A movie about Hollywood people, made for Hollywood people

Rating: 5/10 (23 February 2015)

A movie about Hollywood people, made for Hollywood people. No wonder it got so many Oscars! Some of the acting was fantastic (OK, Ed Norton), but the others were just OK. Michael Keaton was good enough, and Emma Stone had one (and only one!) brilliant scene. The others were downright terrible, with melodramatic lines and deliveries permeating the entire movie. The movie was a pretentious piece of art, trying to inflate its self-worth by constantly mocking culture, the internet, theater, critics, and Hollywood itself, trying to be a satire while at the same time promoting how great it is! Ironically, there are quite a number of lines about how pretentious certain people are, that could apply very well to the whole movie itself. If only its plot was more interesting or fun, maybe you could forgive the bellybutton gazing, but unfortunately it is pretty random and mostly dull, with a few good lines sprinkled here and there. Also, I think this movie subscribes to the Terrence Malick school of cinema that considers random, "meaningful" scenes (usually of some landscape or people doing mundane things but with intense music so you know it's full of meaning) more important than an actual story, but I don't like it - a good narrative that makes sense would be preferable. To quote Shakespeare (and the movie itself), "it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."