Josh Dickey over at Mashable has posted a great infographic showing all that went into making one of 2015’s best films. It is one of the depressing things about an indifferent awards consensus that ignores the extraordinary ambition here, the leap of faith to say – I’m going to write this and film this in the time it takes for a young man to come of age. The awards consensus falls all too easily into the silly whisper campaign that says “it’s just a gimmick” or “take out the 12 years thing and it isn’t all that.” The thing is, you can’t take out the 12 years thing because it says so much about Richard Linklater’s lifelong devotion to thinking outside the box – not to razzle dazzle them but to excavate some kind of truth in the human experience. When the smoke clears on 2015 it will be a scandal to look back at what the awards race ignored, but especially if it ignores Boyhood, which is the kind of film that film awards were invented for: to reward the highest achievement in film, not just “what makes me feel kind of giddy right now?” Extraordinary means it goes beyond the realm of what’s possible. Are they really going to walk by this film?