This is Broadway

Rating: 6/10 (3 March 2015)

No sh*t. From the very beginning it's obvious that everyone here is a stage actor, even though they're not. The opening rehearsal scene is supposed to reveal that one of the actors is terribly overacting. But you quickly get the feeling that everyone is overacting.
The rehearsal falls apart and they keep overacting. Zach Galifianakis does his best Richard Dreyfus impersonation. In fact, it's the best Dreyfus impersonation I've ever seen.
When they're on stage they're stage acting. When they're off stage they're stage acting, only slightly less so.
The music, such as it is - nothing but somebody jamming on the drums, or some child playing piano, is distracting.
The camera work, just so much more cliché shaky-cam which has become so popular lately, makes it difficult to follow. And every opportunity for subtle nuances are lost. There should be a theory taught in film school - never move the camera unless you have a reason to. Because this dockers commercial BS is so 1990s. Get over it an move on to something new.
Birdman is a fictional tale of a washed up action film actor trying to establish his importance as an artist. It's fiction and yet biographical. Michael Keaton, one of the most talented actors of our time, came to world-wide stardom in Batman. And ever since then it seems like his work has been underrated.
In the end, it's an artsy-fartsy attempt at a meaningful story. There's nothing new here, it's all fairly predictable. But if you like that sort of thing, you might enjoy it.