Most overrated movie I've ever seen.

Rating: 5/10 (24 December 2014)

Interesting movie explores contrast between fame, celebrity, prestige, and artistic integrity. It does have some good scenes, but the characters are so pretentious and ego-centric that they are not sympathetic. The scene where Michael Keaton locks himself outside the theater and has to run a gauntlet of fans, musicians, and doormen to get back inside the theater in time to do his lines --- that was the highlight of the movie for me. (This was about midway through the film). I still had high expectations for some kind of big moment of self-realization or high drama by the end of the movie. Sadly, the movie did NOT improve but became increasingly nonsensical to the point of being dishonest and manipulative towards the audience.
I've seen similar movies that explore the creative process that were MUCH better than this one: "The Big Picture" (1989) and "Living in Oblivion"(1995).
In a way, this movie reminds me of "My Dinner with Andre", a critically successful movie that can only be well understood by theater arts majors (with knowledge of obscure works that most people have NEVER heard of). We all had to pretend to like it because we were told by the critics how great the movie was.