Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2014

The Contenders:

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: Birdman (winner)
Richard Linklater: Boyhood
Bennett Miller: Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum: The Imitation Game

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2014

The Contenders:

Birdman (winner)
Boyhood
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 2014

The Contenders:

American Sniper
Birdman (winner)
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Life is for Living

Film: Boyhood
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

Boyhood took me two tries to get through. I tried to watch it a couple of months ago, got about 25 minutes into it, and just wasn’t feeling like I wanted to continue. I got it from the library again, and have waited on it, the disc sitting on top of a pile of DVDs for almost three weeks. It’s due back at the library tomorrow, and it’s one of the two movies standing between me and recompleting the 1001 Movies list for the year. It wasn’t “now or never,” but it is a case of needing to get it watched or delaying for even longer.

This is evidence that mood can really affect the way we perceive a film. I don’t think I got the point of Boyhood the first time I tried to watch it. In my defense, Boyhood is a slow-starter. Actually, it’s a slow movie all the way around, but that’s really the point. It’s a film that is simultaneously too much for the medium and not nearly enough at the same time. That’s a drawback, certainly, but it’s also the main strength of the film and the concept behind it.