Birdman

[schild]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bqh-UCY6Zg

"I want to see a movie starring Michael Keaton" is one of those nearly impossible to say sentences. I still haven't said it out loud. Probably won't.

[Maven]

Trailer sold me on the film, especially the manic ending with Edward Norton.

[shiznitz]

This movie will be Keaton's Travolta Pulp Fiction moment.

I actually have no idea if that is true.  I just wanted to write it.

[Phildo]

I want to see the fictional Birdman movie from this film.

Wait, no.  I want a live-action Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law movie.  It can still be starring Michael Keaton, that's fine.

[Maven]

This movie will be Keaton's Travolta Pulp Fiction moment.

I actually have no idea if that is true.  I just wanted to write it.

No harm, either it is and you look like a genius, or it isn't and nobody would care anyway. Win-Win. :P

It is nice to see him back doing something after an appearance in Robocop. What positive things I can say about the role is that I thought he did a good job selling the character.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I have always liked Keaton but I don't think he was ever given his proper due.

[UnSub]

I have always liked Keaton but I don't think he was ever given his proper due.

He made some weird career choices.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'll agree it could be self inflicted and funny enough the same thing happened with Nicolsen.

[Evildrider]

New trailer here.

Looks pretty crazy.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There is some info floating around saying the movie is cut together to look like one continuous shot.  I'm not sure if/how that will work but it sounds awesome.

[Nevermore]

What a movie cut to look like one continuous shot might look like.

[pxib]

Alternately, it might look like this.

[lamaros]

Are we playing this game now? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ark

[schild]

It's worth noting that all 3 of those movies are fucking awful.

[pxib]

That was my point. I like Rope, but it's like watching a play rather than seeing a movie. Russian Ark is impressive in a strange rambling way, but nobody is going to call it a great film. Timecode is pure, cascading shit.

[Maven]

At first I thought "Only two theaters? WTF?", then I saw it was Limited Release. I'm going to see this tonight, expecting good things.

[Ruvaldt]

Saw this during the weekend and it was awesome.

It is indeed cut as if it is one long, unbroken scene that lasts about 110 minutes.  The style of the film adds to the sense that a man's life is breaking down in front of you in a kind of frantic, unstoppable trainwreck.  Iñárritu's directing is fabulous, but Lubezki's photography is the real showstopper.    Keaton and Ed Norton are great.  It's also very funny.

[grebo]

Seen this twice now.  It is quite good.

[01101010]

Finally out in Pittsburgh near me. I may have to throw some money at it.

[pxib]

This movie will be Keaton's Travolta Pulp Fiction moment.

Nope.

Everybody is fantastic in this movie, which tends to mean it's well directed rather than that the actors are all mysteriously more talented. It's also not mainstream enough to get anybody excited about it. I hesitate even to recommend it, and I loved the thing. Feels like one of those shitty plays about what it's like to BE PART OF THE WORLD OF THE THEATER that actors and directors and playwrites are always making and producing and wind up in community theater where they're watched by college students and old people who don't know any better.

It's a really solid shitty play about that, mind you... with some positively transcendental staging. There's just so much powerless angst all over everything that I kept losing my ability to sympathize with anyone.

Full of sound and fury, signifying what it's like to BE PART OF THE WORLD OF THE THEATER.

Meh.

[shiznitz]

No Channing all over your Tatum, then?

[pxib]

Zach all over my Galifianakis.

[Margalis]

Keaton doesn't really need a Travolta moment. Unlike Travolta he's obviously a good actor. Maybe it will put his career into a higher gear and in that way it's similar, but the thing about PF and Travolta is that it made people think Travolta was a good actor until he quickly disabused people of that notion.

[Samwise]

Travolta wasn't even that good in Pulp Fiction; it was a good role for his lack of acting because his character was on drugs and he never had to carry any scenes on his own.

[Evildrider]

Battlefield Earth is a cinematic masterpiece!

[kaid]

I am not a huge travolta fan but from paris with love is pretty god damn funny he kills it in that movie.

[UnSub]

Travolta is great in roles where he gets to ham it up or play a meathead. That's about it.

[Maven]

What about when he's hamming it up at a gym? (Spoilered for size, something wrong with resizing)

[pxib]

NOMINATED FOR NINE ACADEMY AWARDS

Best Picture
Best Actor: Michael Keaton
Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton
Best Supporting Actress: Emma Stone
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Sound Mixing
Best Sound Editing


My mind boggles. Has this year been that bad?

[MahrinSkel]

Hollywood loves looking up their own ass and even more that of THE WORLD OF THE THEATER, any major movie that focuses on a showbiz setting is pretty much a lock for nominations. "The Producers" (the original) won for screenplay and was nominated for best supporting actor.

--Dave

[Ruvaldt]

I watched this and thought it was ridiculing the people who put the theater on a pedestal.  Honestly, it portrays theater people in a pretty negative light.

Edward Norton's character is a dick.  The theater reviewer is a terrible person.  I can't think of any of the theater actors as being represented in a way that glorifies the theater at all and the whole process drives Keaton's character to do something pretty awful, which I won't spoil.  I'm not sure where you all are getting that from.  Did you see it, MahrinSkel or are you just parroting pxib's post?

It's absolutely not about the world of the theater, as two of you are putting it.  It's about an actor whose ego is damaged beyond repair and is trying to reclaim some of his dignity/career by doing that he thinks other people expect him to do.  The problem is that it isn't really what he wants to do.  In fact, he's lost track of who he actually is and what he really wants when he's not playing someone else, and that haunts him.

Best Actor and Director are absolutely deserved.  And if you didn't think the sound mix, sound editing and cinematography were awesome, I just don't know what movie you were watching.  Edward Norton was pretty great in it as well.  I think nominating Emma Stone is a stretch, but that's about it.

[MahrinSkel]

The Producers was not exactly complimentary to theater, nor was Entourage (6 Emmy awards, 18 nominations) very nice to Hollywood.

Everybody like seeing a movie that's about them (or people like them). Especially movie people.

--Dave

[Ruvaldt]

One movie and one TV show capturing awards isn't exactly a trend, and The Producers only won for best screenplay, which...well, which it deserved.

In the past 50 years of the Academy Awards there have been three best picture winners that were in some way about hollywood or the theater.  I see much more of a correlation between war movies winning academy awards in that time (8+, depending upon your opinion on a few that are on the fence it could be a lot higher) and crime dramas (8).

Also, if this movie wins, again, it isn't about the theater or even acting.  Making light of the nominations because lolhollywoodnavelgazing is ridiculous because...it's all hollywood navel gazing regardless of the plot or the subject merely by being an awards show.

[Merusk]

Dammit, Ruvaldt, why won't you just let them hate on celebrities & cool kids!

[Mattemeo]

I'm sorry, but Birdman was incredible and deserves every Oscar nod. And yes, Ruvaldt hits the nail on the head, though I'd also say it works as a treatise on what we percieve as high and low art and what it means to be caught between those two worlds.

Inarritu will take the Director gong and if there's any justice, Keaton'll walk with the Best Actor.