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

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

It's shallow, showy guff.

Makes a point of it in fact

It makes a point of being guff?

I'm possibly enjoying it on a shallower level, or maybe a deeper one, idk.

Criticism based on relative perspective totally invalid if the piece works consistently from either obv

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

Fred not entirely offbase

Sonsabitches have sent in the big guns huh

so how about you tell us what you think is so great about this movie, then we can knock down all your points?

Xp

Renowned film critics

keaton was amazing otherwise this movie sucked

Norton was my pick

To aimless- it worked. But what it aimed for and was funny and touching while not being overly kind on any of its idiot characters.

Norton also my pick

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