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Offbeat showbiz satire bests Boyhood. By Brandon Wolfe The 87th Annual Academy Awards initially seemed like a horse race, but it wound up being strictly for the birds, as Birdman took home the prizes for Best Picture, Best Director for Alejandro González Iñárritu and Best Original Screenplay. Up until recently, Richard Linklater’s sublime Boyhood seemed like it had the Best Picture and Best Director categories all sewn up, but Birdman experienced a major resurgence in recent weeks, collecting several other major film awards in the lead-up to the Oscars. It would seem that the more insular showbiz milieu of Iñárritu’s surrealistic film struck a stronger chord with those in the film industry than did Linklater’s more universal film. The one prize that Birdman didn’t take home was the one that it initially seemed to have in the bag: Best Actor for Michael Keaton. The former Batman went home empty-handed as Eddie Redmayne won for his striking performance as Stephen Hawking i

The Grand Budapest Hotel Review By: Matt Cummings The refreshingly wacky Grand Budapest Hotel celebrates uniqueness in typical Wes Anderson style. We here at SJF do our best to recommend films that you'll enjoy - we think those that bill themselves as 'important' are mostly meant to be ignored, while those hidden gems require a bit of digging and a willingness to push your boundaries. Director Wes Anderson scored big on our 2012 Best-Of list with Moonrise Kingdom , due entirely to its quirkiness and beautifully-demented environment. We didn't feel that way about Bottle Rocket  and we outright disliked Fantastic Mr. Fox ; but with The Grand Budapest Hotel , Anderson scores with a funny yet unconventional work that's certainly not mainstream. Set mainly in the 1930's fictional fascist world of the European Republic of Zubrowka, we are introduced to the once-storied The Grand Budapest Hotel, a place of wonder where the rich can escape their worries