The Birds (1963)

Alfred Hitchcock's third Daphne du Maurier adaptation is her short story about birds attacking the residents of du Maurier's hometown of Cornwall, except the Master of Suspense transfers everything to San Francisco and extrapolates the bare context of the novella into a slow burn psychological drama featuring a Paris Hilton-type socialite with nothing better to do than to pull elaborate practical jokes on a potential new beau, but she has the ice cool smile wiped from her face when she finds herself trapped with him, his mother, his ex, his niece and his Oedipal complex in Bodega Bay, a small town under attack from even more unsettled birds!

★★★★★

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The Ornithologist (2016)

It is interesting right the way through, but exactly how this "homoerotic Catholic parable" relates to Saint Anthony of Padua and what exactly the movie is about - with him watching birds and birds watching him, and goats watching him cavort with a goatherd named Jesus, and with erections and Tengu noses both stretching this way and that - is a mystery, just believe me.

★★★☆☆

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Birdman (2014)

What we tell ourselves and what our critics tell us, what the truth is and whether or not we or them or anyone else really gives a sh*t are the ideas tossed around in this "talky, depressing, philosophical bullsh*t" about a superhero movie celebrity trying to open a Broadway production, anxious about how it will be received.

★★★★☆

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