'Boyhood' Named Film of the Year by London Film Critics Circle

Whether here or abroad, Richard Linklater's Boyhood appears to be building an incredible, possibly unstoppable, amount of momentum heading into the Academy Awards. Coming off Best Picture wins at the Golden Globes and Critics' Choice, Boyhood has now been named Film of the Year by the London Film Critics Circle. That goes along with a Director of the Year win for Linklater, and Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette. In general everything went according to the established playbook. Michael Keaton still took the top acting prize for his Birdman performance, while Julianne Moore won Best Actress for Still Alice. JK Simmons racked up another Best Supporting Actor victory for throwing drumsticks around in Whiplash, and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel won for its screenplay.

Looking at the British side it was Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin which won for Best British Film, while Rosamund Pike saw some love for her performance in Gone Girl. Full list of winners is below:

35th LONDON CRITICS' CIRCLE FILM AWARDS WINNERS
FILM OF THE YEAR
Boyhood

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
Leviathan

BRITISH FILM OF THE YEAR
Under the Skin

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
Citizenfour

ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Michael Keaton - Birdman

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Julianne Moore - Still Alice

SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR
JK Simmons - Whiplash

SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

BRITISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Timothy Spall - Mr Turner

BRITISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl (Fox) & What We Did on Our Holiday

YOUNG BRITISH PERFORMER OF THE YEAR
Alex Lawther - The Imitation Game

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Richard Linklater - Boyhood

SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR
Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH FILMMAKER
Yann Demange - '71

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Under the Skin - Mica Levi, score

DILYS POWELL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILM
Miranda Richardson

Read More

Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood' Named Best Film by New York Film Critics Circle

Just because the New York Film Critics Circle feels the need to be the first awards out of the gate each year doesn't mean they hold sway over the Oscar race. In fact, they absolutely don't if last year's three honors for American Hustle are anything to go by. This year they are again first in line to reveal their winners, and it's Richard Linklater's coming-of-age drama Boyhood leading the pack with three wins.

Boyhood won for Best Director, Best Film, plus a victory for Patricia Arquette in the Best Supporting Actress category. Best Actress went to Marion Cotillard for the divisive (and mostly forgotten) period drama, The Immigrant, while Timothy Spall won Best Actor for Mr. Turner. Unsurprisingly, The Lego Movie won for Best Animated Feature, while Best First Feature Award went to Jennifer Kent for her inventive horror, The Babadook. If there's one category where a win might actually be a prelude to further victories, it's the Best Supporting Actor award which went to J.K. Simmons for Whiplash. Full list of winners is below:

Best Film
Boyhood

Best Actor
Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant; Two Days, One Night

Best Director
Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Best Foreign Language Film
Ida (Poland, dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)

Best Animated Film
The Lego Movie (dirs. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller)

Best Screenplay 
The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)

Special Award
Adrienne Mencia

Best Cinematography
Darius Khondji, The Immigrant 

Best First Film 
Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook

Best Non-fiction Film (Documentary)
Citizenfour (dir. Laura Poitras)

Read More

Richard Linklater Departs 'The Incredible Mr. Limpet' for His "Spiritual Sequel" to 'Dazed and 'Confused'

Attached to the project for three years, Richard Linklater only recently began pushing ahead on a remake of The Incredible Mr. Limpet. With Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Kevin Hart, and more coming aboard to voice some of the animated characters, things seemed to be progressing well. But now Linklater has decided to focus his energies on another long-developing film, leaving Mr. Limpet in need of a new director.

THR reports Linklater will be concentrating on his "spiritual sequel" to Dazed and Confused, a college-set comedy now titled That's What I'm Talking About. The film has been in the works for years and like Dazed and Confused will be based in part on Linklater's life. The story will follow "freshmen as they navigate through the first year of college life, while trying to make the baseball team."

The idea is that all of the Oscar buzz surrounding Boyhood, Linklater's acclaimed coming-of-age drama, has driven him to want to capitalize on the attention. If all comes together Linklater would like to begin filming this fall. The fate of The Incredible Mr. Limpet is now up in the air without a director attached. Linklater had been planning to use a similar rotoscoping animation style similar to Waking Life, but that would likely change now.

Read More

Review: Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood' Starring Ethan Hawke and Ellar Coltrane

 NOTE: This is a reprinted review from the Sundance Film Festival.

Over the last twenty years we've grown accustomed to Richard Linklater's obsession with the passage of time through his Before Sunsettrilogy. Every nine years we catch up on his cherished couple as they've gone from meeting to marriage and who knows where in the future. It's kind of strange to call Boyhood Linklater's latest film considering he began the ambitious project more than twelve years ago, filming it a few days each year to cover one boy's journey into adulthood. Nothing of its type has ever been attempted before, not even through Michael Apted's terrific Updocumentary series. Combining hyper-realism with a fictional narrative, Linklater has created the purest of coming-of-age movies, but was the long wait truly worth it? Or was it all just one long, drawn out stunt without any real benefit?

Well, the answer is....somewhere in between. A middle of the road answer for a film that, while great at exploring how one's life evolves in big and small ways over the course of time, still manages to feel unfinished after such a long production and a 3-hour run time. It has nothing to do with the soundtrack, which Linklater admitted afterwards is still uncleared and may change when the final version is released. It has to do with the incompleteness in the story of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a Texas boy who is at 7 years old at the time we meet him. The film largely centers on him and his troubled upbringing in an affluent but broken home. Four central characters accompany Mason on this 12 year odyssey, growing and changing right alongside him: headstrong older sister Samantha (Lorelai Linklater, Richard's daughter); his mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette); and estranged father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke), who flits in and out of the film playfully dropping pearls of Linklater-esque wisdom on philosophy, politics, music, and of course, women.

Contrary to the title, the film is as much about parenthood and the subtle effects parenting can have on children as they develop. Presenting in episodic fashion, flashing us through the years at what seems so be a rapid pace initially, the kids are dragged through Olivia's consistent relationship troubles. As she goes from one toxic boyfriend to the next, we see the impact of it on Mason and Lorelai, and how it informs who they become as adults. Their parents' initial separation seems tame compared to the volatile divorces she would have in the future with men consumed by alcohol and depression. After one particularly violent episode, we see how it emboldens the typically-quiet Mason to be more vocal to his mother when she starts to slip.

Captured in vivid images and told in Linklater's typically astute, observational style similar to his 'Before' movies (expect lots of walking and talking), perhaps the greatest achievement is how natural it all flows together given the fractured manner in which the film was constructed. Presented as snapshots of time and place, Linklater uses music and technology as cultural touchstones, and it's especially interesting to watch the different ways everybody communicates over the years.

While there is no true story arc for any one character, because life is an ever-evolving thing, every character undergoes dramatic changes far beyond the physical. With his long moppy head of hair and features that grow to resemble a young Ethan Hawke, Mason maintains a hopeful gleam in his eyes and an inquisitive nature inspired by his father. With a film of this length there are periods that sag and lack in depth. The second hour is particularly flat as Mason reaches his teenage years, a crucial time when most people are trying, failing, making hard decisions, trying and failing once again. Making mistakes is a part of life and a crucial part of a person's development, but we never see Mason actually do anything. A sense of true discovery is sorely missing in the construction of Mason as a man.

Linklater is a master of crafting large sagas on a small-scale, and Boyhoodfits perfectly into his canon. Despite some narrative issues, there's no denying this sad, funny, and hopeful film is a technical and emotional achievement.

 Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Read More

Jon Hamm, Kevin Hart Eye Richard Linklater's 'Mr. Limpet'; New Clip from 'Boyhood'

In a couple of weeks Richard Linklater will finally release his 12-year coming of age epic, Boyhood (catch my review here), and he'll be following it up with another project that has been in the works for some time. Zach Galifianakis has long been attached to star in Linklater's remake of Don Knotts comedy, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, and with the project officially moving forward a talented cast is starting to assemble around it.

Jon Hamm, Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Key & Peele, Sarah Silverman, and Danny McBride are in talks to join the film, a live-action/animated hybrid based on the Theodore Pratt novel that inspired the 1964 movie. Galifianakis plays a bearded beach bum and activist who is turned into a fish and sets out to save the aquatic population and his town. Hamm would play the villain, a businessman who mines the ocean floor. McBride and Silverman are expected to take human roles while the rest will be voicing animated fish.

Linklater will be employing an animated style still similar to his Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, which may take kids a little getting used to. Filming could begin this fall if everything comes together.

But first Linklater has Boyhood to open in theaters, and even if it's not your typical summer tentpole it's an achievement bigger films can't come close to matching. Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Linklater's daughter Lorelai shot the movie over the course of twelve years, filming a few weeks at a time. It allows us to see these characters evolve naturally, and the same goes for the actors portraying them. The story centers on Mason (Coltrane) as he grows up in a broken-but-loving home, and in this scene he's getting a lecture from his Dad about having a natural conversation.

Boyhood opens in limited release July 11th, here in DC a week later.[TheWrap]

Read More

Richard Linklater Directing Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell in 'Larry's Kidney'

The last time we saw funnymen Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell together it was for political comedy, The Campaign, which had its moments but was ultimately forgettable. However, the pair still holds promise for big laughs and they'll give it another shot in the comedy, Larry's Kidney, which has just picked up a director in Richard Linklater.

Linklater, who has his epic drama Boyhood right around the corner, will direct the duo in Larry's Kidney, making it his next project. The story is based on Daniel Asa Rose's memoir and has Ferrell as the author who "traveled to China with his black-sheep cousin Larry (Galifianakis) and his mail-order bride to save Larry's life by skirting the law and securing him a kidney transplant."

No word on when shooting will begin but with this cast, director, and a booming market like China this is bound to be a very high-profile undertaking.  [TheWrap]

Read More

First Trailer for Richard Linklater's Decade-Spanning Epic, 'Boyhood'

Movies that attempt to capture a natural progression of time are not unprecedented. Perhaps the finest example is Michael Apted's 7 Up series of documentaries, which follow the same people in seven year increments. A chronological year passed fluidly in Horikazu Koreeda's abandonment drama, Nobody Knows, and was largely successful at it. But what Richard Linklater has done with Boyhood, a film he shot over the course of twelve years with the same actors, is something truly extraordinary.

The first trailer for Boyhood has been replaced, an achievement in and of itself considering Linklater began the project way back in 2002. Starring Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, and Linklater's daughter Lorelai, the film spans twelve years in the life of a boy as he evolves into a man. Along the way he'll deal with family hardships, find first love, and overcome other personal obstacles that influence his future. Linklater shot the film in bits and pieces each year, and one of the most intriguing aspects is watching how each actor ages and improves in their performances.

It's a film I was impressed by at Sundance but perhaps not as much as others, saying that despite its technical and emotional achievements "there are periods that sag and lack in depth", while a "sense of true discovery is sorely missing" in the lead character's development.

Boyhood opens on July 11th.

Read More

Richard Linklater Moves Forward on 'The Incredible Mr. Limpet' Remake

I was sitting in the audience as Richard Linklater premiered his epic, twelve years in the making coming-of-age drama Boyhood (review here), and considering how much he put into that it's amazing to think he's moving on to something else so soon. Warner Bros. has been trying to get a remake of 1964 live-action/animated fantasy The Incredible Mr. Limpet off the ground for years, and back in 2011 Linklater became attached to direct it. Little has been heard of it since then as Linklater has taken on other projects, but now it looks like he's finally ready to bring this odd little film back into the spotlight.

According to Screen Daily, the film will be next up for Linklater, who plans on combining live-action and animation just like the original. To get started on the animation side of things he's brought on Femke Wolting and Tommy Pallotta, the latter having worked on the rotoscoping animation for Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.

Don Knotts starred as Mr. Limpet in the prior film, which was a strange and (at least in my opinion) forgettable story about a shy man who turns into a talking fish. Taking place around the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks, Limpet always wanted to join the military but couldn't, so he uses his newfound ability to help locate and destroy Nazi subs. Told you it was strange. As for this version, it looks like Zach Galifianakis is still on board to play Mr. Limpet, and he shares similar goofy qualities with Knotts even if they couldn't be more different physically.  Presumably the story will have to be updated, but naval warfare is hardly what it used to be. Maybe Mr. Limpet will turn into a hummingbird that helps drones sniff out terrorists?

Read More

Sundance Review: 'Boyhood' Directed by Richard Linklater

Over the last twenty years we've grown accustomed to Richard Linklater's obsession with the passage of time through his Before Sunset trilogy. Every nine years we catch up on his cherished couple as they've gone from meeting to marriage and who knows where in the future. It's kind of strange to call Boyhood Linklater's latest film considering he began the ambitious project more than twelve years ago, filming it a few days each year to cover one boy's journey into adulthood. Nothing of its type has ever been attempted before, not even through Michael Apted's terrific Up documentary series. Combining hyper-realism with a fictional narrative, Linklater has created the purest of coming-of-age movies, but was the long wait truly worth it? Or was it all just one long, drawn out stunt without any real benefit?

Well, the answer is....somewhere in between. A middle of the road answer for a film that, while great at exploring how one's life evolves in big and small ways over the course of time, still manages to feel unfinished after such a long production and a 3-hour run time. It has nothing to do with the soundtrack, which Linklater admitted afterwards is still uncleared and may change when the final version is released. It has to do with the incompleteness in the story of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a Texas boy who is at 7 years old at the time we meet him. The film largely centers on him and his troubled upbringing in an affluent but broken home. Four central characters accompany Mason on this 12 year odyssey, growing and changing right alongside him: headstrong older sister Samantha (Lorelai Linklater, Richard's daughter); his mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette); and estranged father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke), who flits in and out of the film playfully dropping pearls of Linklater-esque wisdom on philosophy, politics, music, and of course, women.

Contrary to the title, the film is as much about parenthood and the subtle effects parenting can have on children as they develop. Presenting in episodic fashion, flashing us through the years at what seems so be a rapid pace initially, the kids are dragged through Olivia's consistent relationship troubles. As she goes from one toxic boyfriend to the next, we see the impact of it on Mason and Lorelai, and how it informs who they become as adults. Their parents' initial separation seems tame compared to the volatile divorces she would have in the future with men consumed by alcohol and depression. After one particularly violent episode, we see how it emboldens the typically-quiet Mason to be more vocal to his mother when she starts to slip.

Captured in vivid images and told in Linklater's typically astute, observational style similar to his 'Before' movies (expect lots of walking and talking), perhaps the greatest achievement is how natural it all flows together given the fractured manner in which the film was constructed. Presented as snapshots of time and place, Linklater uses music and technology as cultural touchstones, and it's especially interesting to watch the different ways everybody communicates over the years.

While there is no true story arc for any one character, because life is an ever-evolving thing, every character undergoes dramatic changes far beyond the physical. With his long moppy head of hair and features that grow to resemble a young Ethan Hawke, Mason maintains a hopeful gleam in his eyes and an inquisitive nature inspired by his father. With a film of this length there are periods that sag and lack in depth. The second hour is particularly flat as Mason reaches his teenage years, a crucial time when most people are trying, failing, making hard decisions, trying and failing once again. Making mistakes is a part of life and a crucial part of a person's development, but we never see Mason actually do anything. A sense of true discovery is sorely missing in the construction of Mason as a man.

Linklater is a master of crafting large sagas on a small-scale, and Boyhood fits perfectly into his canon. Despite some narrative issues, there's no denying this sad, funny, and hopeful film is a technical and emotional achievement.

Read More

Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood' Late Addition to Sundance Line-Up

Twelve years in the making and one of the most eagerly awaited films of 2014, the curtain is finally about to be lifted on Richard Linklater's wildly ambition drama, Boyhood. Today the Sundance Film Festival announced the film as a late addition to their slate, with a special screening to be held January 19th.

Linklater was at the festival just last year with Before Midnight, but Boyhood marks a very special occasion and will surely be the centerpiece movie of the entire event. Since 2002 Linklater has spent a few weeks every year shooting  the film, covering twelve years in the life of a single family.  Newcomer Ellar Salmon is at the center of it as Mason, who along with his sister is taken on an emotional journey from childhood to adulthood. Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelai Linklater, and Ethan Hawke co-star.

The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 16th-26th.

Read More

Richard Linklater to direct 'A Walk in the Woods' with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte

There have been numerous attempts to bring Bill Bryson's humorous travel memoir A Walk in the Woods to the big screen. Robert Redford first announced his plans to play Bryson in the film more than eight years ago, with a failed hope of getting his old pal Paul Newman to co-star. Barry Levinson and Chris Columbus circled the directing chair for awhile with little movement taking place until a couple of years ago when Nick Nolte came aboard. Nothing was heard from it since until now, with the LA Times reporting it will be Richard Linklater who directs.

As the head of the Sundance Film Festival, Redford has been linked to Linklater through the director's Before Sunrise trilogy, which frequently gets their first major exposure at the event.That includes this year's Before Midnight, which debuted in Park City back in January, so Linklater will be running around doing press before it hits theaters in May. But A Walk in the Woods has more than a few stylistic similarities to it which may be what drew Linklater to the material. Redford will play Bryson, a native Iowan who attempts to walk the Appalachian Trail with his overweight friend Stephen Katz, portrayed by Nolte. Richard Russo wrote the latest draft of the script, which is done in humorous fashion while mixing in some heavy topics of discussion between the two lead characters.

An exotic locale and a story mostly consisting of two people engaged in conversation? Sounds like it should be right up Linklater's alley, and with two veterans like Redford and Nolte this should be a film worth keeping a close watch on. Filming is set to begin this fall.

Read More

'Before Sunrise/Before Sunset' sequel to shoot this summer

Ahhh, the trilogy. Hollywood banks on them for a number of reasons. Mainly because it's three opportunities to get your hard earned cash, but also because it provides the perfect beginning/middle/conclusion to one overarching story. Usually the trilogy is reserved for big blockbusters, but that's not always the case. The occasional dramatic, acting showcase gets much the same treatment.

Fans have been eager for Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke to reunite one more time to wrap up their beloved Before Sunrise/Before Sunset films. The first film kicked off in 1995's Before Sunrise, and followed star-crossed lovers Jesse(Hawke) and Celine(Delpy), who meet on a train and then proceed to spend the entire day together, slowly falling in love over robust conversation covering just about every subject under the sun. They reunited nine years later for Before Sunset, which saw the two characters in very different places, but with the same mutual attraction. The movies never made a ton of money, but that was never really their point. They are critical favorites, and frankly I don't know anybody who doesn't love them.


Back in November we started hearing increased rumblings of a third film, and now Hawke reveals that is definitely moving forward, with shooting to begin this summer....

Hawke: We’re also doing a follow-up to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, so that will be fun. We’re going to shoot that this summer,” Hawke reveals. “I’ve gotten into trouble, so I’m sworn to secrecy [about where it will take place]. The biggest change between this one and the last one is the Internet. The first time we did it, we didn’t have any pressure; nobody gave a shit.

There's really no reason why they have to stop at three. It could conceivably go on forever as long as Hawke, Delpy, and Linklater feel they have something fresh to say. I think there are lot of folks who would be okay with that. [IndieWire]

Read More

Trailer Time: 'Bernie', starring Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey

Wait a minute. Jack Black starring a crime movie about the real life 1998 murder of a wealthy widow by a homosexual ex-mortician? What the hell is this? Is this a Coen Brothers movie? No, it's by indie auteur Richard Linklater, whose choices in films have always been a little tough to pin down. Even for him Bernie sounds like a shot into left field.

Based on a Texas Monthly article written by Skip Hollandsworth(who also co-wrote the script with Linklater), Black stars as Bernie Tiede, a popular local mortician everyone seems to love.  When he strikes up a friendship with a mean old widow(Shirley MacLaine), the two become inseparable, and Bernie is all too happy to spend her money. When he ultimately kills her, the townsfolk don't really seem to care, until an investigator(Matthew McConaughey) starts asking some serious questions about Bernie.

The film has been around for awhile, making some festival appearances last year to a mixed response. Based on the newly released trailer, I can see why. The tone has the small town feel of a Fargo, but none of the down home Texas quirks ring true. In the real life incident, the townsfolk mostly sided with Bernie, and wanted him to be left alone, a fact which looks to be used to comedic effect in the film. It looks like something Bobcat Goldthwait could work wonders with, but I'm not sure Linklater is the right guy for this kind of material.  Bernie is due to open on April 27th....

Read More