So, I just saw Birdman, and it was pretty fantastic. 2014 was a fantastic year for movies, and Birdman was one of the best. Now, I did not see this movie when it came out, but it is from one of my favorite directors, Alejandro González Iñárritu. I've seen every single one of his feature-length films and I don't think there's a single one that isn't fantastic. He's a master at what he does, and in this movie he's really outdone himself.
Despite knowing a bit about this movie going into it, there was one detail I didn't know - that almost the entire movie is cheated to look like one continuous shot. And it's pulled off amazingly well. You can never actually see any cuts being made. There was so much careful planning and coordination that went into this movie, and it really shows in the final product. If you've seen the trailer then you should expect that parts of it are a little surrealist, to say the least. This is very true, and those scenes play a prominent role in the film, so although this is a movie I think that most everyone would enjoy, don't be thinking that it's, like, a real superhero movie. This is a movie about a washed up actor that used to play a superhero trying to revive his career in broadway.
It's interesting that the lead is played by Michael Keaton, who used to play Batman. Not only that, but Edward Norton, who used to play The Incredible Hulk, and Emma Stone, who was in the Amazing Spider-Man movies, are also in the film, and they both do a great job. There was not a single weak performance in this film and everything felt incredibly natural. There was also so much purpose towards every single decision that was made. Like, the fact that the movie's about a theatrical production goes really well with it being all in one shot. If you think about it, that's kind of how theater works. The story was absolutely fantastic.
The way that this movie is written is kind of like one giant statement on the entertainment industry. It also heavily criticizes the superhero genre. But it does it right and in a way that actually had purpose and didn't feel needlessly preachy. And what better movie to criticize a lack of art in mainstream cinema than one that's as masterful as this. Because the way that this was shot was absolutely mind-blowing, and this is probably the best directing I've seen in a while. This movie mostly functions as a comedy, but as expected from this director it was much more than that. Before watching this film, I was a little skeptical knowing that Alejandro's main-man composer Gustavo Santaolalla didn't work on it. But even without him the score was pretty great. But what was greater than the score was the way that it was used: I don't want to be too specific about it and spoil a particular moment, but let's just say that it adds loads of personality to the film.
This has all the markings of an amazing film - the decisions that were made were intelligent and had purpose; the film-making went above and beyond impressive. I was absolutely transfixed into this movie. Anyway, I thought this was a pretty fantastic movie and I can't wait to watch it again. I would recommend this movie to pretty much everyone that doesn't expect that this is actually a superhero movie.
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