Skip to main content

Birdman (2014) - Movie Review

"A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing."

Birdman is a film about a washed up actor, who was once famous for starring as Birdman (Superhero), and his battle with himself and those around him during the final days of his broadway play premiere.

This film boasts an immense ensemble of talent, and you definitely get the result. Micheal Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Zack Galifianakis and some others all deliver amazing performances. It is truly a feat to see everyone just acting their best.And at the center of it all is Micheal Keaton and his career's best performance. He was awesome. Period.

Because of awesome performances, every scene was a joy to behold, the dialogue delivery was great, the dialogue itself was great. Another thing I really enjoyed about this film was that how its story paralleled with Micheal Keaton's and Edward Norton's real life. Micheal Keaton is most known for his role in Tim Burton's classic Batman film and its sequel and his character in the film has a similar scenario. Edward Norton is quite famously known for being difficult to work with on set and his character in the film is definitely like it too. Gives a nice meta feel to the film.

The greatest achievement of the film though is its cinematography. I was completely floored by it. The whole movie feels like a single long take. Technically, it consists of a couple of extra long takes joined together by great editing to make it seem like a one take. Either way, I have never seen longer takes then in this movie. And it just feels really raw and realistic, like you're actually there. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to deliver long dialogues without cuts. Makes you appreciate the acting even more. Kudos to the cinematography team.

With everything so top notch in this film, the story itself felt like the weakest part to me. I'm not saying it was bad or anything, but it just didn't felt fulfilling. Maybe they had to sacrifice the story for the shooting style, felt like that to me. When you have everything else great, something not near their level sticks out like a sore thumb.

Regardless, it was a great movie overall, definitely a sight to behold. A piece of art if you will. All the Oscar nominations are well deserved and I have feeling it will bag a lot of them too.

8.7/10
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) - Review

This movie is based on a true story about the attack on an american embassy and a secret CIA base in Benghazi, Libya, on the 9/11 anniversary in 2012. And how a few numbers of of Ex-Soldiers managed to repel the attack. Directed by Micheal Bay, I was surprised to see him holding back his Bay-ism and deliver a straight forward focused film. The story got a long build up at the start, setting up the location, the characters and the situation. And then chaos. What I liked most about this film was the fact that you felt just as lost as the soldiers and people in this movie. The confusion, the chaos, the uncertainty, it was delivered quite nicely, creating tension and thrill. There are a lot of characters in the movie, but ultimately it is focused on these soldiers, and while the movie could have done a better job developing them, what it did was good enough in a sense that it worked for the movie. I liked em. Acting varied, with some delivering pretty good performances. Also, again wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shin Godzilla (2016) - Movie Review

Shin Godzilla is the newest Godzilla film from Toho, the studio behind the Japanese Godzilla films dating back all the way to 1954. This one is a reboot of the franchise, yet again, for the contemporary Japan and the plot is basically what you'd expect; Godzilla arrives and wreaks havoc, all the while the Government tries to defeat it. Since the original Godzilla was inspired by the effects and scars from the WWII Atomic Bombings on Japan by USA, and how destructive and horrifying that power is, this one is similar and was inspired by the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster, all the while being disguised in a monster movie. Godzilla in this movie instills a sense of dread and fear as this indestructible monster with the power to lay waste to everything, a biological TERROR, and I really liked that about this movie. The way its proper form looked, particularly the head, was unsettling and that was the movie's intention, so ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Central Intelligence (2016) - Movie Review

Central Intelligence is sorta of a buddy-spy comedy and it's about an average joe hung up on life over past issues, until he meets up with one of his high school batch mate, and things suddenly turn upside down for him. A movie like this only works if the two leads meld together, and boy oh boy did they ever in this movie. Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart both were excellent in this movie. I loved their chemistry, their banter and their relationship. They clearly seemed to be having a great time in their roles, and as a result, the movie as a whole became a lot more fun. Also, I liked it more that they weren't playing their usual selves. It was just hilarious to see The Rock play this man-child agent, he always manages to bring so much energy into every role. And Kevin Hart dialed back a lot. He was the average joe, the normal guy in this movie and I liked that. You do still get the usual Kevin hart outbursts/moments, in small doses. Aside from these two, there was a...
Post a Comment
Read more