Ellar Coltrane and the Burden of the Iconic Role

Kieran, here. Ellar Coltrane, the boy at the center of Richard Linklater's much heralded Boyhood has landed his next role, a supporting part in The Circle, an adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel about privacy paranoia in the age of social media. Tom Hanks is already attached to star in the thriller, which will be directed by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now). Coltrane will reportedly play Emma Watson's boyfriend who wants to go off the grid, out of the grasp of the eponymous Circle (which is not, repeat NOT Google). That's kind of funny, considering Mason's somewhat self-conscious, adolescent arrogance screed against social media and smart phones in Boyhood. 

The Spectacular Now suggested that Ponsoldt has a gift for pulling great performances from young actors, stretching our imaginations as to what they're capable of. Can he do that again for Ellar Coltrane?

Let me just say that I was an enthusiastic fan of Boyhood and I quite liked Coltrane in it. Er...maybe that's an entirely honest appraisal of my feelings about Coltrane's performance. I thought the movie acquitted itself well while working around a performance with very clear peaks and valleys. Coltrane's doe-eyed befuddlement works really well in certain key moments of the film, as when he witnesses the domestic abuse inflicted on his mother. That same blankness (and the role of Mason does require him to be somewhat blank) tends to fail him in moments when he's expected to communicate a clear persepctive, like the aforementioned scene where he's railing against Facebook. I didn't leave Boyhood with a clear idea of his acting chops in either direction. Boyhood was such a specialized project in conception and execution that it's hard to extrapolate how someone might perform beyond that. (Especially with very little frame of reference. Other than a very brief appearance in Fast Food Nation, Coltrane hasn't appeared in anything else.)

Are you curious to see what we get from Coltrane going forward?

From Quinn Cummings (The Goodbye Girl) and Justin Henry (Kramer vs. Kramer) to more recent examples of Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) it's rare that young actors who have their debuts or breakthroughs in heralded projects go on to have careers that match that initial acclaim. One can certainly debate the merits of each (and my opinion ranges from very warm to very cold), but these famous examples all demonstrate that it can be very hard to crawl out from under the weight of a culturally resonant breakthrough performance. 

6 Questions. Best Actor / Supporting Actor Races

The Oscar prediction charts are revised for ACTOR and SUPPORTING ACTOR and boy is the competition ever on. Here are 5 questions for you to discuss in the comments and as you consider your own predictions at home. 

1. Is Best Supporting Actor actually stronger than Best Actor this year?
With the decision of Spotlight to run its two arguable leads as supporting (it is an ensemble film so this makes a kind of justified sense... even if a "convenient" kind) and excitement for Johnny Depp's Black Mass star turn already dying down (or is this just our imagination?) the Best Actor race suddenly looks a little thinner than expected and the Supporting Actor race a lot fuller. The category confusions that crop up every year now as well as Hollywood's deep love of all star male ensembles have made things a lot harder for true supporting players of the male persuasion. Years ago, for example, I'd guess that Stanley Tucci had a slam dunk case for his scene stealing in Spotlight and Chiwetel Ejiofor had a real dark horse opportunity as the sympathetic home base of The Martian (think Ed Harris's nominated role in Apollo 13) but I couldn't fit either of them into even the top 15. 

2. Will young actors be in the mix for a change?
While Oscar's love of young women and resistance to young men is well documented on this site (and in any perusal of Oscar stats) two of the most well regarded performance from the recent festival circuit were Abraham Attah, who is only 14, and Jacob Tremblay, who is only 8, who lead Beasts of No Nation and Room respectively. In almost all cases male leads who are very young go supporting with Oscar voters (think Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People, River Phoenix in Running on Empty, and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense) though their female counterparts are harder to predict in terms of which category they might find traction in. Still I wonder if anyone will believe Attah as "supporting?" In the recent IndieWire TIFF poll we discussed -- which provides a good example of how few critics care about "category" distinctions -- Tremblay was very high up in the supporting votes (despite being the only male star of his two-hander movie) whereas Attah was high up in the leading charts despite playing opposite a pretty big star of the same gender in Idris Elba, who himself had extremely few leading votes (they were mostly supporting) which suggests to me that people won't ever think of Attah as supporting Elba but the other way around. 

3. Both male acting categories won't clear up until...?
Quentin Tarantino's Hateful Eight starts screening. Or perhaps you think the key film is another film entirely.

4. Which actor do you think has a better shot at winning (if nominated) than he does at actually being nominated?
My guess is Harvey Keitel in Youth. His film director/best friend feels like a supporting character, at least until he takes over the movie for about 20 minutes or so. You could make an easy case that he's more overdue for Oscar gold than the Spotlight boys for example. But maybe you feel this odd distinction goes to someone else in either lead or supporting - Dicaprio perhaps.

5. Do you think Oscar statistics will get a shake up this year?
The last time two men from the same film were nominated in the same category is quite a long time ago now though it didn't use to be all that rare. Two supporting actors happened in Bugsy (1991) 24 years ago. Two lead actors happened in Amadeus (1984) 31 years ago. Three supporting (male) actors nominated for the same film happened thrice, first with On the Waterfront (1954) and then twice over with The Godfather parts 1 and 2 (1972/1974)... could Hateful 8 or Spotlight actually make it a fourth? (Since 1991 the only category that has seen any double nominations in acting -- and it's happened a lot -- is Supporting Actress.)

6. If you had to vote for your own supporting actor ballot RIGHT NOW (preferences not predictions) who would you include?
It's a tough call but I'd be looking at these 11 names (Brolin, Del Toro, Elliott, Ejiofor, Tucci, Schreiber... and the guys from the best of summer in review) and these 2 if I decided to allow for the supporting distinction (Keaton & Keitel), category distinctions I'm still having internal debates about.

Posterized: Shailene Woodley

Shailene breaking glass againWith the excruciatingly titled The Divergent Series Insurgent upon us -- and already garnering terrible reviews even before one of those shameless audience-hating cash-grab two-parters -- it's probably time to talk about the slightly mystifying rise of its leading lady Shailene Woodley. While she's certainly easy to look at (but aren't most actors?) that doesn't really explain the career. I've been mostly quiet about this because I'm aiming for positivity in 2015 but I believe I'm developing a severe allergy.

Let's discuss why and her six major performances (How many have you seen?) after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Who Would You Vote For as "Best Young Actor/Actress"?

Each year when my BFCA ballot arrives I stop in my tracks, stumped, when I get to "Young Performer". Categories that aren't Oscar correlative are often trickier.

Oh dear. How uneasy I feel..."

That's not because you're free of predicting (anyone trying to predict with their own ballot really ought to find a new profession -- criticism: ur not doing it right) but because it's a subsection of acting you probably haven't been discussing at all. You suddenly remember that you need to have been considering it with as much seriousness as you have made your other selections.

I imagine that Ellar Coltrane, the now 20 year old star of Boyhood, will be tough to beat since this category is for the 21 and under set. But even if the category were adjusted downward to 17 and younger (which we strongly support as a rule change -because it's always weird when an adult wins like least year when the prize went to the very explicit Blue is the Warmest Color... in a kid's category!) he'd surely be considered an exemption since he spent 12 years in front of the camera in his childhood for that movie. But who will the other nominees be? Who should they be?

As a BFCA member I'm often frustrated by the choices made in this category since they don't feel carefully considered but "which big ticket movies have prominent teenage or child roles?" or, barring that, which movies did famous teen actors make? Fame ≠ Best so each year moving forward I will try to help my fellow critics by reminding them who is actually eligible... and not just from the Oscar seeking pictures. 

I hope you'll FYC your favorites in the comments and give voters some options to truly consider:

ELIGIBLE "YOUNG PERFORMERS" IN 2014 FILMS
(if we've missed any key players - make sure to shout them out in the comments)

GIRLS
Chloë Grace Moretz (17) in Equalizer, If I Stay, Muppets Most Wanted or Laggies
Elle Fanning (16) as "Aurora" in Maleficent
Hailee Steinfeld (18) in Begin Again or The Homesman
Joey King (15) as "Grace" in Wish You Were Here Gotham Nominee
Kaitlyn Dever (17) in Men Women and Children or Laggies
Lilla Crawford (13) as "Red Riding Hood" in Into the Woods
Lorelei Linklater (20) as "Samantha in Boyhood 
Mackenzie Foy (14) as "Murph" in Interstellar WAFCA Nominee
Odeya Rush (17) as "Fiona" in The Giver
Saoirse Ronan (20) as "Agatha" in Grand Budapest Hotel 
Quvenzhané Wallis (11) is Annie 

John D'Leo, Jordan Scott, and Mackenzie Foy are among several eligible candidates who play "younger" versions of key characters

BOYS
Alex Lawther (19) as "Young Alan Turing" in The Imitation Game
Ansel Elgort (20) in Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars or Men Women and Children
Antoine-Olivier Pilon (17) as "Steve" in Mommy
Blake Cooper (13) as "Chuck" in The Maze Runner
Charlie Tahan (?) as "Joey" in Love is Strange
CJ Adams (14) as "Young Ford" in Godzilla
C.J. Valleroy (?) as "Young Louis" in Unbroken
Connor Corum (7) as "Colton" in Heaven is For Real
Daniel Huttlestone (15) as "Jack" in Into the Woods 
Ellar Coltrane (20) as "Mason" in Boyhood  Gotham Nominee, WAFCA "Youth" Winner
Emjay Anthony (11) as "Percy" in Chef
Ghilherme Lobo (19) as "Leonardo" in The Way He Looks 
Jacob Latimore (18) as "Jeff" in The Maze Runner
Jaeden Lieberher (11) as "Oliver" in St. Vincent WAFCA Nominee
Jamarion Scott and Jordan Scott (?) as "Little James Brown" in Get On Up
John D'Leo (19) as "Young Pete" in Unbroken 
Kodi Smit-McPhee (18) as "Alexander" in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Noah Wiseman (7) "Samuel" in The Babadook WAFCA Nominee
Pierce Gagnon (9) as "Tucker" in Wish I Was Here 
Samuel Lange Zambrano (?) as "Junior" in Bad Hair 
Tony Revolori (18) as "Zero" in Grand Budapest Hotel  WAFCA Nominee

Noah Wiseman, Tony Revolori, and the Boyhood kids have huge roles. Will they make it?

WHICH YOUNG THESPIANS WOULD MAKE YOUR BALLOT?
I hope you'll FYC your favorites in the comments and give the Broadcast Film Critic voters some options to truly consider rather than making this the annual Chloe Moretz Shortlist. Which younger actors do you think have big things in their futures as they grow into young adult roles?

Back to School. Tips from "Matilda"

Hello all, Margaret here celebrating another day of "back to school" week. I'm sure there are plenty mourning the end of their summer, but I know I can't be the only one who feels a thrill of excitement every time September rolls around. Even if you're past your school years, doesn't the arrival of autumn get you itching to pick up some clean blank notebooks and a fresh set of pencils? Perhaps that attitude is why Matilda (both of the 1996 Danny DeVito film and the classic Roald Dahl novel on which it's based) has always been a personal hero.

Matilda Wormwood was a girl genius, and even though she had execrable crooks for parents and was subject to outrageous familial neglect, she didn't let that get her down. In or out of school, there is a lot we can learn from Matilda.

• Keep yourself sharp. Left to her own devices from a tender age, Matilda didn't take that as an excuse to let her mind idle. She charged on down to the local library, and had read every book in the place by her sixth birthday.

• Negotiate creatively. When her parents denied her requests to enroll in school because they'd rather have her at home to sign for UPS packages, Matilda was undeterred. She mixed in a little bleach in with their hair tonic and engaged in a little telekinetic TV exploding, and she was in kindergarten in no time.

• Don't be afraid to be smart So what if her class was only on the two times tables? If you can multiply 13 by 379 in your head, sing out!

• Develop a signature look. When Matilda decided somewhere around age four that the hair ribbon worked for her, she stuck with it.

• Stay away from school principals who favor military jackets and knee shorts. This one should speak for itself.

Keep these tips in mind and you should be able to navigate back-to-school season (or the post-Labor Day work week) with style.

Now, who else out there was a school-loving Matilda type? Reveal yourselves!