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

that was certainly the most enjoyable thing about it

The movie goes downhill after his and Keaton's first moment onstage.

Finally saw this last night, super fun. Sure it's showoffy, but it's hard for me to believe that anyone interested in film wouldn't enjoy just the physical mechanics of its construction (tracking shot, drum score, jittery dialogue etc. etc.) Man there are some grumpy snobs upthread.

I'm a cheerful snob.

if you don't mind that what's under the showboating is repulsive

I feel bad for them.

we're practically like CRITICS, applying LABELS

citrics

fuck critics

if you want a good review

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

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, February 22, 2015 8:05 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, yes! Finally watched this, and thought of Network several times throughout--not a good thing.

it held it together tonally far better than network imo but the good things abt network are in the mix, def

no no

this was a well made, generally overacted, dumb movie (and likely bad too but i was distracted by how well it was made)

Network had imagination to it.

Network and Birdman both have crushingly obvious things to say about Society, and want congratulations for their profundity in pointing them out. Big shock that the Academy loved both of them, though I imagine that it was Birdman's praising of the nobility of the Hollywood actor that actually got it the Best Pic award.

p much. this movie = http://cinemajaw.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/jon-lovitz-acting.jpg

The movie was not praising these delusional losers I didn't think

I was pretty buzzed coming out of this mostly cause of the showier formal elements like the drumming & fake single shot. A virtuosic movie about failed would-be virtuosi, the pictures of fidelman of film. Even tho the critic scene was fucking stupid as was at least one of the superfluous endings.

Anyway then I thought about if some more and it has not aged well in my head at all

The movie was not praising these delusional losers I didn't think

it's not so much that the movie is praising the delusional losers as the Academy was patting itself on the back for being self-aware enough to acknowledge the delusional losers in their midst (aren't they so clever and grown up - they "get it")

Yeah that's more like it, Hollywood navel-gazing does tend to do well at Hollywood navel-gazing ceremonies but what rational person pays the slightest attention to those anyway

zactly

I'm not telling anyone what I thought about what the academy thought of this, thats p much three levels beyond how I grade movies

kinda feel like all the meta-celebrity stuff in this movie was handled in a better way in Top Five (which was also just a better all around movie imo)

Network's characters have agendas, they have individual desires and motives, they react to each other. Birdman has a handful of unchanging archetypes that exist while things happen around them.

it really meant something back then mannnnnnnn

Network is so much better than this thing come on

Network is so much better than this thing come on

― polyphonic, Monday, April 13, 2015 3:04 PM (29 seconds ago)

Network has teeth and is concerned w the culture at large, this just seemed like navel-gazing

it really meant something back then mannnnnnnn

^Imagining Michael Keaton saying this while drums skitter around jazz beat.

ba-TSCH

Network is fun trash.

Exactly. No small feat.

i didn't really like this

it was very claustrophobic

i felt relieved when it was over

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.

― RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Friday, January 9, 2015 9:42 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Could've still be a one-shot film.

i started watching it thinking it would be pretty bad, so i ended up enjoying it, actually

AI's next movie: The Revenant: Iñárritu, DiCaprio

I have this DVD checked out of the library atm and expect to watch it some time in the next couple of nights. Opinions here seems to be all over the map so I guess I'll be prepared for anything from greatness to pompous dreck.

it's great and pompous

Antonio Sanchez definitely killed it. And the part where you see Nate Smith playing his parts is better than all the drumming scenes in Whiplash.

it's great and pompous

yes, and it's a celebration of pomposity

not as funny or good as either Black Swan or Maskerade though

I just finished watching it. First impressions:

It was ridiculous without being funny. It tried to play both sides of the street at once and failed as both a drama and a comedy. It did succeed in being pretentious.

It was reasonably accurate in its satire of theater people, but theater are not only an easy target, but their personal inadequacies are irrelevant to what makes the theater worthwhile, so who cares?

The only actor who figured out how to rise above his role as it was written was Ed Norton. The rest of the cast dutifully delivered the caricatures that the script demanded.

I didn't enjoy that review

I enjoyed this film quite a bit. Not sure I'd watch it again, though.

i watched this for the first time last night, the 4th movie i'd watched during an 11-flight, and i was mesmerized. i thought the first 30-minutes or so in particular were really good. i was really surprised that someone upthread walked out after that, but i guess if you're not into birdman after the first half an hour you might as well go grab a taco or whatever. hard to believe all the hate in this thread but i guess i was just more pulled in by its technical achievements. on reflection, the script was sometimes weak but the performances and the way it was shot are so good that they could be reading dog food ingredients and it would still be pretty good. the plot is sometimes a little silly, but everything dips into the surreal so that seems natural. i can understand why some would recoil at its pretensions but it also introduces bob sagat and then kills him off within a minute, as michael keaton admits to the murder while walking back to his dressing room. it's not exactly people whispering in a t malick movie (which i also enjoy fwiw)

anyway, 2 jet-lagged thumbs up, way up

otm otm otm

Thought this was okay. Sat down wanting to be completely drawn into and absorbed in a film after kind of a stressful/distracting day. If it never really got me there, I never wanted to turn it off either. Some nice images, some nice scenes, Keaton was fantastic but it didn't add up too much and the ending felt underthought even before found out it was kind of a late addition. I think the hype, awards, and budget do it a disservice - this is a minor, semi-weird, doesn't-quite-work film and that's not a bad thing, but pumped up to masterpiece status it inevitably feels like the emperor with no clothes.

The thing I come back to is Norton telling Keaton his script has him saying the same thing four times without being sure what the line's really about, and then we have this film where characters say and do the same things over and over. Not sure what to take away from it but it's surely intentional and I think a version shot in flat black and white - or a stage play version - it'd start to feel much more clearly like some kinda Waiting For Godot thing, with Actors wanderiing around repeating hollow dialogue that's meant to come off as discomfitingly detached from normal human behavior etc. Not saying it should have been that, mind.

The Birdman voice was hilarious though. You could tell he really got into the spirit of the schlocky cliche of the comic book split personality - he sounds like Bale's Batman more than his own but the best lines all sounded like they came straight from such classic garbage stories as the Invisible Woman battling her S&M alter-ego Malice, etc.

Best movie I feel like arguing with anyone who says otherwise