Birdman (Movie Review)

Pffft. Whatever man. This is Tuesday for me.

If you read my review of Boyhood, the presumptive favourite for the Best Picture award at the next Academy Awards, you know that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the movie (It’s great, just not the best movie of the year, in my opinion). Knowing this, you may be itching to think what movies I think are good enough to displace what some are calling the best movie of this current decade?

I’d say Birdman is a pretty solid bet (And Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. And Guardians of the Galaxy, and Captain America…).

Oh fuck, it’s Mothman!!!

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Produced by: Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher,  Arnon Milchan, James W. Skotchdopole

Written by: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone,  Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo

Genre: Black comedy

Starring: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan, Naomi Watts

Music by: Antonio Sánchez

Plot: Birdman revolves around a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. The play is being written and directed by Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), who is also starring in the lead role. Riggan used to be one of the biggest actors on the planet, back when he was the star of the crowd-pleasing Birdman franchise, which he left after the third movie, languishing in obscurity ever since. His bid for newfound relevance is being threatened by prima donna actors (Edward Norton, Naomi Watts), his temperamental daughter (Emma Stone) and his own overblown ego.

Alejandro González Iñárritu has made a name for himself in Hollywood, directing weird, dark foreign movies that are nonetheless accessible for mainstream audiences, such as Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Birdman is Gonzalez’s first entirely English-language movie, and has gained quite a bit of publicity since debuting at the Venice International Film Festival in August. In many ways, this is a turn towards more conventional storytelling for the director, as he sacrifices his trademark epic, non-linear. intertwining  storylines for what is essentially a frequently darkly comic character study of Michael Keaton (Kinda).

That doesn’t mean Gonzalez doesn’t try to put his own personal fingerprint on this movie, because it has his heavily stylized fingerprint all over it. The usual orchestral score music one would find in most award-bait movies is replaced by some maniac frantically playing the shit out of his drums, even making several appearances throughout the movie itself. Instead of conventional film editing, that is, carefully selecting shots and arranging them into sequences to create a finished movie (Like a loser) Gonzalez decided to go the really strange route of, through extremely clever editing, making the entire movie look like it was filmed in one continuous take, with no noticeable separation between scenes. It’s weird. It’s unconventional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.

I FUCKING LOVE IT. 

The preceding sentence should always be read like Christian Bale’s Batman, for full effect.

The frantic pace of the music, editing (And the movie as a whole, really) really compliments the rest of the, relatively short, film perfectly. It’s very rare that the fact that a movie felt longer than its runtime is a compliment to the movie, but in this case, it absolutely is. This movie throws SO much stuff at you in its two hour runtime, which would get boring and/or exhausting if every. Single. Goddamn. Thing that happened on screen wasn’t so visually captivating, or if damn near every line of dialogue spouted by the fascinating characters wasn’t so interesting and/or intellectually stimulating.

I do mean that last sentence, by the way. As I was leaving the theatre, so many themes from the movie were swirling through my mind, and none of those themes felt tacked-on for dramatic effect. The dilemma of fame is brought up. The idea of staying relevant and the human desire for immortality is referenced abundantly. Blockbuster movies versus “high art” mediums too. Hell, even the usual theme of a parent-child relationship gone sour is fitted in among all this other stuff. And you know what? It’s all done fucking beautifully. As much as I loved 12 Years a Slave last year, and it was my favourite movie of 2013, and as much interesting things it had to say about the human condition, I can watch it maybe once every six months or so without getting horribly depressed and angry at humanity in general. What I’m getting at is: As great as 12 Years a Slave is, it doesn’t have very much immediate replay value. In fact, more often than not, I just want to put it out of my mind after watching it.

Right after watching the matinee showing of Birdman, I was fully prepared to pay full price for an evening ticket, just so I could analyze the movie’s themes again. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was the fact that I had already spent all my money on comic books by the time evening rolled around.

I guess what i’m trying to say is that I think that a movie about the harrowing conditions that slaves faced in the United States before the civil war wasn’t as interesting to me as a movie where this happens:

I think I’ll just go ahead and let the majesty of this image sink in.

Admit it, you can’t take your eyes off of Edward Norton’s bulge either. It’s okay, none of us can.

Good storytelling can go to shit without good characters, though. Thankfully, this movie delivers on that front as well. All of these main characters are written so well that by the end of the movie, I genuinely like each of them, and want to see everything go well for them, even when they’re being the biggest collection of dickbags on the planet (Which is often). Zach Galifianakis erases my memory of his crappy turn in Are You Here with a great performance as Riggan’s lawyer and best friend, while Naomi Watts is also great as a first-time Broadway actress trying desperately to make something of herself.

The three performances that seem to be attracting the most Oscar buzz, however, are those of Keaton as Riggan Thomson, Norton as a superbly talented, yet pompous asshole of a method actor who could make or break the play and Emma Stone. As much as I hate mindlessly conforming the the general consensus, I’ve gotta say that I agree with everybody else. They’re all fantastic, and I would be more than happy to see them nominated come January.

However, while Norton and Stone seem to be facing some very stiff competition from their peers, Michael Keaton is straight up eating the competition alive. It’s great to see Keaton back doing prominent work again (Not that he was dead in the water or anything, it’s just he wasn’t as big of a name as he was back when he was doing Batman), and even better to see him totally owning a role that is pretty obviously meant to be portrayed by him, even if it’s not always a portrayal that most would consider flattering. Needless to say, he absolutely kills it in this movie. Even if I do joke that it’s basically Michael Keaton playing Michael Keaton, he still disappears into the role and breathes life into what could have easily been a pretty phoned in performance. The only real competition that I’ve seen so far that can really stand toe-to-toe with him is Eddie Redmayne, but more on him later.

Overall: Watch this movie. Do it. Drop whatever you’re doing, drive to whatever independent theatre is showing it in your hometown, pay full price, and plunk your ass down in the theatre seat to watch it. I guarantee you will not regret it.

Rating: 10/10

The Norton-Bulge commands it!!!

Boyhood (Movie Review)

“And that‘s why Uma Thurman can go fuck herself!”

Before Texan director Richard Linklater, the master behind Dazed and Confused, the Before Sunrise trilogy, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly (Which I haven’t actually seen, it’s just fun to say) and Bernie, first unveiled his latest movie, Boyhood, way the hell back in January at the Sundance film festival, people didn’t know what to expect. A movie shot over…twelve goddamn years? What a weird fuckin’ concept, right? Yeah, good luck running up the Oscar nods on that premise, Richard. You best stick to your cute little art movies, alright?

And then, the critics saw the movie. What was the reaction? Well, I’ll just let Rotten Tomatoes do the talking for me.

Transformers is also here. Y’know. For some reason.

Needless to say, I had pretty high expectations upon watching this movie. How did I feel about it after?

Well, I’ll tell you, but if you’ll excuse me real quick, I need to do a quick change of clothes.

Never leave home without it.

I’m sure Ethan Hawke must have loved it when he learned that both the child actors were credited before him.

 

 Boyhood

 Directed by: Richard Linklater

 Produced by: Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland,  Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss

 Written by: Richard Linklater

 Genre: Drama

 Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei  Linklater,  Ethan Hawke

 Plot: Ha! Good one.

In all seriousness, there really isn’t much to the plot of this movie, which is kind of the point. There’s no real unifying obstacle to tie this movie together. Just the day-to-day obstacles that this kid and his family have to face.

The simplest way to really summarize the movie is this: Over twelve years, Mason Evans, Jr (Ellar Coltrane) grows from boy to man, experiencing life with his friends, his older sister (Lorelei Linklater) and his divorced parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette).

So, judging by my slightly ambiguous intro, you must really be expecting me to spout an unpopular opinion on this movie, like I didn’t think it was great, or, God forbid, I thought it sucked. If you do want me to tear into this movie apart, then I’m sorry to say you’re going to be disappointed.  The vast majority of what this movie sets out to do, it does very, very well. It’s a very different kind of movie than what one would expect, even besides the fact that it was filmed over twelve years. This kind of filming over several years to show the passage of time has been done before (Several documentaries, such as Hoop Dreams, come to mind) but never over a scale as large as twelve years, and never in a movie that has received this much notoriety.

So, how does the story work as a movie? Pretty damn well, I’d say.  It’s not told in a traditional three-act structure (How could it be, really?), it’s more of a look into the life of the main character as he grows up. Of course, he has somewhat of a rough life, because this movie would be boring otherwise, and there are some moments where that fact feels kind of needlessly tacked on. That said, it also helps us empathize with the character of Mason, who is portrayed well enough by Ellar Coltrane, even through his perilous child actor years.

Watching this movie must be one hell of a mind-fuck for him.

Is the story engaging enough to keep one occupied during the entire 165-minute runtime? For the most part, yeah. I (Part of the Millennial audience  I believe the film was aimed at) wasn’t bored for the majority of the movie, and I could relate to a lot of what Mason was going through. Okay, maybe not everything. My parents aren’t divorced, I’ve lived in one neighbourhood my whole life, and I haven’t lived in a home where drug, alcohol and domestic abuse were prevalent. I did, however, relate more to the smaller things he was going through. Hanging out with sketchy friends-of-friends, eagerly anticipating the next Harry Potter book, talking excitedly about the next Star Wars with my friends back when I hadn’t realized the prequels were garbage, discovering that girls were actually pretty cool to hang out with, murdering my first homeless person on my eighteenth birthday, the list goes on. There are scenes that seem to have little to no meaning that really, really should’ve been axed, though. There is one scene, for instance, when it looks like Mason is about to enter into some sort  of altercation or long-term rivalry with a bully, and I kept expecting it to come back later in that point of his life, but it never did, and the little bully prick never showed his face again. I guess you could argue that this is very much how that situation would play out for some people in real life, I certainly have never had that big of a problem with bullies that I haven’t been able to suppress with expired painkillers by now, but this scene in particular just seems like something they stuck in to make some people nod and say “Oh, yeah, remember that?” If that’s what you’re looking for in a movie, fine, I guess, but I’m personally not a fan of relying on nostalgia for critical and commercial success.

If the Rolling Stones were to read that last sentence, they would be laughing their asses off at me right now.

Even when the movie does slow down and get less interesting, as it does once Mason gets into his later teens, I was still able to gravitate towards the characters thanks to the performances. I already mentioned Ellar Coltrane and his fine performance, which, surprisingly, doesn’t appear to be generating much Oscar buzz (Especially considering the massive hard-on that the awards higher-ups have for every other aspect of this movie), but I guess that makes sense when you look at the other premium actors in contention. Most likely making the cut, however are his movie parents, Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, who should easily be in the mix for the big prize come February. Those two were so fucking good that I actually wish that the movie focused more on them and less on Mason. I thought that Ethan Hawke finding his own way in his life and Patricia Arquette going through all the shit she goes through in the movie probably would have amounted to something, well, better.

How was Lorelei Linklater? Well, all I’ll say is it must be nice to be a highly regarded director’s daughter and not have to get jobs through, you know, being a good actor.

Look, I still really, really like this movie. I may even go so far as to call it a great movie that is necessary viewing for film fans. That said, after watching the movie, I stopped and thought, and I realized that not only was it not my favourite movie of the year, but it wasn’t even in my top 15 (More on that later). I watch this movie and I see a great movie that I don’t ever want to watch again on account of it being the length of a Lord of the Rings movie and not as entertaining. I definitely don’t see “one of the greatest films of the decade” as Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian apparently sees.

Also, there’s a line in the movie in which a kid welcomes Mason into a new school by saying “Welcome to the Suck.” This is such a terrible line that I fell to the floor laughing for ten goddamn minutes. What can I say? It helped pass the time.

Overall: Is it the masterpiece that everyone seems to think? I certainly didn’t think so, but judging by the massive acclaim for this movie, you may disagree. In my personal opinion, Boyhood is a highly innovative, must-see movie that gets by on the strength of its performances, and the relatability of the characters.

Rating: 8.0/10

I barely liked this movie more than John Wick. Bizarre, right?

Kick-Ass 2 (Movie Review)

Oh yeah, he’s hating every minute of this.

Holy crap, could it be I’m actually posting multiple articles in the same week?! Man, proactivity is such an alien feeling to me! Or, y’know, it would be if I hadn’t written this in April and just now realized I had forgotten to post it. Actually, wouldn’t that still be proactivity? Because I was planning ahead for the future or-ah, screw it.

(Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Kick-Ass are included in this review, so if you haven’t watched that movie yet, and you plan to (Which you should) do it now. Like right now. I’ll wait. Otherwise, go right on ahead.) 

  Kick-Ass 2

Directed by: Jeff Wadlow

Produced by: Adam Bohling, Tarquin Peck, Matthew Vaughn, Brad Pitt, David Reid

Screenplay by: Jeff Wadlow

Based on: Kick-Ass 2 and Hit-Girl by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.

Sequel to: Kick-Ass (2010)

Genres: Superhero, Dark comedy, Action

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey,   Morris Chestnut, John Leguizamo, Donald Faison, Lindy Booth, Clark Duke

Music by: Henry Jackman, Matthew Margeson

 

Plot: Now that New York City is patrolled by real-life superheroes, inspired by the world’s first real-life superhero, Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the Wet-suit Crusader himself decides to retire from crime-fighting, trying to return to his regular life as high-school senior Dave Lizewski. However, he didn’t count on high school life being boring as shit in comparison to taking down mob bosses. Un-retiring, he recruits the help of Mindy Macready  (Chloë Grace Moretz) to help him get properly trained (As, let’s face it, he’s a really crappy fighter). Mindy is doing some adjustments of her own after the death of her father, the costumed vigilante, Big Daddy, and her subsequent adoption by his dad’s old cop buddy, Marcus (Morris Chestnut). When Marcus discovers that Mindy has continued to fight crime as Hit-Girl, he makes her promise to give it up, leaving Kick-Ass tutor-less. Desperate for some fellow superhero company, Dave hooks up with a superhero team called “Justice Forever”, led by an ex-Mafia, born-again Christian bad-ass named Sal Bertolinni, who goes by the uber patriotic moniker of Colonel Stars & Stripes.

Meanwhile, on Long Island, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) has kind of lost his damn mind after the death of his father at Kick-Ass’s hands. After the accidental death of his mother, Chris decides to adopt another costumed persona in order to take revenge on Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. Forfeiting his superhero identity of Red Mist, Chris dresses up in his deceased mother’s bondage gear and renames himself “The Motherfucker.”

Seriously.

I sincerely believe that the first Kick-Ass is one of the top 10 superhero movies of all time, and I’m not exactly one who skips out on watching superhero movies. It might not have been as mind-blowingly original as some people claim it to be, but it’s still one of my five favourite movies of all time. It kind of hit the perfect balance between lighthearted, foul-mouthed humour and gleeful bloodletting. It almost got to the point where there were some minor tonal issues, but hey, it managed to pull off the contrast without looking like a total mess.

Unfortunately, that’s this movie’s biggest failing: Tone. The first movie had its serious moments, sure, but for the most part, it took so much joy in what it was doing, at once satirizing and paying respects to the superhero genre. This movie seems a little lost. It keeps more or less the same type of goofy, vulgar humour, and that’s okay, because who gives a shit about swear words? No, it’s when the movie tries to be dark and gritty that it falls its face. I mean, the first movie wasn’t exactly a Disney movie…

Okay, maybe that was a crappy comparison, but still…

… But it never took violence seriously, it was all very cartoonish and again that’s okay. It worked in the context of the film. This movie takes it to a whole new level of carnage though. The blood flows freely, like before, but in addition to that, people’s necks are getting broken on-screen, people are getting hung, and there’s an attempted rape at one point (Easily the worst scene in the movie). It can feel really jarring and takes me right out of the movie. It’s just another example of people watching The Dark Knight or The Empire Strikes Back and mindlessly assuming that “darker” necessarily means better. This is how you get movies like Revenge of the Sith or, indeed, Kick-Ass 2, although the latter movie is still infinitely superior to the hunk of shit that was Revenge of the Sith.

My only other serious problem with the movie is that, aside from Hit-Girl, there really is an unsettling lack of good female characters. Maybe I’m looking too much into, but it seems to me that, again, aside from Mindy Macready, all the women are either being sexually objectified (Cough, Night Bitch, cough) or are total bitches (Katie, Chris’s mom, Mindy’s classmates). And while we’re on the topic of female character, what exactly was the point of the character of Night Bitch? She is a completely pointless character and her replacing Katie (Who incidentally, was a much better character in the first movie) as the primary love interest boggles my mind.

To the movie’s credit, it does a lot of things right. Replacing Matthew Vaughn as director is screenwriter Jeff Wadlow, and he does a serviceable (Albeit inferior to Vaughn) job of moving the action along, even if he makes all-too frequent use of goddamn shaky-cam. The dialogue, while not as clever, funny or well-written in general as the first Matthew Vaughn/Jane Goldman script, still does the job and contributes laugh (And frequent profanity).

Christopher Mintz-Plasse bored me, quite frankly, as the Motherfucker. It just seemed too over-the-top for somebody whose edgiest role before this movie was McLovin’. He wasn’t bad, I suppose, but I just didn’t buy it as much as I bought his more meek, cowardly character in the previous movie. As for Jim Carrey, he doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of in this movie, despite his cutting all ties with it due to excessive violence. He was clearly having tons of fun as Colonel Stars & Stripes and got to deliver some of the more bad-ass lines in the entire movie. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, while not quite as charming as he was in the first film, is still the only possible person who could play Kick-Ass, and is suitably dorky as Dave Lizewski.

Let’s be real though. The real star of the show isn’t Taylor-Johnson or Carrey, but child actress Chloë Grace Moretz as the savage Hit-Girl. Even if there were some choices taken with her character that I felt weakened her character (Cough, love interest, cough), Moretz is just the biggest bad-ass as Hit-Girl. I never thought I would ever declare a child actor to be irreplaceable in a role, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. This girl is gonna be huge.

Plus, “ability to wield bladed weapons” is really high up there on my list of turn-ons.

Oh give me a break, she’s only two months younger than me.

Overall: It’s not for everybody, and I’ll be damned if I’d let my hypothetical children watch it, but if you don’t mind bloody, violent comedies, and are prepared to maybe watch something that doesn’t quite know when to tone it down, than Kick-Ass 2 should prove enjoyable enough. Maybe hold off on eating while watching, though.

Rating: 6.5/10

The comic is total shit though. Just so you know.