Bold Film But Little Surprised It Won Best Picture..

Rating: 7/10 (10 August 2015)

I finally got around to seeing this past year's Oscar winner for Best Picture and Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), and my first thought is bold piece of film making, but at the same time, I'm a tad surprised it won. Crazy, "out there", movies with has-been actors (Best Actor nominee Michael Keaton) don't win best picture too often, so kudos to the Academy.
Kudos also to Iñárritu, who conceived the idea of making this movie as if it were all done in a single shot. I've seen a few of his other films- "Amores perros", "Babel", "21 Grams", etc.. and this is unlike anything he has ever done before. The story follows Riggan Thomson (Keaton), a faded Hollywood actor famous for his role as superhero "Birdman", as he struggles to mount a Broadway adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver.
At first, I'm thinking, okay, this is loosely based on Keaton's characterization of "Batman", but into the movie so far, it seems that his character Thomson is more of a straight-up leading man action star, as opposed to Keaton himself, who at one time was a comedic actor, then sorta went all over the place in various different genres-??
At the heart of this movie is a story of mental illness, since his "Birdman" character has stayed with him and is basically controlling his every action. The voice we hear as "Birdman" sounds eerily similar to Keaton's own voice when he would play his version of "Batman"- that deep, sorta raspy sounding voice that Christian Bale would admit he borrowed when he would later play the character in the "Dark Knight" trilogy.
Edward Norton is also good in the movie as an actor brought in late in the production to take over for an actor who was injured while rehearsing. Judging by the scene in the bar when someone off the street recognizes Keaton, but not Norton's character, I would say unlike Norton, his character is more of a traditional Broadway/theater actor-?? Rounding out the cast are Zach Galifianakis, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts. Big thumbs up for a good experiment in film making and storytelling. Raymond Carver himself would be proud! :)