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Online, etc. And yet it couldn’t get an Oscar NOMINATION? What happened? According to Scott Feinberg at the Hollywood Reporter: One Academy member told me, “They [the members of the animation branch] are old f—s and many are Europeans and they hate seeing traditional animation slip away.”
While it’s ridiculous to knock indie movies like ”Boyhood” for not being big grossers, it’s equally ridiculous for elitist Oscar voters to reject quality blockbusters for Best Picture because they’re too popular. Sadly, there is a two-tier system at the Academy. Indies dominate the ”major” categories, while the giant box office hits are largely relegated to visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.
Danem wins today’s arguments.
Great cover! This movie and this actor are both extraordinary. I just don’t understand the negativity from earlier posts.
The Hunger Games are really meet-cute rom coms with on screen graphic murder.
My wife loved the Hunger Games books, we both really liked the first two Hunger Games movies, and when she went to see Mockingjay in the theater, she told me “nothing happened in that movie.” Another franchise neutered by splitting the final book into two movies as a cash grab. It only worked for Harry Potter because the material was there, folks.
Next, Antoinette is gonna tell us that Exodus: Gods and Kings really should have been in the BP lineup.
Okay, Paul, first thing tomorrow I will go talk to AMPAS about letting you pick 5 BP nominees every year because you know how to satisfy everyone in the world. I’ll let you know what they say.
Anyone who attempts to argue that Mockingjay should be a best picture nominee doesn’t get to dismiss Transformers jokes as strawmen.
I noticed that you simultaneously complained about art house films having too much representation in both the five and ten film BP configuration, so it seems that your biases are just as pronounced as those you dismiss so monotonously here.
Even when I point out that the Transformers BS is a straw man argument, you keep using it anyway. By BP lineup would’ve been Birdman,Boyhood, Gone Girl, Interstellar, and Mockingjay 1. That way, you serve both camps; intelligent blockbusters and the film festival crowd. That’s another issue; I wouldn’t have gone past 5 movies. The expansion to 10, while a good idea in light of the Dark Knight fiasco, has just served this year for the arthouse to monopolize the majority of the nominees. Onward to 2016, where it’s gonna be profoundly more difficult from a PR standpoint for AMPAS if Avengers 2 and the Star Wars revival hit it big with critics and fans.
‘“[Congratulations in advance to what will be the second-lease seen Best Picture winner, adjusted for inflation, in the history of American motion pictures. The perfect poster boy for why 2014 sucked ass in movies.]
#Gosh Paul, your consistent and I might add ceaseless whining about nominees’ box office take ought to inspire Richard Linklater on Oscar night to do a Ving Rhames, publicly handing his Oscars to Michael Bay.’”
Lol with Pete.
Pete was most likely being annoyed and didn’t find it funny when he’s said it. But I couldn’t help thinking along and – dig if you will the picture – imagining Linklater doing a Ving Rhames (publicly handing his Oscars to Michael Bay).
Lol . . . . Priceless.
Ah ah Antoinette best joke of the year so far. Honorable mention to Gregoire’s joke too, lots of fun all around!
I was going to do a parody of Bob Marley’s Bad Boys:
“White boys, white boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”
But it doesn’t make much sense.
Gosh Paul, your consistent and I might add ceaseless whining about nominees’ box office take ought to inspire Richard Linklater on Oscar night to do a Ving Rhames, publicly handing his Oscars to Michael Bay.
Seriously. Give it up or go the fuck away already.
So if we use box office as Oscar criteria, the top 5 contenders for Best Picture should’ve been: ”Guardians of the Galaxy,” ”Hunger Games,” ”Captain America,” ”The LEGO Movie” and ”Transformers.” Yes, the public always knows quality best, which is why McDonald’s serves the best food in the U.S. 😉
Is ‘Boyhood’ going to be like ‘The Artist’ or ‘The Social Network’? We shall soon find out. Despite ‘Birdman’s performance at the Critics Choice Awards I feel that the editing snub will hurt it at the Oscars.
@Paul thanks for pointing that out, i always forget that box office = quality.
It looks like he grew up to be his own molester.
On paper, this cover should be creative. On the cover of EW, it’s a bit weird.
It’s okay. I still love Boyhood.
Congratulations in advance to what will be the second-lease seen Best Picture winner, adjusted for infiation, in the history of American motion pictures. The perfect poster boy for why 2014 sucked ass in movies.
Should not have seen that before going to bed tonight. Terrifying and unsettling. These Ellar Coltranes look like small, evil clones of Christoph Waltz.