Birdman

A washed up action movie star tries to reaffirm his relevance as an actor by opening a Broadway play. Does he still have what it takes to make it in the cut-throat world of show business?  Can he stay sane in an industry that's famously nuts? Will anyone who isn't in show business care at all?

Read on to find out...
PREMISE

Riggan (Michael Keaton) is an actor who became famous in the early 90's playing the fictional superhero Birdman. Twenty five years later, he's barely hanging in there, having dumped all his money into a Broadway play which is about to open. If the play fails, he's pretty much finished.

I remember when life was easy, and I was young and hot.

Along the way, we find out such interesting tidbits of information, like the fact that he's divorced, his daughter is a recovering drug addict, and his new co-star is a scene steeling prima-donna.
Things are looking pretty rough for this guy, and to top it off, the critic who is going to review his show tells him that she's going to tear him apart in the review. What more could go wrong?

MY TAKE

Every once in a while a movie comes along that seems to be made strictly for other actors to watch.  "I want someone to Eat Cheese With", a movie I reviewed a few years ago, seemed like one of these. And even though it had some funny moments, another movie only other actors could relate to was "Coffee and Cigarettes". And now, add Birdman to the lineup.
The first hint at its pretentiousness is that the full title of the film is "Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).  Also, anytime a movie poster looks like this...

...it's going to be "very deep", or at least that's what they're going for.

One of the weirdest things about the movie is that Keaton's character seems to actually have super powers. This goes on confusing us until we realize it's (probably) just in his head, and when he turned off the TV magically, he probably really just used the remote control. The thing is, besides imagining he can make things fly though the air, there isn't really any reason to show him having these delusions. He feels washed up, but does he actually think he's Birdman?

I'm Batm... I'm Birdman. Uh... I'm confused.

The acting is pretty solid. After all, we have Micheal Keaton and Ed Norton going toe to toe in their underwear, as well as Emma Stone playing one of the most realistic looking washed up crack-heads I've ever seen.  Besides that, though, the whole movie is coated in a thick, sticky film of pretentiousness, like that oily crap that you have to wash off your kitchen's range hood every once-in-a-while.

FINAL SCORE- One bottle of beer. Cause even alcoholics can have JUST one bottle.