Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

[Sven]

On my way home from seeing this tonight I realized that I thought about Robin Williams and his suicide and I determined that I could not recall the last movie he made. That fear of irrelevance, of wanting to make a statement with art and making something that one could truly be satisfied with is a concept I can't relate to. I'm a failed writer and thus I pen reviews (I'm not good at that either) and thus I cannot grasp the artist. However I can all too well understood failure, wanting to be noticed in this world of social media and constant attention whoring.

I loved that opening shot even though I have no idea what it means. The same goes for the wonderfully abstract ending as the film goes full circle and borrows/steals/homages 8 1/2 (1963). The cast is marvelous, adding greatly to the proceedings and I love how this film is shot. That drum heavy score is perfect also. So far this is the best film I've viewed this year and it deserves better than this shitty smartphone writeup and snide comments from message boards.

This is one of my favorite reviews of the movie I have read. Rep, MM.

[Spun Lepton]

Walked out satisfied, although I had reservations about the "big-budget" moment near the end when Keaton's psyche cracks. I really don't have much else to say about it. Some of the ruminations about fame and success were very interesting.

7/10

[MadMan]

This is one of my favorite reviews of the movie I have read. Rep, MM.

Um, thanks. And I'm ashamed to admit that I need to see more from a foreign director that has received a great deal of acclaim over the last decade. Although I'm not sure if I would like Babel.

[Irish]

This was something special. I agree with what everybody said about it.

I think it deserves extra viewings, the same way The Player, Shakespeare in Love, Adaptation, and State & Main do. There's a couple of different levels here that are worth playing around with, and I suspect a few callbacks on top of the obvious ones. More, lots of theater & performance jokes I probably missed.

What I loved about it is that the script is an actor's dream, and all of the performers got on board with making fun of their public personas. A few reviews I read dismissed that out of hand, which I couldn't understand. I mean, the things Norton does in this movie require an intense and crazy bravery as well as an astute level of self awareness.

I was surprised most by Faraci's and Chaw's reviews. Both of them got caught up in the superficialities of the story, or its more obvious media criticisms (the camera "gimmick," and superhero movies are dumb, blah). I remember a bunch of critics on twitter squawking about that bar scene and man oh man. I laughed my ass off. It's terribly on the nose and self important because it's supposed to be. But (and this is the important part) it's also not wrong. Chaw took that bar-critic bit and tried to refute it by name dropping Mark Twain and Manny Farber, which strikes me as a massive misread of who the scene was actually addressing (hint: it's online reviewers).

The thing that bugged me about a lot of reviews and left a bad taste in my mouth was that the reviewer assumes Iñárritu is dummy, or that he completely lacks any facility for self awareness. Or they assumed that he has the same sensibility today that he had ten years ago. Given the jokes and the bombastic nature of the writing here, I can't believe that's true.

My biggest impressions were (1) this is a movie about people struggling to be authentic but who have no clue how to do that and (2) the impossibility of doing anything creative, ever, even among the best circumstances, but especially in an environment that only asks you for superficialities, for triteness, and (3) how #2 feeds into #1. This was less about the nature of superhero movie and social media and a lot more about the idea of living in the moment and using performance to do that.

I loved the way this played with fantasy and reality, drama and authenticity. The way the stage moments often felt truer than the backstage moments, and then later the reverse would happen: Riggan pumps up an actress's ego and we know he's full of shit or Mike plays the quiet, sensitive brooder and it's an obvious lie.

The movie is a perfect combination of creative drive mired in self criticism and loathing, and in professional wrangling, and the pound of regret we carry as we age, and the difficulties of producing real, valuable work. I kinda loved that about it.

[transmogrifier]

Hollow and uninteresting. Loads up the lead character with so much cliched personal baggage (failed marriage! problem child! pregnancy scare! career in the doldrums!) that it weakens the main theme of the importance of art and reconciling the intimacy of creative output in itself with the fundamental human need for that creative output to be recognized and embraced by others. After all, we are saddled with a lead character with little left in his life except trying to get his career back on track, and it makes it all a little bit of a bore; imagine if Keaton's character actually had a supportive wife and family, for example. Then we have a true exploration of the competing importance of the personal and the public. Instead, it is just a parade of comedic misery to slam home a lot of obvious truths. The fact Birdman is a made a literal presence on the screen says all you need to know about the level of subtlety at work. By the end I was just enjoying the actors playing off each other (Norton is excellent, until he disappears) and couldn't have cared less about the play or the lead character.

[Dukefrukem]

I can't add much more than what everyone else has already said but I loved this. Galifianakis was excellent as was the entire cast. I've never seen 21 Grams or Babel but I've just added them to my short list.

[DSNT]

I can't add much more than what everyone else has already said but I loved this. Galifianakis was excellent as was the entire cast. I've never seen 21 Grams or Babel but I've just added them to my short list.

I loved this as well, and feel this is the type of movie that will reward with multiple viewings.

That said, it is nothing like 21 Grams or Babel, but they are worth seeing, as is Amores Perros.

[Morris Schæffer]

Generally not my kinda thing. The word "Meta" puts the fear in me like nothing else, and yet from all the best picture nominees I've seen so far, which is three, I'm putting this ahead of American Sniper and the Imitation game. There's some great craft here, almost to the point that it's imperceptible as some have already said, and damn good to see Keaton back in the spotlight, but, eh fuck, I feel nothing for these characters compared to, say, George Valentin in The Artist who, in coping with the realization that he too no longer mattered, struck me as more human than any of these weirdos. It's a universal story, of no longer being relevant, of being supplanted by someone else (younger) but I didn't see characters here. Actually felt Keaton was strangely off during some scenes, like when he was pissed at his daughter for having pot stashed away. Overacting? Not quite, just vaguely unnatural with regards to his reaction. The funniest bit? When he's naked outside, walks back into the auditorium where the play, his play is going on, and everybody turns around and looks at him, flabbergasted, since one cast member isn't coming from the direction he should. And for discernible reason, Riggan points his finger at a random person in the crowd and tells her to shut up, as if he's going biblical on consumers in general, not just Tabitha Dickinson. My brother and I laughed pretty hard at that.

[Fezzik]

I finally saw this yesterday.

In short? I'm pretty well blown away. Where Boyhood felt too crafted for my tastes (and that damaged its emotional resonance), this was just the opposite. Despite its obviously incredible direction, it felt more rough around the edges.

Keaton was mesmerizing. The entire film just had my jaw on the floor a few times. It felt as raw as theater sometimes can. And it hit me in the heart as someone who wants to be an artist and as a human being with frailties and insecurities.

The scene were Thompson goes off on the critic in the bar is one of my favorites in some time. Too on the nose? Maybe, but I kind of think that was the point. Everything he said to her in that tirade I felt like came out of my mouth. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I kept hitting my fist against my armrest and silently saying "yes. yes. YES."

I also love that the critic says something about Hollywood being "cartoons and pornography" while coming off as a less developed version of Anton Ego. Basically, showing a "cartoon" version of the same archetype being more real than the one in the live action film. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but I am choosing to read it that way anyway.

This is easily my favorite film of 2014. I can't wait to see it again.

[transmogrifier]

I have a feeling people will look back on this the way people now look back on American Beauty.

The more I think about it, the more shallow it seems.

[Ezee E]

There's no paper bag scene in this.

[Pop Trash]

There's no paper bag scene in this.

Not to derail this thread, but I always thought the criticisms of that scene were completely unfounded. Once again, people conflate a character's point-of-view with the film's point-of-view.

[DavidSeven]

I loved this movie.

I think it's one of the greatest meldings of form, structure and concept that we've seen in a long, long time. The camera, cutting and general batshit-edness appear to be at the forefront, but I was really blown away by the film's narrative foundation. The thing just doesn't drag; it's consistently propelled forward in ways that feel effortless and new. I was far from an Inarritu guy, but he's opened my eyes here.

They'd give the whole cast Oscars if this wasn't so centrally a Keaton piece. Wonderful performances. Best thing I've seen Norton do.

[baby doll]

It's undoubtedly the most entertaining movie Alejandro Iñárittu has made since Amores perros (if the González is unimportant enough that he's willing to downgrade it to a G., then we might as well drop it altogether). Indeed, the style is dazzling enough that it took me nearly half the movie to realize how full of clichés the story is. (I don't mind that he made the reviewer a bitch, but having her write her reviews by hand in a bar while sipping gin and tonic? Come on.) On the one hand, I loved the transition when the camera pans from Keaton alone in his dressing room to the infotainment reporters interviewing him sometime later, but on the other hand, if I see another movie about a show business dad who feels guilty about not being there for his daughter (who's just out of rehab no less), I'm gonna blow my fucking brains out. Also, maybe it's just me but the visual quotations of Pierrot le fou and Stalker bugged me just because this is so much less demanding/awesome than those films.

[baby doll]

The scene were Thompson goes off on the critic in the bar is one of my favorites in some time. Too on the nose? Maybe, but I kind of think that was the point. Everything he said to her in that tirade I felt like came out of my mouth. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I kept hitting my fist against my armrest and silently saying "yes. yes. YES."

There's a lot of dialogue in this movie that's super on-the-nose (Watts' line about being a scared little girl), but I think Keaton adds some nuance to the scene by playing his character as a drunken ass-hole so that one sympathizes more with the reviewer who has to put up with his bullshit.

[baby doll]

I've never seen 21 Grams or Babel but I've just added them to my short list.

Don't bother, they suck.

[Dukefrukem]

Don't bother, they suck.

Too late. They're already on my Netflix queue. And a movie is in the queue they never come off.

[Barty]

I loved this movie.

I think it's one of the greatest meldings of form, structure and concept that we've seen in a long, long time. The camera, cutting and general batshit-edness appear to be at the forefront, but I was really blown away by the film's narrative foundation. The thing just doesn't drag; it's consistently propelled forward in ways that feel effortless and new. I was far from an Inarritu guy, but he's opened my eyes here.

They'd give the whole cast Oscars if this wasn't so centrally a Keaton piece. Wonderful performances. Best thing I've seen Norton do.

Yes. Yes. YES.

[Spinal]

It will forever annoy me that, of all things, this film's screenplay won an Oscar, but Keaton didn't. Insanity.

[max314]

Haven't seen Birdman yet (the Wachowskis said it was the last great film they saw) but it must have been one hell of a movie to beat the sublime Boyhood to the little gold man.

[transmogrifier]

Haven't seen Birdman yet (the Wachowskis said it was the last great film they saw) but it must have been one hell of a movie to beat the sublime Boyhood to the little gold man.

Yeah, that's not how the Oscars work.

[max314]

Yeah, that's not how the Oscars work.

[Ezee E]

I watched it a third time, and Emma Stone's performance sticks out the most for me now.

[Spinal]

I watched it a third time, and Emma Stone's performance sticks out the most for me now.

In a good way or a bad way?

[Ezee E]

In a good way or a bad way?

Good way.