Director/writer/producer Richard Linklater will receive the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award at the 51st Annual CAS Awards on February 14 at the historic Millennium-Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles.
“We are delighted to be honoring Richard Linklater this year. For nearly three decades he has made his mark on cinema. From Slacker and Dazed and Confused to the Before series to this year’s groundbreaking film Boyhood, he has entertained and surprised us with his vision as a storyteller and filmmaker,” said CAS president David Fluhr. “As a director, writer and producer he has shown us that a lot can happen in one day or 12 years. Rick embodies the word filmmaker and we are honored to present him with the CAS Filmmaker Award.”
In 1984, after a stint on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Texas native Richard Linklater, armed with a Super-8 camera, projector and editing equipment moved to Austin, Texas and enrolled in Austin Community College to study film. The following year he founded the Austin Film Society to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin.
Linklater has made over 19 films and is best known for his coming of age comedy Dazed and Confused which was responsible for the breakout of fellow East Texas native Matthew McConaughey; his romantic trilogy Before Sunrise and the sequels Before Sunset and Before Midnight, which garnered him two Oscar nominations; his rotoscope animated films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly; and his music-themed comedy School of Rock.
His current release, Boyhood, was filmed over a 12-year period with the same cast and crew and has been critically acclaimed. The film has received six Academy Award nominations with three of those for Linklater’s producing directing and writing, five BAFTA nods and, to date, 125 wins including Golden Globe wins for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Patricia Arquette. Over 150 critics across the country have picked Boyhood as the Best Film of the Year. He has also been nominated by both the DGA and the WGA.
Linklater continues to support the Austin Film Society and currently serves as the artistic director. The AFS has become one of the nation’s top film organizations showing over 200 films a year, has educational programs, and has given out over $1,500,000 in grants to Texas filmmakers since 1996.
Linklater will be the 10th CAS Filmmaker Honoree. Past honorees have been: Quentin Tarantino, Gil Cates, Bill Condon, Paul Mazursky, Henry Selick, Taylor Hackford, Rob Marshall, Jonathan Demme and Edward Zwick.
Also being honored with the CAS Career Achievement Award is previously announced recipient David Macmillan, CAS. Macmillan will be the 33rd CAS Career Achievement Award Honoree. Past honorees include: Gene Catamessa, Jack Solomon, John Bonner, Bill Varney, Don Rogers, Walter Murch, Jim Webb, Richard Portman, Willie Burton, Tomlinson Holman, Mike Minkler, Ed Greene, Dennis Sands, Randy Thom, Jeffrey S. Wexler, Scott Millan, Chris Newman and Andy Nelson.
During the awards ceremony the CAS with also present the first CAS Student Recognition Award which will be presented to one of five student finalists: Michael Cullen of Chapman University, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Heather Fink of New York University, John Harton of Savannah College of Art & Design, Danny Maurer of University of Colorado Denver and Alyssa Schwartzberg of Brooklyn College.
The 51st CAS Awards dinner will also honor Outstanding Achievements in Sound Mixing in six categories: Motion Pictures, Animated Motion Pictures, Television Movies and Mini- Series, Television Series-One Hour, Television Series-Half Hour, Television-Non-Fiction, Variety or Music Series or Specials. The winners of the CAS Technical Achievement Awards for Production and Post-Production will also be announced at the dinner.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More