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

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

This needed to be a little more effusive about the immense courage and inner beauty of movie stars.

Christ on a cracker

it took 4 writers to simulate the howling self-absorption of Paddy Chayefsky gone New Age.

Innaritu was married to four writers of shrill, shrieking fraud.

bar scene w/ drama critic was worthy of Jerry Lewis at his worst

did you just watch it?

He's there right now

yeah i was too busy catching up with good movies til now

I've condensed the watchable moments in this movie to Emma Stone on the roof and Edward Norton's first scene.

"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.

didnt see point of Norton-Stone angle except hey, vicarious middle-aged male audience wank

Is it cold atop yr high horse

i feel like Keaton in his BVDs (when he's with yr mom)

My mom's more of a Scotty McCreery woman

@pareene
The worst things about BordMang are the direction and script and the best thing was the acting so good work Academy

and ATJ isn't that great eitiher

It increasingly occurs to me that All About Eve is the exception to your taste levels, not the rule.

found this unwatchable, insufferable. didnt make it to the end

It increasingly occurs to me that All About Eve is the exception to your taste levels, not the rule.

― Eric H.,

I've seen our respective top ten lists. Race to the bottom (or top).

Enough Said

up there with Crash in the Best Film winners this one

How quickly we all forgot The King's Speech.

No, I mean literally, how quickly we all forgot it.

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?).

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/

birdman was great btw anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it instead of reading this outraged tantrum of a thread

totally mcscrotally

i'm sure to love it when i rescreen from my newly enlightened perspective

there's hope for everyone yet thats shat I learnt from watching best picture tm birdman motherfuckers

uh what

Harris, as always and forever, OTM.

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.

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.

https://vine.co/v/OQwTawxZhI0

:-(

it could've been a flask

birdman was great btw anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it instead of reading this outraged tantrum of a thread

otm

read that as "outraged rectum of a thread"

punchier, imo

For a guy who's such the center of attention in all of his other movies, it's funny that no one mentions Zack Galifinakis in this.

that was whatchoocallhim mr Hollands opus, not Zach. he was playing zach.

Dreyfuss thats the guy. it was Dreyfuss.

i only see Zack Galifinakis when he's not the center; there have been others

this is another movie that tells you how great it is, well played

David Bordwell on structure, style and the "long take":

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/02/23/birdman-following-riggans-orders/

I found the long-take in this distracting and not at all germane to the story, it drew attention to itself and seemed unnecessarily showy

I actually really liked the long take as a means of condensing the story while keeping the focus on Riggan's crisis. It's a long take, but not real time, which is something different.

it wasn't a long take either

going for Thursday as when someone actually reads the DB piece

Well, yeah, it's not so much a long take (clearly, since there are traditional cuts) as the illusion of a long take, which I actually found less distracting/show-offy than the usual look-at-me long takes a la Scorsese/Anderson.

I was using long-take for shorthand, it was p obvious to anyone paying attention from the get-go that it's not actually a long/single take

the wrong-shake(y)

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.

where's do u see richness in this?

razzle dazzle does the trick

What a great looking, intelligently cast stupid film. Mr. Iñárritu, watch some European Max Ophuls flicks to see what long takes with a good script and flesh and blood characters can accomplish! It's awesome, bro. Check it out.

bartonfinkman was pretty entertaining. mostly bc of the drums.

After 20 minutes I felt bad for the cast, the cinematographer and the drummer. 20 minutes is when gimmick fatigue set in and I realized these (mostly) talented folk had been coerced into a shitshow if epic proportions.