Something it captures (speaking as someone who's directed a zillion plays) is that every performance is different, so instead of it being a good or bad play, it shows how whatever's happening is in the present and won't be duplicated. And so Keaton entering the play's final scene from the audience works on that night because he commits to the choice; other nights work when Norton or Keaton's characters fully commit to the choices they're making as actors in the show. It's such a huge difference between stage acting and film acting: in a finished film, there is one performance shown and open to judgement. In a play, it's a series of performances, each one different and, at best, suited for that particular evening.
― bit of a singles monster (Eazy), Saturday, 7 February 2015 05:56 (nine years ago) link
i'm not sure how intentional the film's banality is, or whether there's sufficient animating wit behind the accumulation of dull stereotypes.
Yeah, that's sort of my prob with it, if it's even really a problem.
All the weird stuff, those were previews, right? But opening night, when people come out at intermission, they all seem to love it! Unless that is a delusion, but I don't think it is in that context.
Per the play dialog we hear, I haven't read Carver in a long time, but before we dismiss is as hacky or stupid or trite for the sake of the movie, are we sure it is not taken verbatim from Carver?
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 7 February 2015 14:34 (nine years ago) link
every character and interaction is supposed to seem comically cliched, bad in the manner of riggan's play.
felt this was v obv tbh
― local eire man (darraghmac), Saturday, 7 February 2015 14:37 (nine years ago) link
shrug. not always the 'stutest of waterfowls over here.
not sure that intentionality helps much (though maybe it makes riggan a better playwright, relative to the reality he inhabits). the problem for me wasn't so much the accumulation of sterotypes and cliches, but the accumulation of dull stereotypes and cliches. it undercut both the drama and the comedy. imo.
― contenderizer, Saturday, 7 February 2015 16:16 (nine years ago) link
hey stuffs often obv to me and 100% wrong
― local eire man (darraghmac), Saturday, 7 February 2015 16:16 (nine years ago) link
a lot of it is. but what works on the page, etc...
― contenderizer, Saturday, 7 February 2015 16:18 (nine years ago) link
Yesss.
but before we dismiss is as hacky or stupid or trite for the sake of the movie, are we sure it is not taken verbatim from Carver?
I assumed it was more the way it was layered, compressed into melodrama. The ending we see so many times is certainly hokey and trite. And it's possible to use even good words badly. Thinking of Branagh's Hamlet here.
But opening night, when people come out at intermission, they all seem to love it!
I think the film is cynical enough to suggest the audience is not necessarily the best judge. I've for sure sat in audiences (even on Broadway!) that didn't seem to know good from bad.
― Cherish, Saturday, 7 February 2015 16:27 (nine years ago) link
http://www.avclub.com/article/original-birdman-ending-would-have-featured-johnny-214998
― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 10 February 2015 07:10 (nine years ago) link
2nd rate all that jazz
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 22 February 2015 17:22 (nine years ago) link
similar style/tone sure but had different aims
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, 22 February 2015 17:54 (nine years ago) link
plus no sandahl bergman
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Sunday, 22 February 2015 18:21 (nine years ago) link
and ATJ isn't that great eitiher
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 22 February 2015 18:37 (nine years ago) link
Dumb question, maybe addressed: was this movie written for Keaton, or with him specifically in mind?
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:16 (nine years ago) link
Because an older, generally off-the-grid former caped crusader superhero franchise anchor is a pretty specific role, and I don't see how it could have worked without the meta layer of the star actually being Keaton. Specifically.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:18 (nine years ago) link
think I read that it was
― local eire man (darraghmac), Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:21 (nine years ago) link
If this thing had actually ended with Depp the whole movie would have been much improved, and I say this as someone who is underwhelmed by Depp generally now
― RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 22 February 2015 21:16 (nine years ago) link
This needed to be a little more effusive about the immense courage and inner beauty of movie stars.
Christ on a cracker
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:03 (nine years ago) link
it took 4 writers to simulate the howling self-absorption of Paddy Chayefsky gone New Age.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:05 (nine years ago) link
Innaritu was married to four writers of shrill, shrieking fraud.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:08 (nine years ago) link
bar scene w/ drama critic was worthy of Jerry Lewis at his worst
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:20 (nine years ago) link
did you just watch it?
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:22 (nine years ago) link
He's there right now
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 23 February 2015 01:23 (nine years ago) link
yeah i was too busy catching up with good movies til now
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:27 (nine years ago) link
I've condensed the watchable moments in this movie to Emma Stone on the roof and Edward Norton's first scene.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:28 (nine years ago) link
"2nd rate all that jazz"
That is a pretty good film to be second rate to....
Depp ending sounds far better. Or just ending this movie pre-hospital which is how I basically imagine it ending. Critic scene is probably worst (well except maybe the pointless lesbian kiss) in the entire movie.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:42 (nine years ago) link
didnt see point of Norton-Stone angle except hey, vicarious middle-aged male audience wank
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 01:54 (nine years ago) link
Is it cold atop yr high horse
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 23 February 2015 01:56 (nine years ago) link
i feel like Keaton in his BVDs (when he's with yr mom)
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 02:04 (nine years ago) link
My mom's more of a Scotty McCreery woman
― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 23 February 2015 02:26 (nine years ago) link
@pareeneThe worst things about BordMang are the direction and script and the best thing was the acting so good work Academy
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 23 February 2015 13:39 (nine years ago) link
It increasingly occurs to me that All About Eve is the exception to your taste levels, not the rule.
― Eric H., Monday, 23 February 2015 13:43 (nine years ago) link
found this unwatchable, insufferable. didnt make it to the end
― r|t|c, Monday, 23 February 2015 13:55 (nine years ago) link
― Eric H.,
I've seen our respective top ten lists. Race to the bottom (or top).
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:09 (nine years ago) link
Enough Said
― Eric H., Monday, 23 February 2015 14:12 (nine years ago) link
up there with Crash in the Best Film winners this one
― jamiesummerz, Monday, 23 February 2015 14:12 (nine years ago) link
How quickly we all forgot The King's Speech.
No, I mean literally, how quickly we all forgot it.
― Eric H., Monday, 23 February 2015 14:14 (nine years ago) link
Crash is by several measures worse than Birdman, The King's Speech a somnolent eighties prestige film throwback (remember when those were supposed to make a comeback?).
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:15 (nine years ago) link
Big Thinkpiece #2:
As for the big winner: Voters were obviously mad about Birdman, and everyone who was rooting for something else is … you know, mad about Birdman. It is possible to admire the exquisite craft and technical facility with which the movie was made, to be amused and charmed by its droll, darkly comic take on narcissism, artistic aspiration, and the fight of a creative individual to make a mark, and still feel a slight twinge of … This again? Another movie about showbiz and its lovable nutcases? There are stretches in which the Oscars seem to go into hibernation; think of the 1980s, when Chariots of Fire and Gandhi and Amadeus and Out of Africa and The Last Emperor won and it was hard to discern how much curiosity, or much of anything other than a desire to retreat from the world and the country into a kind of pictorial/historical splendor, the Academy had. In retrospect, I think those movies won not because Academy voters didn’t care about what was going on in America, but because they didn’t know what was going on with American movies. The 1980s — post–Raging Bull, pre–indie boom that began with 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape — were a decade of uncertainty and trepidation about what American films were supposed to be, other than blockbusters.
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/decoding-the-2015-oscars-the-birdman-win-and-what-it-tells-us-about-hollywood/
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:17 (nine years ago) link
birdman was great btw anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it instead of reading this outraged tantrum of a thread
― local eire man (darraghmac), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:31 (nine years ago) link
totally mcscrotally
― i blow goat farts, aka garts for a living (waterface), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:44 (nine years ago) link
i'm sure to love it when i rescreen from my newly enlightened perspective
― rip van wanko, Monday, 23 February 2015 14:55 (nine years ago) link
there's hope for everyone yet thats shat I learnt from watching best picture tm birdman motherfuckers
― local eire man (darraghmac), Monday, 23 February 2015 14:57 (nine years ago) link
uh what
Harris, as always and forever, OTM.
― Eric H., Monday, 23 February 2015 15:25 (nine years ago) link
His theory about eighties film (borrowing bits from A.O. Scott) makes sense, but nineties commercial filmmaking was just as confused. Look at that decade's BP winners.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 February 2015 15:27 (nine years ago) link
If the Academy's definition of "prestige" has drifted away from Out of Africa and Gandhi, it really doesn't matter at all what they've drifted toward IMO.
― Eric H., Monday, 23 February 2015 15:41 (nine years ago) link
https://vine.co/v/OQwTawxZhI0
:-(
― gr8080, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:01 (nine years ago) link
it could've been a flask
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:04 (nine years ago) link
otm
― AKA Thermo Thinwall (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:15 (nine years ago) link
read that as "outraged rectum of a thread"
punchier, imo
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Tuesday, 24 February 2015 15:26 (nine years ago) link