Best Picture Contender

I can imagine this winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in a few days. Richard Linklater, the director of awesome teen films like Dazed and Confused and thoughtful films like A Scanner Darkly decided to experiment with shooting a coming of age film over a span of 12 years with all the original actors. The result, was a film called Boyhood which in actuality isn't just about the progression of a boy's life, but also the adult lives of his parents and his older sister who is played Linklater's actual daughter.

If you can get passed the nostalgia of seeing things like Gameboy SP, and accept it for what it is, you can find yourself becoming really engrossed in the film. The draw of the film was the nostaglia though as the main character, Mason, grows up in a similar time period where I grew up as a child. The fashion, music, hairstyles, and technology trends were so different and it's interesting to see that progression as time goes on. What I found most interesting was the change of Ethan Hawke's character who plays Mason's biological father. He goes from being a bachelor with a badass muscle car and no real girlfriends -- sharing custody with Mason's biological mother played by Patrica Arquette to a man driving a mini van and wearing button-up shirts who is married to a God-fearing Sarah Palin type conservative. It's funny because that is contrasted with how he was just a few years prior as a man who was putting up posters of Obama-Biden and swore off Bush.

Then the final scene of him with his son where he says to him if his mother would have just been patient for the man he became it would have been different. The story is not one just about a boy growing in to manhood -- the film doesn't distinguish manhood starting at a certain point in one's life, but that things like maturity can take some time and for men can take well in to their adulthood.

For the mother, I found her story to the be the hardest to grasp because it's something we've all thought about and/or feared. Getting to certain goals in your life accomplishing them only to still feel empty. With her son and daughter leaving the nest, she doesn't know what her life will become anymore because she doesn't know who to be or how to be without being a mother -- which took over a large part of her life. She made their milestones, her milestones and now that she set out what she wanted to do, have family, get her masters degree, and the job she wanted, she's at a lost of how to go on and that's really painful to watch. A lot of times parents will forget to experience things for themselves and have that happiness so they look for it in their children or in their relationships -- in her case her several failed relationships didn't fulfill her and it makes her story all the more tragic because in the end the biological father probably would have ended up being a better match for her in the long-run as all she wanted was for him to be more responsible and more mature which he turned out being.

Anyway good film. Not sure about the ending, but it makes sense that it leaves of a bit anti-climatic. It's essentially life. Things happen and you lose girlfriends, but you end up meeting new people and it's all better again . This is probably one of my favorite films this year.

What are your favorite films from this year?

Big Hero 6. I don't know if it was just being with my kids or the vibe from the crowd at the theater when I saw this, but it was one of the best movie-theater experiences of my entire life. My kids smurfing loved it. I had to keep my son from freaking the smurf out every time Baymax did...well basically anything. My girls loved it. The nerd girls behind me loved it, and somehow their enjoyment seemed to make me enjoy it even more. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it here, because it's not like I'd suggest it as best picture or anything like that, but it was the best time I had in a theater last year, and that's all I have to go on, really.

I haven't seen Boyhood, but it's definitely on the list.

Was Grand Budapest Hotel last year? Yeah, I guess it was. That was a fantastic movie, and I'm not a Wes Anderson sycophant, by any means.

Birdman was my favourite film from this year, I wasn't really a fan of Boyhood. It was okay , and the feat of filming it was pretty impressive I guess, but that doesn't trump how bad the kid was as an actor (especially in his teen years), and how much it dragged in some parts. Ethan Hawke was great though (but not as good as J.K. Simmons in Whiplash or Ed Norton in Birdman).

I also loved Big Hero 6 (obviously) and Gone Girl was the film that I wasn't expecting to like that really won me over.

Grand Budapest Hotel is up for Best Picture this year, chionos! I still haven't seen it but I'd like to!

I really enjoyed The Theory of Everything but I don't think it's enough for Best Picture - Eddie Redmayne could take Best Actor though. Really not sure on it. I like Birdman, wasn't too keen on Boyhood, haven't seen the others. I really want to see The Imitation Game though! I don't know if it will make me happy or sad about Turing's life though as he was treated abysmally in the years after the war.

Films that I have really enjoyed this year are Big Hero 6, Gone Girl, Spiderman 2, Captain America Rise of the Winter Soldier, Lego Movie, X Men.... But I think my personal best picture was by far Interstellar. Oh that film was beautiful. Followed, strangely enough, by Nightcrawler!

Interstellar.

I'm so horrible with movies. I don't see 95% of them and the ones I do are random and never when they're new. I don't even know what came out this year besides a few titles I hear mentioned on NPR all the time.

I really enjoyed Grand Budapest Hotel and I normally dislike Wes Anderson films. I still have to see Birdman but I'm pretty sure I will like it judging from clips I have seen. I also have alwahs liked Ed Norton and Michaek Keaton. I always thought Keaton was underrated but hopefully he goes home with Best Actor. Gone Girl is a steaming pile of poo.

I wasn't sure if I would like Boyhood at first because it seemed mundane and started off slow but the dialogue and conception is what is rewarding about it. I'm really excited to see that long continuous shooting in Birdman.

Of the movies that came out last year that I saw I'd say St. Vincent to be the best one.

Best movie of last year definitely has to be Interstellar. It's Christopher Nolan so that's not really a surprise.

I saw Grand Budapest Hotel and it was great. Very funny and charming and beautiful. I hope it wins.

I saw about half of Selma and fell asleep. I'm sure it's quite good, but at 11pm for a father of twin infants it is just not the right time for that kind of movie.

I haven't seen any of the others. Interstellar (not a nominee) was ok. Too long and the plot made not a lick of sense sometimes, but I liked the spacey timey whimey stuff.

Interstellar wasn't long enough and the plot made plenty of sense. :p

The plot of Interstellar made sense to me it was just dumb. I still enjoyed it though.

I loved Grand Budapest Hotel. One of the most visually beautiful movies I've ever seen. The colors were so beautiful I wanted to just drink in every single scene.

I liked what I saw of Selma but didn't have a chance to finish it since someone fell asleep half way through.

Probably Gone Girl but like many of you I can't remember some of the other films and I've seen little this year.

I'd like to see Boyhood win best picture. It was a very good film, albeit the ending was a little disappointing. What helps is Patricia Arquette is one of the best actresses I've ever seen, I like Ethan Hawke, and Linklater is an excellent director.

I saw like two films in theaters last year, and one of them was The Grand Budapest Hotel. It should win best picture alone for Ralph Fiennes character as M Gustaf. He was wonderful. As a Wes Anderson film, though, I found it slightly disappointing, substance-wise. It felt like something was missing, and it's very different from his other films. Still a good one, though, and as Miriel mentioned, visually stunning to an incredible degree.

I wish I had seen more films, because it sounded like 2014 did pretty alright with releases. There are a lot I wish I had seen, and I have a feeling that some of them are probably better than The Grand Budapest.

I don't actually think many were better than Grand Budapest. My bf even liked it and he doesn't typically like films like that. It was such a cute film.