REVIEW: Boyhood

Best Picture Nominee

Original Screenplay Nominee

8/10 - You can film yourself aging while you watch this movie, too!

Boyhood is what I'm calling the clear front runner for this year's Best Picture race. For cinematic innovation it's deserving. Considering how the last decade has gone for movies (badly) it really is a triumph of filmmaking. You will notice however, it's not getting a perfect score because if I'm being honest it's kind of boring and I'll never watch it again.

For those few people unawares, Boyhood is Richard Linklater's latest film. It's a literal coming-of-age drama that follows a young boy, Mason and his family over the years until he departs for college. This is fresh on the heel's of Linklater's successful third installment of his Before series, Before Midnight. The Before series brought audiences into brief moments that were decades apart. Boyhood assembled a film crew for a few scenes every year for 12 years, culminating in a three hour movie concentrate of what childhood looks like. It's almost a polished version of what some of the mumble-core (Ugh I hate that word) movies have tried to accomplish. Drop the viewer into the mundane reality of life, not the elevated fantasy that most films portray.

That leaves my paradox. Watching the cast, namely Ellar Coltrane, literally go through boyhood is the hook. If you were to describe this movie, as I did, you would only talk about that part. But the time between filming is not the point of the movie. There is a real plot. Which isn't about Ellar growing up. Except it sort of is, it's about Mason Jr. growing up. The family goes through a lot of changes. It's about his parents separation, their new relationships, the step children, the ups and downs of puberty. It really is a pseudo documentary that seems to only observe the life of a boy in relevant periods of time, culminating in great personal growth for all the characters and illustrating the struggles and hope in every day life.

I can't quite decide where I land on Boyhood. To some critics, this film is a revelation. And as someone who watches a lot of movies I totally get that. Boyhood breaks the standard movie mold, really pulling on the heartstrings of certain generations (Like those with kids Mason's age or those kids who are Mason's age.) I think many people will leave feeling satisfied with the nostalgic quality of this film. On the other hand there really isn't much of a tangible story to follow and the extremely long three hour time frame is going to turn off many movie goers. This is a film so raw in concept, very humble and endearing, and yet it's inaccessible to so many people. The sentiment I've heard about this movie is "Yeah, I've heard about it. No I'm not going to see it." Which is sort of a shame that this is where we've landed. I'm not going to lie, the lack of "story" is a big turn off for me, too.

Regardless of whether it's an underrated masterpiece, or an overwrought eyeroll, I wish we had more movies like Boyhood. The last few years have made me quite frustrated with the movie scene. There are award dramas that come out at Christmas, Summer action movies, early Spring comedies, and very little innovation. It's all become quite safe. Audiences are being told to anticipate their movie purchases years in advance regardless of whether the film will be any good, and lower budget movies are being swept under the rug. I'm glad that movies like Boyhood and Birdman are doing so well this season. Nothing against Selma or The Imitation Game but they are literally only funded because of the award season cash in. It's nice to see a passion project come to life every once in a while. This is a good passion filled movie. Let it recharge you.

IMDb - Boyhood (8.3)
Wikipedia - Boyhood
Rotten Tomatoes - Boyhood (98%)
Amazon.ca - Boyhood

REVIEW: Wild

9/10 - Not nominated for Best Picture or Best Director? What an oversight. 

Last night I cleaned my kitchen. Took a nice hot bath. Made a cup of tea. Got in my PJ's, with blankies and my puppy on the couch, ready for snuggles. Then I turned on this movie and was unable to look away. 

I highly recommend anyone else who wants to watch this film to do the same. Not only was it a nice Sunday night, this movie is highly deserving of your focus and attention. And you will probably also need something to snuggle. 

Wild follows the story of Cheryl Strayed as she hikes across the west coast of the United States via the Pacific Crest Trail. It's a story of her learning to deal with her past, as the journey on the hiking trail reflects the journey her life took to get to this point. You might even call the hike the b-plot because the "flashbacks" are really the focus of the film. 

As a screenwriter, I also read the script, which wasn't nominated for an Oscar (I'm supposed to be reviewing those movies right now.) I have a ton of appreciation for a script that's entire purpose is to illustrate an internal struggle. That's not an easy thing to do. There was no voice-over narration saying "Hi, I'm Cheryl and today I started hiking!" or massive physical transformation. It's a story about a woman reflecting on her life, fondly remembering love, and regretting mistakes, dealing with deep soul-crushing pain, and avoided memories of heartache. There's a movie in here that follows Cheryl chronologically, I'm sure. That's not this movie. Wild isn't about what happened to her in the past, it's about her dealing with it in the present. 

The only major difference from script to screen I noticed was the hike itself. The script seemed to emphasize more the difficulties of the hike, but that's difficult to express on screen and if more hiking had been included in the final cut of the film I'm sure someone would have made a Lord of the Rings joke about her hiking to Mordor. 

There is really something wonderful about the relatability of Cheryl in this film. Women are so often portrayed as either strong and cold, or weak and flirtatious. This is as close to the female "every-man" as I've seen on screen. Her character reflects the way people are composed of contradictions. She's a character full of love, compassion, and empathy, but also makes selfish and impulsive decisions. She struggles to deal with things that are hard to deal with. She doesn't have the answers. She has to make hard mistakes to figure out who she is. So rarely are women given the opportunities to see those stories told on film, even though this one made for one fantastic film.

Reese Witherspoon is vulnerable and raw, but also optimistic. She brings so much dimension to this already complex character. Laura Dern is undeniably charming, as she often is on screen. Her moments in the film are brief but haunting. I've always felt like she was an underrated actress. I think Jean-Marc Vallee brought out some quality performances from the cast. 

So yes, I highly recommend Wild. It fits somewhere outside the normal convention of film. It's a drama that isn't agonizing. It's a female-driven film that doesn't dwell in romance. It's a biographical memoir told in an unconventional way. This is what I like about independent films. Sometimes going just a few steps outside of the 'expectations box' can lead to wonderful things. 

IMDb - Wild (7.4)

Wikipedia - Wild

Rotten Tomatoes - Wild (90%)

Amazon.ca - Wild

87th Annual Acadamy Awards Rundown

Here are a selection of the nominees from this years awards. I'll try to review as many of these as I can and see what shakes out. I'm already predicting a few categories: Boyhood for Best Picture. Many of these, I've also read the screenplays for so perhaps that will work into my review. Worth nothing that Gillian Flynn was shut out of the nominations for Gone Girl. I was also quite surprised Wild wasn't nominated for Best Picture.

Best Picture

American Sniper

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper (Jason Hall)

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten)

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Foxcatcher (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

REVIEW: The Maze Runner (And a YA series rant)

5/10 - Da do run run, hey! Da do run run!

I hate movies like this. By that I mean movie-franchises like this, movies that are build to be part of a trilogy or whatever. There's something so infuriating about a film that intentionally is left incomplete. It offers no sufficient climax to the audience. Perhaps there is an action climax on some level, but certainly no emotional one.

I think the failings of The Maze Runner can be attributed in part to the failings of the novel in creating a series. Part of what works in the Harry Potter series of novels is the school story framing device. It provides a clear timeline for events to build up, and conclude. The Hunger Games features an annual event that play out over the year culminating with the Games themselves. These things are tremendously helpful in creating expectations, creating suspense, and allowing the audience to be included in the emotional journey. It ebbs and flows with the natural catharsis of life. For young adult series' like Divergent and The Maze Runner, that don't have that framing device, the narrative becomes a never-ending series of events that build, and build, and build and break. It's not as satisfying and it doesn't draw in the reader to the next adventure. Divergent had a somewhat okish climax and conclusion, but left the audience to fester in frustration at plot holes, and unfinished stories lines A poor 'hook' for the next film. At least it had full and complete story beats and a conclusion of the action. I've read the books, and they go downhill quickly. The Maze Runner isn't so fortunate. It's as if they took the first act of a film and dragged it out to create a two hour movie where almost nothing happens.

The essential problem with a movie that sets up for sequels is it's need to create questions without providing answers. What ends up happening is I cross my arms and look pissed off, knowing that when they say things like "I don't know who I am" that they will never get addressed in the course of the film. Let's be clear: That's fucking bullshit. A movie should be able to stand and walk on it's own two legs, sequel or not. This film cannot. If you take The Maze Runner for what it's worth, without considering it to be part of a series, this movie crumbles. It's got about as much story content as a 22 minute TV comedy. That's unacceptable.

I know I shouldn't keep comparing this franchise, but lets be honest if it wasn't for the success of the other YA novel adaptation film series's then this movie would have never been made. So lets compare it to The Hunger Games. In The Hunger Games, the world is introduced as part of what shaped the protagonist. When Katniss gets entered into the Hunger Games, that's the turning point and she experiences the Capital, the people there, the games, who runs them, and what meaning they have. Then she gets into the games, and a bunch of crazy shit goes down. In The Maze Runner, there is no setup or introduction. The protagonist is a blank person. We experience the glade and learn about the maze over a painstaking first half of the movie where no information is the only information. Then they go into the maze and ... that's it. All the questions of who these people are, what motivates them, why they are doing this, what their purpose is, nothing is answered. I don't even have a clear view of the characters by the end of the film because they literally don't know themselves. It's beyond frustrating to know that it's going to take 3 movies for this series to tell the story that should have been told in 1.

In conclusion, there are some special effects and some great kid actors (along side a bunch of really, really terrible ones) and you'll have to spend another $30 worth of movie tickets to find out what really happens.

IMDb - The Maze Runner (7.0)
Wikipedia - The Maze Runner
Rotten Tomatoes - The Maze Runner (63%)
Amazon.ca - The Maze Runner