Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 360: Sun Dec 28

No1: Birdman  (Inarritu, 2014): Greenwich Picturehouse, 8.30pm


Here's a chance to see one of the movies destined to be one of the big films of 2015.

Chicago Reader review:
A washed-up Hollywood star (Michael Keaton), famous for playing a winged superhero in a multimillion-dollar action franchise, tries to stage a comeback as a serious actor on Broadway, writing, directing, and starring in a stage adaptation of Raymond Carver's story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Given Keaton's identification with the title character in Batman (1989), his role here might seem like the ultimate stunt casting. Yet before playing the Caped Crusader, he'd already distinguished himself in both comedy (Beetlejuice) and drama (Clean and Sober), and he more than holds his own in a cast that includes Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Andrea Riseborough, and Zach Galifianakis. Alejandro González Iñárritu, director of such ethereal dramas as Babel and 21 Grams, counterbalances the wicked backstage comedy with surreal flights of fancy, pondering the gulf between dubious celebrity and artistic immortality.
JR Jones

Here (and above) is the trailer.

****************************

No2: Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971): ICA Cinema, 1pm


Time Out review:
Like Bob Rafelson, a director similarly obsessed with the trials and tribulations of the children of the rich, Ashby forever treads the thin line between whimsy and absurdity and 'tough' sentimentality and black comedy. Harold and Maude is the story of a rich teenager (Cort) obsessed with death - his favourite pastime is trying out different mock suicides - who is finally liberated by his (intimate) friendship with Ruth Gordon, an 80-year-old funeral freak. It is most successful when it keeps to the tone of an insane fairystory set up at the beginning of the movie.
Phil Hardy


Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments: