BIRDMAN MOTHERFUCKAS (2014 film feat. Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, et al)

30 minutes of this was quite enough. First walkout in years.

walked out of turdman into Mockingjay which I thought was exquisite so there you go

Come on. This was great.

x2 - great.

I really liked this movie a lot

yes this was completely satisfying, in ways Interstellar wasn't. I'm sure MockingJay is good but they're not really the same kind of thing are they.

to be sure

Eh.

i loved how close to the actors' faces we were the whole time. i'd see it in 3d.
it was pretty hollow though. it felt like the script needed a few more drafts. i cringed pretty hard every time emma stone started talking about the internet-it felt like pandering to the olds. i wanted it to either be more intense or more funny. i guess, seeing as it's inarritu, i should be thankful there were any jokes at all.

Blech. This thing was trying to do way too many things at once, pulling none of them off, and trying way too hard to be cool and with it. It just irritated me, and left me wanting to cleanse the palate with some Italian neo-realism or some such ... Which I did, a week later (Rome, Open City).

keaton did a good job but i just found his character so much less interesting than norton's and stone's

fully disagree. Norton's and stone's characters speak in cliches (tho all parties p obviously & playfully aware of it imo). Keaton was great.

this was great. last five seconds a copout spinning top obv.

see for me the playfully aware of their own clichedness thing kind of went 360 degrees and the whole film just ended up not rising above. felt like a lot of the movie was trying to deflate their egos and deconstruct the myth of Macho Serious Actor Man while at the same time totally buying into it. best line obv: "you hate bloggers!"

oh and best thing about this was definitely the drum beats

^

there should be way more drums in movies, i've been saying this for years

oh and best thing about this was definitely the drum beats

― flopson, Saturday, 10 January 2015 01:11 (1 hour ago) Permalink

^^
This

In retrospect I wish the film had ditched the play and just focused on the drummer.

random thoughts on this - yes, its all very virtuoso and stunning and wow as it appears to be a single take for pretty much the first 80 or so minutes but the movie just felt like a lot of directorial dazzle but nothing really else going on. you did get a bit more into the characters in the last half hour but then it was just tired (not that it doesnt have a point, but it hardly seemed novel) cynical commentary on internet stardom/modern celebrity/viral videos. i like films about actors/the stage/hollywood as much as anyone, but it didnt ever really go as deep enough into keatons character as it could have, and it didnt feel as cuttingly funny as it prob should have been to send anything up, so the whole thing felt a bit weird to me. impressive as a piece of filmmaking but not as a piece with anything esp rich to say. far too concerned with how it looks than making the material resonate beyond being a way to show off fluid editing and staging. also innaritu i think lacks humour or the ability to not take himself/his subjects seriously which also hampered its prospects as satire. but still, keaton was good. i forgot how much i used to like him.

also, did the critic woman have to be SO plain evil? i mean, that was just plain malice. would have liked to have seen more on the themes she was discussing with keatons character. but i think the film was just too busy, trying to idk, appear busy/jittery/chaotic/anxious.

felt like a lot of directorial dazzle but nothing really else going on.

This is my general feeling about Inarritu, but I liked Birdman more than his other films cos at least it had some good jokes in, and his 'interconnectedness of all things' hokum seems to work better as farce than tradegy.

i dont want to make any great claims for this, it's just ok, but i feel like it's possible to see this film as a kind of self-critique or joke at its own expense? as if wearing its shallow pretension on its sleeve, or virtuosity as a value in its own right. maybe im reaching.

perhaps the problem with that interpretation is how you take the final scene/shot.

I think in re critic we should not discount that she's right

yes

rly tho (I watched it again btw) there is no way anyone in this can be treated as a reliable narrator and if for you that means you care less about any of em or dont think it hits the targets its aiming for then that may be that. imo it was even better second time around, once you have the conceits straight in yr head right from the getgo

This is my general feeling about Inarritu, but I liked Birdman more than his other films cos at least it had some good jokes in, and his 'interconnectedness of all things' hokum seems to work better as farce than tradegy.

my response + Emma Stone + Edward Norton

"This is my general feeling about Inarritu, but I liked Birdman more than his other films cos at least it had some good jokes in, and his 'interconnectedness of all things' hokum seems to work better as farce than tradegy."

maybe, but it just felt like someone who has never told a joke in their life, really trying to convince you that they actually do have a sense of humour

bound to win quite a few oscars though - no way they would let a film like this get away without winning

im tempted to watch it a 2nd time, though if you want to watch a jittery film, something like after hours does it with genuine mania

I mean, Norton was more feral hence interesting than Keaton, even with the tanning booth shit they saddled him with.

for all the knowing stuff from emma stone about not appealing to young people, the film does feel like its lazily catering to people over 40, with its scornful view of the internet, social media, superhero movies, etc etc. theres nothing new being said about any of its themes in here.

Birdman doesn’t have much to say about art except that actors are creepy assholes, superpowers are fun, and a correlation exists between nasty criticism and martinis drunk from stemless glasses.

Norton is at least equal cliche to Keaton

"this movie" has nothing to say about the internet. Keaton's character does.

Norton doesn't get a quiet scene in which he gets ruminative designed for Academy voters though. At least Norton's role is a cliche I like more.

rooftop smoking scenes and his moment with critic both count there id have thought...the fact he disappears from the movie more against him than anything in the performance or character

and I'm not claiming the role of either Keaton or Norton are cliches, I dont think! the characters are, but the portrayals/performances and the way in which we're invited to view them seem reasonably original/different to me

This was good while watching, but it just hasn't stayed with me. I'm trying to remember details, or memorable moments and I just can't.

I felt like I was watching the film through a plastic gauze or something

just read the reviews posted earlier in this thread - both are pretty much OTM.

I liked Birdman more than his other films cos at least it had some good jokes in, and his 'interconnectedness of all things' hokum seems to work better as farce than tragedy.

OTM

I liked the way the superhero hallucinations towards the end acknowledged the power and pleasure of a genre that until then the movie appeared to be simply sneering at.

Yeah, I liked how this appeared to be courting every aspect of the male critic-friendly 'literary' midlife crisis film and then turned all that inside out and exposed the essential pettiness of all that towards the end. Still not sure how I feel about the ending itself. I laughed throughout.

I agree with StillAdvance for the most part, it was enjoyable and funny but not as deep as it wants to appear. Norton was superb and great to see Keaton in a big movie again. The ending was a bit twee, I thought. I'll give it a 7/10.

I preferred Keaton to Norton/Stone. Obvious reference, but there was something a bit cheesy and 'Fight Clubby' about their scenes that didn't work out for me.

The ending was a bit twee

Except... He probably actually killed himself. At least that's how I read it.

I got a kick out of Norton taking the mickey out of his "method actor" persona. Feels like its been ages since I've seen Norton in a film.

I found the one-shot trickery to be totally claustrophobic and exhausting. I kept mentally trying to make a break for it whenever someone would walk through a pitch-black (i.e. great place to call 'cut') doorway.

The industry consensus seems to be it's Birdman vs. Boyhood for Best Picture, and Birdman won SAG and PGA awards this weekend, which some think puts Birdman just ahead in the race...

I agree with StillAdvance for the most part, it was enjoyable and funny but not as deep as it wants to appear. Norton was superb and great to see Keaton in a big movie again. The ending was a bit twee, I thought. I'll give it a 7/10.

― everyday sheeple (Michael B), Monday, 26 January 2015 11:57 (58 minutes ago) Permalink

I'd downgrade to 5/10 but otherwise agree.

left me wanting to cleanse the palate with some Italian neo-realism

This is an amazing post, like something Lindsay Duncan's critic character would say.

A lot of this was really good, but the movie was terrible.

A lot of this was really terrible, but the movie was good.

some of it was eye-rolly, but the movie was good

I thought the stuff with the critic was the only totally eye-rolly thing, though I expected something that cartoonishly dumb from something that could very well have been called "Acting!: The Movie." Everything else was OK, just didn't amount to much more than a feature version of The Actor's Nightmare or something, except not funny, and not profound, and not ... well, anything. I had pretty much no takeaway from this other than good acting is hard.

Reminded me a bit of Mike Figgis' "Timecode," novelty and all.

just watched this and i fucking loved it.

That episode of Inside No.9, The Understudy, was kind of a condensed version of this film.

Just finished watching this for the second time, taking notes and trying to make sense of my first impressions. For the most part, I like it. I don't quite love it, and the insistent reach for ~significance~ that's always been an irritant in Inarritu's films still irritates here, but it's rich, funny, technically dazzling and hugely energetic. Birdman's greatest weakness is that it's trying to cram so much in - so many incidents, details, jokes, relationships and observations - that character development is often reduced to a flurry of cliched bullet points. Obvious examples include Sylvia's first visit to Riggan's dressing room (Sam's out of rehab, "you're drinking", he's gone broke financing the play), or when Sam tries to explain her perception of Riggan's benign neglect to Mike on the rooftop. Speaking of which, Sam and Mike finally kiss at the end of a five minute sequence in which Mike has tried to rape and then been dumped by Lesley, Lesley has bonded and then made out with Laura, and Sam's confessed her soul to and basically thrown herself at Mike. It's very easy to get so swept up in the dizzying sequence of exciting events that you don't notice how thinly sketched and silly much of it is.

This reduction often reads as satirical in intent, exposing the shallowness of the characters, as in Sam's poor little rich girl complaint, Riggan's pathetically egocentric story of his Clooney-enhanced plane ride, or Mike's corny boasting about "wrestling with complex human emotion", but as such, it's rarely fresh or funny. When the comedy and character development do work, it's usually in spite of the two-dimensional and insistently pointed writing. Michael Keaton is GREAT. Emma Stone, Edward Norton, and the rest of the supporting cast are good to great. Many of the film's best moments exist entirely in their performances, like Keaton's heel-turning duckout as a stage light lands on a cast member's head, Stone's understanding that she's gone too far in attacking her father, and Norton's ridiculous brawling moves. That's not to say the writing isn't ever good. Mike is so fucking method that, when fed a line, he doesn't struggle to remember his own, but rather searches Deep Within ("Is that what I'm saying?"). And I loved the bit near the end between Sylvia and Jake where he claims he can see the future, so she slaps him. I also dug Innaritu's willingness to let us see that Riggan's play is horrendously bad (the reindeer things!) without making a big deal about it.

After wobbling around shooting off sparks for a little over an hour, the film suddenly snaps into sharp focus during the final rehearsal, when Riggan steps out for an ill-fated smoke break. Everything after that point works beautifully, which helps ease the memory of all the hamfisted rising action. And Inarritu's technique is flawless throughout. Technically, as an exercise in the choreography of sound, performance and camera movement, Birdman is utterly dazzling. I love the (nearly) all percussion free jazz soundtrack. The two "shots" that allow us to actually if breifly see the drummer are easily my favorite moments in the film. Overall, I could have done with a bit less Significance, a bit more room for naturalistic character development, but the end result is never less than entertaining. And a great showcase for Keaton, whom I've always loved.

no mention of the sexual assualt?

Inarittu is probably the worst thing that has happened to film in the last twenty years.

Did he come up with that thing where the camera slows down and circles around during action sequences and then speeds up? Did he do the "Last Resort" video?

just gonna

Iñárritu

carry on

'Iñárritu' is probably the worst thing that has happened to film critics in the last twenty years.

Don't see u throwing many fadas my way man but u do u xp