A Picasso

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2014)

The Oscar and film awards season has been a fun one this year, featuring one of the most intense Best Actor races of all time, but the sad thing is how many movies have disappointed. "Interstellar" was one huge supposed Oscar player that fell out of the race once people saw it, and the word right now is that Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken" won't be as big a player anymore. However, since about July there have been two movies that have stayed in the race, and at the front of the pack. The first being "Boyhood," a great contender for winning the Best Picture award, and the second is "Birdman." So when I entered the theater I was praying this movie would be all it was cracked up to be. Let's just say it didn't disappoint.
Michael Keaton - an actor who used to be well known for playing the superhero Batman, but has since fallen out of the spotlight- stars in this movie about a man named Riggan Thompson - an actor who used to be well known for playing the superhero Birdman, but has since fallen out of the spotlight. See the similarity? In this film, Riggan Thompson is coming up on the opening night of his Broadway play which he has written, directed, and starred in as an attempt to reclaim some of his fame. As the play, and his life, begin to fall apart days before the premiere, Riggan begins to learn the difference between who he was, who he is now, and who he decides he's going to be.
Though there is a strong sense of irony in having Michael Keaton play a washed up actor in this film, his performance makes you wonder why that irony was even possible in the first place. Keaton perfectly plays the comedy in his timing, the dramatic pressure in his actions, and the sad truths his character faces in his eyes. Keaton is thick in the pack of Best Actor contenders for the Oscars which is exactly where he belongs. Edward Norton leads the supporting cast of this film giving a performance that proves his incredible acting ability and makes us sad he turned down playing the Incredible Hulk in "Marvel's Avengers." Emma Stone, who typically sticks to sarcastic comedy roles, finds new ground here that we didn't even see in her dramatic breakout "The Help." Though I love Emma Stone, I've always been skeptical of her dramatic ability, but here I was surprised in the best way possible. Zach Galifianakis and Naomi Watts also head up the incredible balance of comedy and drama that was featured in this movie.
In this world, there are two types of art.
Let's say you walk into an art museum and see a Picasso. The colors are vibrant, the geometry is fascinating, and the techniques are entirely unique. People gather around this painting with you to marvel at the decisions this visionary artist made and the perfection created on the canvas. You tell yourself you're happy you got to see such a famed and outstanding piece of art, then you leave the building and hop in your car to go home. As you're driving home you flip on the radio to keep yourself from falling asleep. A song you've never heard before, but you really like, comes on and you start jamming all the way home. You get home and your friend is there. He asks you how your evening was, and you tell him all about the Picasso you got to see. Your friend is really interested so he hands you a pencil and a piece of paper and he tells you to sketch the Picasso for him. You look at him like he's silly, but he urges you, so you hesitantly pick up the pencil. That's when you realize that you can't remember exactly what it looked like, so you set the pencil down. Your friend then asks if you've heard any good music recently, so you tell him about the one you heard in the car. He asks you to hum it. Piece of cake.
"Birdman" is a great film. The actors are outstanding, the score made up of solo percussion is a genius idea, and the technique to make the film appear as a single take is not only successful but adds to the film as a whole. However, when the credits of this movie finish and you hear the last drum beat, the movie and everything about it comes to a complete end. This movie was hilarious, dramatic, and practically perfect in every technical way. "Birdman," was a Picasso. This movie was absolutely outstanding, but the only thing I was able to take away from it was a couple funny lines.
"Birdman," like a Picasso, was a technical masterpiece and the combination of that and how well reviewed it was resulted in me liking this movie without even thinking about it. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu made the choice to give "Birdman" an alternate title. That title is: "The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance." I think that fits perfectly.
I give "Birdman" an 8.5/10.