Birdman (2014) - Emma Stone, Ed Norton, Zach Galifinakis

[Kleeberg]

"A washed up actor who once played an iconic superhero must overcome his ego and family trouble as he prepares to mount a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim past glory."

Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Zack Galifinakis, Naomi Watts & Michael Keaton...great cast, with the director of Amores Perros & 21 Grams.

[NARMAK]

wonder who's playing who. Still, looks like a solid cast and I expect comedy courtesy of Zach.

[Pounder]

Michael Keaton is the main star in this I'm hearing.

[Meeklo]

Birdman?

bird.jpg

[KilloWertz]

Sold. I don't even need a trailer.

[Edword]

Originally Posted by KilloWertz

Sold. I don't even need a trailer.

Yep. Just based on that cast I'm good.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Meeklo

Birdman?

You were expecting maybe Condorman?

[Lutz]

Did you get that thing I sent you?

[Astro Zombie]

I swear when I saw the thread title I thought it said Batman. And then I saw Michael Keaton in the cast list...

[Foggy]

Looks pretty awesome and right up my ally.

[X400]

embedded trailer (why's it called a teaser oO)

BIRDMAN - Official Teaser - YouTube

Poster is nice too

[metalsonic]

Trailer looks good, but is this actually related to the cartoon? That costume looks pretty similar.

[Jennifer Lawrence Fan]

Looks interesting and kinda different.

[Holmes]

In Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Michael Keaton portrays a character who cannot help but invite autobiographical interpretation: an actor who once headlined an ultra-popular superhero franchise, but is now regarded as past his prime and requiring career rejuvenation. His vehicle for a second wind is the lead role in a self-adapted-and-directed Broadway staging of a Raymond Carver short story. However, the production goes sideways—the actors feud, the budget engorges—as his own grip on sanity grows tenuous due to doubt and loathing from outside and within. This is a big and bold art-house film by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, trying his hand at pop-psychological comic mania after such well-received, yet divisive (and truly solemn) pictures as 21 Grams and Babel. His latest is as flashy and ornate as its seven-word full title.

Overall, I admire Birdman, but I never found it particularly moving or profound. The triumphant level of technical wizardry on display cannot be denied, though. It is shot and edited to create the illusion the story is unfolding in a single shot, as if the camera were darting, winding, ascending, descending, and traversing space and time with improbable grace. It is a self-conscious feat of photographic and editorial virtuosity, and the artificial continuity enhances the hot-box claustrophobia of the behind-the-scenes environments.

The story is harder to engage with, at least for this viewer. Yes, there are definite moments of amusement and fascination as the self-absorbed movie star loses the plot while various archetypes—the agent, the neglected daughter, the showboating co-star—devour the scenery around him, but they rarely cohere into a satisfying whole beneath the ace aesthetic and the strong performances, including a vanity-free and often underwear-clad turn by a spirited Keaton, as well as such welcome peripheral players as a vainly charismatic Edward Norton and a vulnerable Emma Stone. The film loudly, perhaps even vulgarly, motions toward age-old tensions such as the bombast of commercial cinema versus the perceived delicacy and integrity of more artistic endeavors, yet hesitates to plant its flag on either side of the ideological line.

At other points, it simply pushes too far or overplays it hand. For instance, the elegant Lindsay Duncan has the unenviable role of Tabitha, a cruel-beyond-compare newspaper critic who openly declares her plan to savage and close the central play before she even sees it on opening night. Such a despicable and one-note character, and she seems born from an uncomfortable place of anger and suspicion within the director and his co-writers. Consider, too, a rare-non-macho conversation shared by the plays' two female leads, played by Andrea Riseborough and Naomi Watts, which transforms into an inexplicable wet-dream tangent. At first, the two candidly share their dreams of recognition and fears of failure or self-sabotage, but then, apropos of nothing, start to kiss before they are interrupted. It is implied this is their first such amorous encounter, and their bond is never expanded upon or referenced again.

B-

[Scottie]

In the twenty-first century, no filmmaker has addressed the concept of death quite as accurately or as emotionally as Alejandro González Iñárritu. The Mexican-born director has received universal claim for his “Death Trilogy”, consisting of 2000’s Amores perros, 2003’s 21 Grams, and 2006’s Babel, and with good reason, as each ventures down alternate pathways on the long and winding road of loss. With his newest project, the 2014 black comedy, Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Iñárritu shifts his focus from such previously explored themes as the loss of an individual or the loss of one’s innocence and towards the loss of relevancy and importance, especially over time.

Riggan Thomson (portrayed by Michael Keaton) is a has-been Hollywood actor best known for his portrayal of the superhero, Birdman, in a film franchise of the same name. He is a failure at all aspects of his life and his one final attempt at reviving his struggling career is with a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s 1981 short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. Although he is no longer the actor that he once was, Riggan’s insignificance can be partially attributed to his own refusal to leave the past behind and move on with the times. It is often easier to live in the shadow of one’s former self than to face reality head on.

Birdman demonstrates the harsh reality that very few things in life retain their prominence. Even the theater, which is often viewed as a timeless medium, has a deep reliance on its actors, most of whom will unfortunately, but inevitably, fade away from existence. Riggan, like his theater rival, Mike (portrayed by Edward Norton), will never be able to retreat into the past and experience life as it was then, when their lives were most meaningful to them. Just like Marlon Brando, the Michael Keatons, the Edward Nortons, and the Ryan Goslings will all reach a point in their careers where they can no longer go any further. It is therefore important to learn acceptance of such an understanding early on if one is to survive in the present.

Without the employment of a unique directing style to Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu would not have been able to get his point across nor reach the pinnacle of his short, but noteworthy career. Making the film play out like one single tracking shot, for example, creates a fantasy, surrealist-like picture, one which allows very little room for edits and thus forces the viewer to accept what they see on screen as reality. The irony of the entire film is that similar to the character of Riggan, there is more to the film than what meets the eye.

As Birdman proves, life is a mystery, one full of humor and one full of sorrow. The world thrives on importance and relativity and it often requires a significant event to occur before one is able to break free and accept life as it is. Everyone and everything is relevant to some extent or the other but as time passes on and ages increase, we are all subject to become shadows of our former selves in the wake of the rise of newer generations. Some will make it while others will not. C’est la vie.

http://letterboxd.com/smferrigno/film/birdman/

[Elbie]

I thought that it was ok. Went downhill in the third act.

[Darth Marcus]

This was posted on Birdman's FB page:

[Todd Tomorrow]

Self-consciously dazzling camera work, a great percussive soundtrack and fantastic performances (especially from Norton) but ultimately the film didn't amount to much for me.

[toddly6666]

Finally watched this film. It was basically just a lot of noise. Dozed of three times and had to "rewind" three times to go back to see what I missed during my nap.
A very fair film and there was nothing special about Keaton's performance. Everyone was overacting.
2/5

[TyTimp]

This is an "Artsy" film. I don't like artsy films. They bore me to death. I watch movies for entertainment and this was not my kind of entertainment. I only watched it because my wife wanted to see it and she has sat through many of my action and sci-fi movies. We both didn’t know much about the movie. My wife wanted to see it because it was getting a lot of awards. We got 10 minutes in and we both looked at each other and said this is not what we expected and decided to give it another 10 minutes. We watched it on a lazy Sunday and were both too tired to get up and switch it, and by that time I had enough time invested that I thought I’d just let it play through. Not my cup of tea. That aside, the performances were great and so was the cinematography. I found myself more interested in seeing how long they would go on a single take. Impressive. It was like a broadway play. Ironic!