Birdman (2014)

[mattmav45]

The commentary about critics and mainstream entertainment derails the whole damn thing.

The film is too concerned with its own self-importance that it forgets about the actual story.

There is a thin line between pretension and downright smugness. Unfortunately this is firmly in the latter category.

[Hatebox]

I liked it quite a bit. The actors are all totally game while the camera and soundtrack do a great job of making you feel off kilter. The script isn't great - the Themes are shouted out by characters almost every other scene, and I'm not sure it quite earned its flights of fancy (excuse the pun) at the end but overall I can see why a lot of people went nuts for it. I couldn't understand half the things coming out of Keaton's mouth but in a way that added to the effect. I'd rather it won BP than Boyhood, though that probably won't happen.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Hatebox

[ddddeeee]

Can't remember the last time I was this taken with a movie.

[bapi]

Honestly... I didn't really fall in love with Birdman that much. Keaton and Norton are fantastic, beautiful cinematography but... I respect this film but it's not for me.

 

6/10

 

(Boyhood 8.5/10)

[acsc1312]

I'm gonna try to squeeze in another viewing before this leaves theaters. It's on the cusp of jumping to favorite of the year from about 3-4 right now, and I think another viewing might just do that.

[darkelf]

Well, pretty much everything has been said how great the technical stuff and performances were in this movie so I'm not gonna repeat that but I'll say that this movie hooked me from the beginning and didn't let go until the end with its perfectly frantic pace which is something that I can't remember when it last happened. Anyway, I just want to single out my two favorite moments: 1."...just hitting me in the balls like a tiny little hammer" 2."You know, I got this little voice, it talks to me sometimes, tells me the truth. It's comforting. Scary, but comforting." which are both from the quieter Keaton moments where he opens up himself to his family and these are the two best scenes of the year for me. Just two brilliant tone-changing scenes in a likewise brilliant movie.

 

10/10 

[CJohn]

A masterpiece. Keaton deserves thr Oscar.

[FTF]

A masterpiece. Keaton deserves thr Oscar.

Yup, amazing movie. But as good as he was, I don't think Keaton deserves the Oscar. I think Cumberbatch, Carell and Redmayne are favorites over him for best actor. I didn't see theory of everything but I saw imitation game and Foxcatcher and think Cumberbatch and Carell were better.

Would love Norton to win best supporting actor though, he was just as good as Keaton.

[eXtacy]

Yup, amazing movie. But as good as he was, I don't think Keaton deserves the Oscar. I think Cumberbatch, Carell and Redmayne are favorites over him for best actor. I didn't see theory of everything but I saw imitation game and Foxcatcher and think Cumberbatch and Carell were better.

Would love Norton to win best supporting actor though, he was just as good as Keaton.

 

I think Keatons performance was much better than Cumberbatch's

Edited January 11, 2015 by eXtacy

[FTF]

I think Keatons performance was much better than Cumberbatch's

Yeah it's close, I mean Keaton was great don't get me wrong, just don't think he's winning.

[baumer]

Keatons performance imo is up there with Ledgrrs as one of the GOAT.

[CJohn]

Carell is absolutely fantastic in Foxcatcher. But Keaton is too perfect. Carell would win if he was being positioned as secondary actor.

[Empire]

Carell is absolutely fantastic in Foxcatcher. But Keaton is too perfect. Carell would win if he was being positioned as secondary actor.

Nah, he still wouldn't. JK Simmons was better in Whiplash and would beat him.

[CJohn]

Nah, he still wouldn't. JK Simmons was better in Whiplash and would beat him.

I have yet to see Whiplash.

[Michael Gary Scott]

Cinematography and performances were great. Keaton should win the oscar. However I liked didn't love this.

4/5

[dashrendar44]

I don't give a crap about the on-going Oscar race (Can't muster any interest for Imitation Game and Theory Of Everything) but yeah Keaton is on fire and I'd be content with him winning for this performance which swings frantically between all the "LOOK AT ME I'M ACTING HERE!" trappings that were looming all over this and defuse them in a satirical manner. My genuine love of Keaton did the rest. This guy is loveable even when he's at his most utterly despicable douche of a twat.

 

The guy is not only playing a dude in a movie, he's playing the dude (Riggan Thomson the everyday man dealing with and reeling in his personal and existential issues) playing the dude (Riggan Thomson's public persona aka the has-been actor for the rest of the world) playing another dude in a theater play (Raymond Carver's character Mel echoing with Riggan's arc) while being played by his fleeting ego-fueled subconscious embodying an imaginary movie character also voiced by himself reflecting on his past Hollywood stardom career (Birdman's persona). And this dude is a meta-commentary of himself, Michael Keaton which is the actor's patronym/public persona of Michael Douglas who also embodied a comic-book character whose splitted broody personality shares similarities with a flying animal and just like Riggan Thomson seems desperate to cling onto some kind of artistic relevancy to shine again, Birdman is the juicy role that Keaton has been looking for to kickstart his renaissance as a serious relevant lead 23 years after Batman Returns...Yeah, you got it, he's a russian doll of an actor and this part is echoing more than shouting "Suck my balls" naked in the middle of the Grand Canyon.

 

Acrobat's steep performance. That scene when he's lashing at Norton for stealing his show and shitting his bed...That moment when he seems to open up about his alcoholic dad...

that is revealed as total manipulative horseshit made on the spot but is it knowing Riggan is actually a battling alcoholic as well.

The tragi-comedy of the situation and how Keaton is convincing at pulling strings and manipulating emotions in a swing, being pathetic, offbeat, raging, quirky, touching, lunatic in a split second. It's a love letter to his acting skills. You catch a glimpse of his whole chaotic world crumbling down within him just from a tiniest change of expression on his face. That was fascinating and angst-inducing almost oppressive as the cinematography gets close to the actors in a claustrophobic and intruding manner, I mean it actually makes me dread having a love relationship with someone performing dramatic arts. Not that I think actors/actresses are all delusional egocentric sociopaths manipulating emotions like con-artists pulling off masks to hide their true selves but in this movie they're portrayed like emotional time bombs on an unquenchable selfish quest for recognition and truth (as the evident dialogue in the play underlines) that doesn't bode that well with sane, sincere and stable relationship if the said person is not grounded enough.

 

But that moment of elation when Thomson floats above NYC just resonated to me (the fact that my dreams are obsessed with flying all above the realm of dourness), embodying the internal maelstrom of people deluded and foolish enough to "make art", how do you reflect on yourself in a mirror wondering your relevance (or lack of) in this world, realizing and coming to terms with the offbeat discrepancies of your self image between your perception and the eye of the beholder both shifting in a mood swing, that egotist endeavor of creating something you deem "artful" out of thin air to share with everyone, that futile purpose that drives you in the grand scheme of the universe, conflicting thoughts about being nothingness and feeling irrelevant but having something worth expressing and bringing on the plate for anyone to reflect on, contemplate and discuss or just shit upon, that thinly veiled pride still whistling to get you up on your feet when everything you touch around hopelessly turns into shit, that pretense to have some interesting enough viewpoint on things that need to be expelled in the wide open, that cathartic act of putting yourself at the frontline for the audience to behold and judge your puny artsy farts conflating absolute love with desperate need of validation, what that reveals about yourself or who really lies behind as a person (are you really true to yourself or just pretend, living a cognitive dissonance akin to chaotic drumming in your head), fancying those attempts at "personal creative expression" you cling onto to crave attention/seek acceptation/aim meaningfulness end up crystallizing constant struggle between ethos, pathos and logos.

 

In-movie "reality" blurs with pure acting as Riggan mentally juggles between fantasy and reality in a single swirling stream (Lubezki's work is a jaw-dropping tour de force, once again) while we're watching actors emoting as characters who are actors emoting as characters pretending and bullshitting us, their peers, their relatives and themselves. The movie explores and dances around that blur between the frailed ends of fiction and reality inside audience's head.

 

This is nuts and we know how Keaton always excelled at playing batshit nuts...

 

A+

Edited January 18, 2015 by dashrendar44

[baumer]

I truly believe that Keaton gives one of the greatest performance in the history of film.  He just nailed it.  

[Ezen Baklattan]

Welcome aboard the love train, Dash.

[acsc1312]

If this doesn't win best cinematography I murder someone.

[Films]

Great film. The script and acting are amazing

A-