As the biggest winner of last year’s Oscars, Birdman is a film that should automatically on any film aficionado’s must-watch list. But even apart from that I knew I wanted to watch it because it’s basically Michael Keaton playing a version of himself as a washed-up actor famous only for playing a superhero more than twenty years ago. Now that I’ve watched it, I’m glad to report that this is one of the rare occasions when the Academy pick for Best Film is absolutely the correct one.
Out of all of the all selections for the Marriage and the Movies course, this was the one that I looked forward to watching the most. Just imagine the thought of Alfred Hitchcock directing a marriage movie! As you might expect of the director and a film bearing the title Suspicion, it’s more about the shadow of murder hanging over a couple than a love story. I predict that the course’s professor will have interesting things to say about it!
Small in scope and modestly budgeted, In Bloom nevertheless earned major plaudits both at home and abroad. Critics, rather grandiloquently in my opinion, have been heralding it as the first in a New Wave of Georgian cinema. That’s certainly enough to get my attention but I confess that I was rather more attracted by its exoticism, since I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Georgian film before.
A couple of months ago, I met up with the cinephile friend I occasionally mention here over the Chinese New Year holidays. He asked to see the list of to-watch movies that I’d compiled and this was the entry that puzzled him the most. Is this that ’80s action movie starring Sylvester Stallone, he asked, why would you ever want to watch this? Indeed it is, and indeed it is a film that has a terrible reputation and deservedly so. But it’s also a film that exemplifies the excesses of the era like no other and that’s why this is an interesting film to watch.
Since I had some time until my next Coursera course is scheduled to start, I’ve been slowly watching the lecture videos for this one from the University of Edinburgh. It was previously offered as a normal course at least once before but has since been put into an at-your-pace mode, which means it’s always available but no professor is actively involved in it. This is the first time I’ve taken a course in this mode on Coursera.
As usual out of the three films that we watch every weekend, one of them is from the upcoming Marriage and the Movies course so as to be ready when it starts next month. This one once again stars James Stewart, who we’ve seen in a couple of other movies recently, and Ginger Rogers, who is most famous for starring in a series of successful musicals with her frequent dance partner Fred Astaire. Unfortunately there is no dancing to be had in this film except for a comedy sketch. Since I didn’t appreciate the humor here at all and found its entire premise annoying, this makes Vivacious Lady the weakest of the marriage movies so far.
Working through the lengthy list of animated films that my wife wants to watch, we arrive at this French-Belgian-Irish production. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Oscars but lost out to Up. I’d be the first to complain that the Academy Awards are unfairly biased in favored of American productions. For example in 2007 Persepolis lost to Ratatouille and in 2010 The Illusionist lost to Toy Story 3, both questionable decisions. But in this case, I have to say that the Academy was probably right.