(Above: Interstellar, Jeff Boam’s choice for Best Sci-Fi.)
The BAFTA Award ceremony has an open bar. The Golden Globes Award ceremony has a cash bar. The Academy Awards ceremony has a bar backstage. The Boamies, however, just sets the bar low. Honestly, the glut of award ceremonies leading up to the crème de la crème of H’Wood dog and pony shows is enough to make you woozier than cocktail hour at Bill Cosby’s house. This is why each year electric city and diamond city bring you the Boamies, a rundown of everything you need to know to best handicap your Oscar pool.
Every year, the Boamies are given to honor the very best in film … from the previous year, mind you. It’s no accident that these knock-offs sold out of a briefcase get presented THISclose to the annual Academy Awards telecast (this year, the 87th annual event bows on ABC this Sunday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m.). After all, the Boamies ceremony not only includes scarily dead-on guesses as to whom and what will win the Oscar, they also shoehorn in the important categories that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seemingly forgot to include.
At a clandestine, dress down event that you could only get to by shadily asking — in secret code — to buy ‘designer purses’ on Canal Street in Manhattan, the following trophies were given in a basement below a massage parlor in Chinatown.
AND THE BOAMIE WINNERS ARE…
BEST COMEDY:
22 Jump Street
Bad Words
Chef (WINNER)
Neighbors
St. Vincent
If The Grand Budapest Hotel wasn’t already nominated for Best Picture, this award would’ve been molded into the shape of a stop motion animation fox, tied up with a ribbon from Khaki Scout Troup 55 and presented by Bill Murray. But we’ll keep that instant classic separate in the Oscar realm. Team Apatow laughs all the way to the bank with Knocked Up/Superbad/Funny People alum Jonah Hill (22 Jump Street) and Seth Rogen (Neighbors) hilariously raunching it up for moviegoers with two of the year’s biggest blockbuster comedies. Jason Bateman, meanwhile, gets an honorable mention for Bad Words, his ridiculously witty and darkly humorous directorial debut about an adult who enters children’s spelling bees. For him and Bill Murray (the best part of the oftentimes mawkish and sentimental St. Vincent), however, it’s an honor just to get nominated. Top honors here go to A-List director (Elf, Iron Man) and sometime actor Jon Favreau (Swingers, Couples Retreat), who turns in a stellar writing-acting-directing performances in a touching and whipsmart laugh getter about a 5-star chef operating a 6-cylinder food truck, otherwise known as Chef.
BEST COMIC BOOK FLICK:
300: Rise of an Empire
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy (WINNER)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Honestly, the lackluster sequel/prequel 300: Rise of an Empire doesn’t even belong on a list touting the best. It simply acts as a place-holder to keep the amazingly dull Amazing Spider-Man 2 out of contention. When it comes to any Marvel-ous release besides Spidey, however, the results prove exceptional. The Winter Soldier offers up a surprisingly spry spy saga while Days of Future Past gives the X-Men franchise it’s most exciting, heartwarming and fun chapter yet. Nothing beats Guardians of the Galaxy so far as well-roundedness and pure entertainment factor though. Hilarious, thrilling, intelligent and character-driven, this perfect piece of popcorn takes a relatively unknown funny book and makes the audience care for and cheer on its rag-tag group of miscreants more than all of the Justice League members combined.
BEST SEQUEL:
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (WINNER)
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
The Purge: Anarchy
The Raid 2
Not surprisingly, the list of contenders for ‘Best Sequel’ (AKA ‘Continuation of a Franchise’) mainly boasts popcorn blockbusters. The halfway decent thriller Anarchy (emphasis on ‘halfway’) improves upon its ho hum forebear exponentially, but that’s as empty an accolade as saying Billy Barty played the tallest Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. On the other hand, excellent actioner The Raid 2 doles out more punch and kick than its predecessor but it ultimately just offers more of the same. The Hobbit goes out on a note — not high, not low, just entertaining. The Hunger Games, meanwhile, strips the franchise’s gears a bit in downshifting the tone and tempo as it needlessly splits the final chapter in two. There are long scenes where we just stare at Jennifer Lawrence in silence (which, granted, is normally a great way to kill two and a half hours) when the narrative should be developing the other characters more. This leaves Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which improves upon the not-too-bad-itself Rise of the Planet of the Apes by brilliantly showcasing an intense geopolitical struggle and battle for equality between those damn dirty apes and a human resistance faction. With this chapter, this retooled franchise really does the 1967 original proud.
BEST HORROR FLICK:
Annabelle
The Guest (WINNER)
Life After Beth
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
The Quiet Ones
While the docket goes on and on for ‘Worst Horror Flick’ (AKA: ‘Scariest for the Wrong Reasons’) — As Above, So Below; Ouija; Pyramid — H’Wood accidentally eked out a short list of legitimate spine-tingling contenders. Though average franchise extensions Annabelle (The Conjuring) and The Marked Ones (Paranormal Activity) scared up the biggest box office, little-seen above average thrillers The Quiet Ones and Life After Beth deserved more love than they got. The stand-out, however, remains first-rate thriller The Guest, which features Dan Stevens (completely breaking away from his role as Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey) as a murderous sociopath befriending a dead soldier’s family and playing havoc with them (see review in this week’s “Screens”).
BEST SCI-FI:
Divergent
Edge of Tomorrow
Godzilla
Interstellar (WINNER)
Lucy
Divergent ends up like the poor man’s Hunger Games, with Shailenne Woodley playing a second rate Katniss Everdeen in a story that never quite catches fire. Lucy, on the other hand, wowed a lot of moviegoers and cleaned up at the box office … but don’t drink the Kool Aid and get fooled into thinking it’s subversively smart. Somehow, it amazingly manages to be more of a train wreck than Transcendence. The reboot of Godzilla entertains, just not to the degree of other more successful reboots like, say, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Insofar as Edge of Tomorrow (rechristened Live Die Repeat on DVD, Blu Ray and download) proves whipsmart and entertaining beyond belief, this prize goes to Interstellar, which sees Christopher Nolan meld plausible science, meta-physics and a heartfelt father-daughter story that smartly focuses on the human factor in a mind-bending time-space odyssey about mankind’s diminishing interest in the race to the stars.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (WINNER)
The Interview
A Million Ways to Die in the West
Sex Tape
Transcendence
Awarding this to The Interview is just too easy. Please understand that, even if they found that this comedy’s laughs were found to cure cancer, it was never going to live up to the epic hullabaloo that it created on the international scene and was always bound to become a critical punching bag. It’s bad but not THAT bad. Likewise, A Million Ways to Diein the West, Sex Tape and Transcendence are bad — just not bad enough to matter. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, however, is nearly THAT bad …in scope, at least. After the first flick bowed to a less-than-stellar response from critics and fans, Sony hinged all of its hopes for an Avengers-style series of film franchises on a 2 hour and 26 minute sequel stocked to the gills with corny villains. Since Spidey 2 got a lackluster response, Sony not only nixed The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (the fate of the Spider-Man villain spin-off, The Sinister Six, is still up in the air) but inked a deal with Marvel to help relaunch the character with a new actor again …only 13 years after Tobey Maguire first wore the mask and three years since Andrew Garfield did the same.
Fargo
BEST REASON TO STAY HOME:
The Affair — Season 1
Broad City — Season 1
Fargo — Season 1 (WINNER)
Game of Thrones — Season 4
Sherlock — Series 3
Modern episodic television embraces so many cinematic qualities (H’Wood stars, Oscar worthy writing, marquee production value), but a 12-13 chapter season ultimately allows for something that the big screen doesn’t: room to breathe. Game of Thrones doesn’t improve or decline upon its formula year to year. Rather, it’s a consistently well written, well acted, well directed, well produced and damn-well entertaining hour of television. Likewise, consistency speaking, BBC’s Sherlock usually produces one requisite rough patch among its diamonds every season but Series 3 offers a trifecta of brilliant puzzlers, especially the second episode which features John Watson’s wedding. Comedy wise, females-behaving-badly laugh-riot Broad City came out of left field and proves to be just about the funniest thing on TV these days. Also, as the Golden Globe Awards made clear, scintillating Who-Done-What The Affair offers up some ridiculously compelling viewing. Fargo, however, greatly pulls off the biggest and most successful mystery: How do you bring a quirky and beloved Coen Brothers film to the small screen, kinda sorta keep the style but so much the story and still manage to imbue it with nearly as much wit, edge and jaw-dropping dramedy with brilliant new character and performances to boot? Aw, jeez. Ya betcha!
AND, OF COURSE, THIS YEAR’S REQUISITE JOKE CATEGORY:
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WORST-SOUNDING FORTHCOMING PROJECT BY A MEMBER OF THE EXPENDABLES:
Creed, Sylvester Stallone
Fast & Furious 7, Jason Statham
Mechanic: Resurrection, Jason Statham
Rambo: Last Blood, Sylvester Stallone (WINNER)
Terminator: Genisys, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In this race toward last place so far as bad taste, Jason Statham leads the charge. Cranking up the musclebound factor (Vin Diesel and The Rock, we’re talking to you!) of the already lunk-headed Fast & Furious series to an 11 AND making Charles Bronson spin-kick over in his grave by making a sequel to the remake of Mechanic, The Stat eyes up this prize … but his assault on pop culture isn’t egregious enough. The unnecessary Terminator reboot looks bad now (according to the trailer, at least) but — as unlikely as it seems — might still pull some kind of entertainment factor out of its cybernetic ass. This leaves Sylvester Stallone, who’s spinning off the Rocky franchise by centering on his late rival Apollo Creed’s son and beating the dead war horse known as John Rambo. Just based on how painfully bad the last chapter, 2008’s Rambo, ended up being, audiences are in for an expendable bout of moviegoing.
ACADEMY AWARD PICKS
Now, without further foot-dragging or back-peddling, here are your “Screens” reviewer’s predictions for how this year’s Academy Awards race will break down. It’s been a stellar year for film so far as quality. As always, these aren’t personal picks for these categories — just educated guesses as to how the consensus of Academy members will vote. There’s a remarkable difference.
Patricia Arquette
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood (WINNER)
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Ferocious and delicate all at once in Birdman, Emma Stone totally deserves this award and presents Patricia Arquette with her biggest challenge. Regardless, Arquette’s taking home the prize. A rather quiet figure in an epic and ambitious film, her performance as Mom (exactly how its billed), trying to be the glue that keeps her broken family intact as time, distance and a wayward ex-husband keep throwing them asunder, could’ve easily become a role that gets overlooked. But the actress manages to blend into the films fabric so well, bringing a deeply personal dynamic to the mix. Her performance is understated but she occasionally roars, reminding us that we wouldn’t have Boyhood without parenthood.
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simons, Whiplash (WINNER)
Except for Robert Duvall (shoehorned into a great race because of his status as a legend — not because of his scenery-chewing role in a mediocre film), every actor more than earns the right to be nominated. But one performance shoots way past the top of the list. In an intentionally polarizing role that makes Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket come off like Pooh Bear, J.K. Simmons gives the greatest performance of his already great career and the best dramatic turn of the year. As a filmgoer, you bristle at his maniacal slave-driving. When hot-headed, blister-handed Miles Teller drums himself into a seemingly possessed absolute frenzy at the climax, however, you practically sweat and bleed along with him. Like the drummer, we get pushed by Simmons to the limit and beyond.
Julianne Moore
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice (WINNER)
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Consider this befuddling fact: Julianne Moore has never won an Oscar. Crazy, right? Despite a career bursting at the seams with memorable roles (The Big Lebowski, Magnolia, Hannibal, Children of Men, A Single Man, The Kids Are All Right) and past Oscar nominations (Boogie, Nights, The End of the Affair, Far From Heaven, The Hours), she has yet to take home the prize. Not only will she win Best Actress, but she totally deserves it for her vital role as a woman beset with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. In Still Alice, she runs the audience through the gamut from heartbreak to inspiration in the blink of a eye.
Michael Keaton
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman (WINNER)
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Though director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu presents a brilliantly layered and staged bit of fuss and feathers, its hard to gauge how remarkable his technical feat is when you’re marveling at the acting. Michael Keaton always demonstrates an innate gift for pulling off oft-kilter comedy, but his transformation here is absolutely hypnotic. He leads a brilliant cast likewise swept up into its exhilarating and bizarre ether. But it’s one of the most ridiculously brave performances ever committed to film.
DIRECTING:
Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu (WINNER)
Boyhood, Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, Bennett Miller
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson
The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum
Insomuch as Wes Anderson needs to be recognized, well, just for a CV brimming with awesomeness (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom), the battle for the two top prizes Directing and Picture comes down to Birdman and Boyhood. Iñárritu will win for Best Director even though the film itself misses the top prize. Stretching his creative wings after the mosaic patchwork dramas 21 Grams and Babel, Inarritu keeps the action flowing seemingly as one long take. The camera follows the characters walking and talking before turning to catch the next scene already in progress. In what must have taken a mind-boggling amount of preparation, the technical aspects of Inarritu’s latest manner of filmmaking simply astound the viewer. As funny as it is dazzling, the film keeps the audience amused as they unwittingly get whipped up into the directors imaginative frenzy. Birdman effortlessly whisks you into its intoxicating insanity because the story feels so real, the performances so true and our own delicate bruised egos so exposed, just like characters themselves. Plus, the Directors Guild and Producer’s Guild — often dead-on predictors of the Oscars — went in this direction, but this isn’t always the case.
BEST PICTURE:
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood (WINNER)
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Richard Linklater deserves the directing prize for the same reasons that Inarritu’s getting it. His film proves to be a technical marvel unlike no other, over a decade straight in the making with a cast nearly as dedicated to the art and craft as himself. That’s why the Academy will split the vote and give Best Picture to Boyhood. Moving from near-cradle to raves and hitting every emotional coming of age beat along the way, one brave and patient director brilliantly unfolds a heart-tugging and heart-wrenching saga over 11 years with the same players. Not only do we watch a young man grow up before our very eyes, but we experience the slings and arrows of the wonder years from grade school bullying to new school jitters to debilitating first heartbreak to fearfully going off to college with a lump in the back of our throats. Just in terms of scope, the film needs to be recognized. In fact, winning Best Picture for this passion project, perhaps, means more to Linklater (who largely funded it himself) than winning Best Director. Call it an upset but both films need to be rewarded and this is how Oscar night will break down.