© 2020 Forbes Media LLC. With stunning performances all around, excellent writing, big Hilarious, compelling, thought-provoking, and more than a little bat crap crazy. Poor Riggan has haughtily abandoned the dumb superhero role of Birdman that made him rich and famous, and is now trying for credibility by starring in his own self-financed Broadway stage adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. González Iñárritu has said that in the scene between the critic and the protagonist, both are right and the film isn't necessarily taking sides. Suffering for fame is a sin that only breeds more suffering, but suffering for art is a virtue that sets you free. If you need any convincing that the film indeed takes such an extreme position, look no further than the explicit statements from director González Iñárritu, who in an interview with Deadline said it’s a "disease" if adults are too interested in superhero films (and from the context and his assessment of what superhero films really are, it’s clear that just about any interest in superhero films is too much interest, as far as the director is concerned). Must be an opportunity for an impromptu make-out session with absolutely no set-up or follow-up! Why do I think it’ll get mixed reactions from mainstream audiences? Birdman has amassed about half a million dollar in its first six days of release, after opening in just four theaters last weekend and scoring the second-highest per-screen average of the entire year. The situation is every star’s worst nightmare: having to somehow prove your importance and validate your existence from scratch. There is simply something disturbing in the unending, relentless single view. It spends most of its time trying mightily to draw attention to everything about itself, until you can’t be pulled into its story because it won’t let you forget you’re watching performances and cinematography in a movie that’s very convinced of its own superiority. Superhero films or similar blockbusters are not true art, according to Birdman.

By about mid-November, it will be in 500 theaters, and then we’ll see whether it can translate all of that into serious box office success.

He insists superhero films are "very right wing," that they "are killing people because they do not believe in what you believe," and that the genre is "poison" and a "cultural genocide.”. Several reasons.

The film is perfectly clear about what is and isn't true art, despite any mild attempts to make it appear subjective or as if the film wants to take different perspectives on the matter. Pick one -- the 1930s or 1970s, or any before, between, or after, and someone somewhere has insisted it represented an era when art mattered more than profit, when films were better, when films were less about glitz and more about original ideas. As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes. Buy a ticket and brace yourself. I work as a screenwriter for film & TV. Something in the jittery, crazy dialogue makes it sometimes hard to tell if the characters are talking as themselves, or performing the Carver dialogue. EY & Citi On The Importance Of Resilience And Innovation, Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change. I’m not sure that will ever make sense to me. I don’t expect it to do much more than about $35 million, because I think it will fail to garner nominations outside of acting, cinematography, and maybe score, and because I think it will suffer mixed reactions from viewers as it enters wider release. Add to that the film’s cliched “younger woman falls for caddish man twice her age and helps him find redemption by having an affair with him” theme (the man who tried to rape Watts’ character, a fact known to the younger woman by the way), which includes a banal truth or dare game filled with cringe-worthy on-the-nose exchanges. Birdman is a volcano of creative ideas in full eruption. It just never quits, everything has to be so obvious any subtext vanishes. The critic represents the director's attitude about films he looks down upon, and the people who make those films (whom González Iñárritu considers “whores"). Lazy, is what it frankly is. Stern was discussing the Oscar race with late-night talk show host Seth Meyers, and decided to unleash on Alejandro Inarritu’s industry comedy. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. Making it all the sadder that the film itself tries so hard to prove how much it matters, how smart it is, to force us to admit it exists. As opening night approaches, the pressure is causing Riggan to hallucinate, and he is visited by the granite-voiced figure of Birdman, the superhero monster he created, ordering him to forget the theatre and reclaim his chief superpower: making movie megabucks. Or you’ll believe that believing you can fly and flying are sort of the same thing. Stern was discussing the Oscar race with late-night talk show host Seth Meyers, and decided to unleash on Alejandro Inarritu’s industry comedy. The film works too hard to appear to say more than it does, and its sensibilities are liable to be off-putting for a lot of viewers. Or you’ll believe that believing you can fly and flying are sort of the same thing.

I can’t discourage you from seeing Birdman, and part of me wants you to to see it, just so you can join the conversations. With a budget under $20 million, the movie looks great, achieving the impression of a single shot from start to finish (although there are transitions, such as quick changes from night to day in a shot of a skyline, for example) and having a wonderful sense of place in the halls and back rooms of the huge theater building serving as the primary location.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I certainly levitated with enjoyment. And all the time, poor Riggan is approaching a mental breakdown due to the imminent critical and commercial catastrophe; and he can’t quite admit to himself that he is addicted to celebrity, though he is unsure how to renegotiate his declining position as a famous person in the alien new world of reality shows and social media. But the actors in the Acting Movie didn’t act well enough, even though the movie got Best Picture? Read my blog. As the film progresses, Watts becomes a punching bag of sorts. And stars who appear in such films are not truly acting, they're playing at celebrity, nothing more. At one stage, in an excitable impromptu casting discussion, Mike Shiner’s own popularity with the critics is discussed: “They want to spooge on him!” “Right on his face!” As for Iñárritu, he’s getting the facial-spooge-tsunami he deserves, showing a glorious capacity for comedy I hadn’t suspected from his earlier, more solemn movies like 21 Grams, Babel or Biutiful. Whenever a movie survives the rigors of the grueling Academy Awards campaign – facing intense scrutiny from all corners – and emerges victorious on Oscar night, people line up Monday morning to begin shitting all over the film just deemed "Best" by a collective group. I have problems with the film’s ending. Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) review – a delirious, hallucinatory showbiz comedy ... Poor Riggan has haughtily abandoned the dumb superhero role of Birdman … ... "That an ignorant guy that doesn’t belong to theater chooses to do this, is a bad great idea that Carver would like." But ultimately, Birdman is a hard movie to embrace unconditionally – it feels too knowing, too immaculately timed a display of mastery to really breathe. This all sounds extremely harsh, and I regret that deeply. And despite everything I dislike about it, I get why it will appeal to some viewers. I will freely admit, many of you reading this will like or even love this movie. In a former life I was a media specialist & campaign ad writer. Birdman is a delicious and delirious pleasure. A self-loathing character pushed to angry and irrational self-destructive acts? Movie junkie. And as my extensive review here demonstrates, it elicits strong reactions and is interesting to dissect— even its unoriginal and flawed themes can be grounds for discussion about cinema and history. "Being seen" isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway, we're reminded by way of an over-the-top outlandish scenario too obvious and extreme to be effective at making the intended point. I'm tired of having to point out simple facts about Hollywood history to debunk the rose-colored sentimentality of "they don't make 'em like they used to.”. He wants to upgrade it, improve it, make it classier. Which is completely unusual – to me, and to Seth Meyers apparently – that Birdman could win Best Picture while Emma Stone, Edward Norton and Michael Keaton would lose out in their respective categories.

And such a modest budget means it doesn’t have to blow the doors off the box office to at least break even in theaters and go on to modest profit on home release later. What's really going on in the scene is, both the critic and the protagonist are reflecting González Iñárritu's perspectives, merely about two different things.

Sixty-four years later, the pretense at the root of Norma's pronouncement remains alive and well.

Meanwhile, the near-rape ends up being used to signify the humanity and vulnerability of the guy who almost raped her, a final slap in the face to Watt’s character and a capping vulgarity to the whole situation. We all have them. Buy a ticket and brace yourself. The extremely positive reviews so far, and the limited audience scores on hand, should add to its buzz and might help create a must-see status. There were some parts I actually loathed, as when Norton’s character tries to rape an actress played by Naomi Watts on stage during a play for heightened “realism," and it's treated as an edgy joke in the movie because ha-ha we can see his erection and the other actors do amusing double-takes. Her position is countered by Keaton via violent outbursts of desperate ambition reflecting a feeling of entitlement to fame, based on the merit of wanting it badly enough and risking money and reputation to achieve it. But as it progressed, I was increasingly shocked and disappointed to discover I didn't much like it. And it is only if Keaton is willing to risk not his money or reputation but his own self, willing to become as absolutely real as possible on the stage in his performance, that he can earn redemption from celebrity status to true actor again. How about literally cutting off the nose to spite the face!

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