“Dad, the magical all-seeing crystal says to watch out for something called ‘the Purge’. Does that mean anything to you?”

The Oscars are coming! As longtime MCC followers should know, I’m one of those guys who makes a habit of seeing all the Best Picture nominees every year for fun and entertainment and amateur prognostication purposes. It’s been my thing since 1997 and there hasn’t been a nominee repugnant enough to ruin the ritual for me yet. I had a couple of close calls full of regret, to be sure, but so far I’ve not backed down.

With the official nominations announcement coming next Thursday morning, January 15th, I decided getting a head start on my marathon might not be a bad idea, especially if we end up with nine or ten films on the docket. By a stroke of luck and/or shrewd marketing calculations, this week saw the home-video release of one of the likeliest nominees, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Even if it somehow misses the shortlist because of a crowded field or ballet-box stuffing or whatever, no harm done here — I’d been wanting to see this one anyway. If I bothered with an arbitrary rating system, I’d give Boyhood seven out of five stars, an A-super-plus, a two-minute standing ovation, and the loveliest fruit basket I can afford.

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