Such a polarizing movie.

Rating: 9/10 (7 March 2016)

So many 1's and 10's, I'm not sure I've seen such a polarizing movie since Napoleon Dynamite.
I remember first hearing about this movie, mostly secondhand. All I knew was it was called Birdman and had Keaton. I couldn't figure out (or bother to search, too lazy...) if it was Birdman from the spider man comics ("uh isn't that vulture man?...") or from the Adult Swim cartoons or no wait, from the Marvel Universe! Oh well, as much as I loved Keaton I only like about half of the big budget comic book movies these days (Captain America, Dark Knight etc) and hate the other half (Thor, Guardians, Man of Steel). I figured I'd wait to see Keaton in a 'real' movie.
Then a friend asked if I had seen Birdman. I explained why I hadn't and they replied "no...it's not like that at all. Just see it if you get the chance".
So, I saw this movie without being fooled by the ad campaign for it AND without knowing it was a 'meta-artsy' piece. I loved it.
This movie is so well done on so many levels the negative reviews are simply baffling regardless of what got people to see it. Why are you tiring yourself trying to figure out where the edits are? Why are you dismissing it as trying too hard? Who ELSE would play a former superhero actor who walked away from untold millions in the form of yet another sequel?? How is this movie unfunny? "I think I'm hard". "No, you're just too serious with people sometimes-" "no I mean I'm hard. Let's do it. Let's really ****!" And "...tapping me on the balls with a tiny hammer..." And "he quit? I thought he got fired?" "With Mike it's usually both".
And how can a movie be too artsy? There's an art to action movies, ya know. Go to any video store and pick up any C or D-list cheesy action movie and then realize that those people are trying to make a great movie. That's their limit. No matter how hard they try their movies will always be garbage. Compare that to the likes of T2 or Avengers. So, forget the notion that this is just an artsy movie. It's just a movie.
For the "pointless lesbian scene" comment I've seen in reviews - go watch Mulholland drive. And pay attention next time you watch a movie, Watts clearly says "we share a vagina" in the beginning. AND it's a joke on the somewhat dying trope of "hey, let's have two hot chicks hook up in our movie". They tease with it and never revisit it or expand on it in any way. So yes, it's 'pointless', but the fact that you missed that it's slamming every other pointless lesbian scene invalidates your criticism.
As for the drums, I think it's delicious that A) the director was bold enough to challenge himself and the drummer to do this B) it's slamming Hollywood (see the 13 drummers used on the man of steel soundtrack) and C) that it won the award for best soundtrack while being up against Whiplash. Absolutely hilarious.