BOYHOOD - Oscar Movie Review Special
I am often left wondering who the hell smoked their lunch when I see a lot of what gets nominated for the SAG Awards and the Oscars every year. It makes me wonder who in the world decides who and what get nominated. Boyhood won the Golden Globe for best drama, was nominated for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture for the SAG Awards, and is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture category. I suppose there is no accounting for taste. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette have also been nominated for ‘outstanding performance by a male actor/female actor in a supporting role’ for Boyhood. Arquette actually won both the SAG Award and the Golden Globe.
The interesting thing about Boyhood is its novelty of being shot over a 12 year period with the same actors, making writer/director Richard Linklater perhaps the most patient filmmaker in Hollywood. I am all for innovation in the film industry. Ergo, I was prepared for this film to be wondrous. All in all for me, this movie came off as self-indulgent clap-trap. I lost interest right away and spent the entire film waiting for something - anything really - to happen. It never did as far as I am concerned. I have no fault with the acting. I love Arquette and Hawke. It was just the piece itself left me flat.
Boyhood centers around the coming-of-age years for Mason Evans, Jr., aptly played by Ellar Coltrane, and his older sister, Samantha, played by the director’s own daughter, Lorelei Linklater. The overarching theme in Boyhood seemed to be, life is pointless, and then you die! Many critics have touted this film as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it has raked in some $43 million; that says something, I suppose. The descriptions I have seen range from “ground-breaking,” to”epic,” to “filmmaking at its best.” My adjectives for this include abysmally dreary, plodding, and snore fest.
In the script, Linklater took pot shots at Christianity. The Christians in his film were made to look like vapid, one dimensional, redneck Bible trumpeters. He also got in his licks at war veterans, and some ever popular Bush-bashing. I keep hoping Hollywood writers will find a new drum to beat, but they seem still content to bang loudly on the old one. It’s tiresome. You hate Bush. All Christians are pariahs. You hate guns. You hate the military. Yeah, got the message, thanks - next, please! Actually I could live with that diatribe if the movie actually had some kind of entertainment merit, but it was like reading the boring @$$ diary of a pouting adolescent who is continually brooding over the fact that the world does not revolve around him. Suffice it to say, I won’t be plunking down any pesos to add this particular DVD to my collection any time in the near future. If you like sitting and watching turnips grow, this film is for you. I hope the Academy members aren’t fool enough to give this film the Best Picture Oscar. If Ms. Arquette wins one for Best Supporting Actress, I have no quarrel with that, she’s a great actress. Anyhow, that’s the way I see it!