The Tyrrell County Public Library showed “Birdman” February 20 as part of a Dinner and Movie Night held the past several years before the Academy Awards.

Past showings at the Tyrrell County Public Library have included “My Week with Marilyn”, “Argo”,  and “Captain Phillips.”

Birdman is a 2014 American black comedy–drama film co-written, produced and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. It stars Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. Keaton plays a faded Hollywood actor famous for his superhero role struggling to mount a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story.

Wesley Morris, a movie critic for Grantland.com commented on the Birdman story:

“In a manner not dissimilar from the way Darren Aronofsky made Black Swan a critique of artistic perfection,  Iñárritu is taking Fellini’s full-figured personal comedies and slimming them down to ask modern questions about the nature of culture. Are Mike and that woman from the Times right? Does a beached movie star have any business putting on such an embarrassing-looking play? Why make an $18 million movie when you can go viral for free?” said Morris.

Most analysis from movie critics pits “Birdman” up against Boyhood as the movies mostly likely to win Best Picture.

Boyhood is a 2014 American coming-of-age drama film, written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. The film was shot intermittently over the course of an 11-year period, from 2002 to 2013, and depicts the adolescence of a young boy in Texas growing up with divorced parents.

Last year’s movie night followed a resurgent Tom Hanks pull out of a career slump starring in a reenactment of the true story of the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, an incident during which merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by pirates in the Indian Ocean led by Abduwali Muse.

The 2015 Best Picture Nominees include:
Boyhood
American Sniper
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game

Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash