It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh wait…it actually is a bird. Image via Indiewire

“This place smells like balls…how did we get here?”

If you were going into Birdman expecting to find the beginning of the next big franchise, then you might want to look elsewhere.

Birdman might be the strangest film of 2014. It is also one of the most ambitious; one that is chock full of ideas. A lot of it hits, and when it misses, it really couldn’t give a shit if you liked it or not. Birdman is the other big gimmick film of 2014 (the other being Boyhood). It needs the gimmick to survive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The gimmick in question, a never ending tracking shot, helps the film transcend its concept, which is actually pretty great to begin with.

In Birdman, Michael Keaton plays a washed up actor named Riggan Thomson who was once famous for playing a beloved superhero. Sound familiar? Riggan now plans a big comeback by taking on an unconventional role. Still sound familiar? If it doesn’t at this point, then time to search “Michael Keaton” on IMDB. Anyway, Riggan’s dream role is to star in a Raymond Carver play. This could be a reality if the insane people he works with could step back a little. Come to think of, Riggan might be able to sabotage his own comeback before anybody else even gets the chance.

As the artist formerly known as Birdman, Keaton is as much of a revelation as you could imagine. He plays so many different roles in this film, and sometimes all at once. We are expected to sympathize with a man who is vain and possibly insane. And it completely works. Great actors like Keaton just have a charisma that is hard to look away from. His work here could even top the McConaissance and the Affleck Reemergence because of how intensely personal it seems to be. I can imagine that every actor who once starred in a blockbuster hears money screaming into their ears every time they try to do something different.

Keaton’s performance, which may be very close to his own life, is just one piece of this film’s hyper reality puzzle. Birdman feels like Black Swan, in that it is also about the dangers of going too far down the authenticity rabbit hole. Sure, it is good to make your art feel real. But even when we look for art that is realistic, we still hope for some element of escape. We want art to feel real so that we can relate to it, not necessarily so that we can live inside of it.

I admit, that last paragraph sounded ridiculously abstract. Birdman, which, I should note, is actually called Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), forces you to think that way. This is the kind of film that uses a cocktail napkin to show that mankind is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. This is also the kind of film where Michael Keaton runs through Times Square in his underwear and Edward Norton gets a boner onstage as a result of his ridiculous commitment to performance. At its essence, Birdman is about the war between art and commerce, and the film brilliantly employs the best of high and low culture. At one point, Emma Stone emotionally tells her father that nobody cares about him. At another, Edward Norton asks Naomi Watts to play with his balls. His words, not mine.

The greatest joy of Birdman is seeing director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu embrace absurdity after years of gut-wrenching dramatic work such as Babel and Amores Perros. Birdman is the best Hollywood farce since Bowfinger. Inarritu’s sprawling ensemble pieces all seem to be leading up to Birdman. The chaotic continuous take that encompasses the film perfectly puts us into the shoes of somebody living the show biz life. It is a lot less of people tap dancing and singing “there’s no business like show business!” than I imagined.

Again, Birdman may be the strangest film of 2014. That is probably the highest compliment that I could pay it. It subverts the comeback/underdog story in a way that truly needed to be done. I could a bunch of more cliches and tell you that Birdman is “explosive,” or I could just end this by saying that it’s one of the best films of the year.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• If you hadn’t respected Emma Stone as an actress, then now is a good time to start. She delivers an incredible monologue that is absolutely devastating.
• Keaton is probably an Oscar frontrunner right now, but everybody else in the cast should be considered, too. Especially Stone and Norton.
• The trailer made a great use of Gnarls Barkley. Unfortunately, “Crazy” doesn’t make it into the film. The cymbal bashing soundtrack isn’t bad, though.
• However, I do wish that this was on the soundtrack.
• What’s harder to spell: Galifianakis or Inarritu. Well, I can now spell “Galifianakis” without Googling his name first…
• Watching the technical achievement of Birdman makes me remember how hard it really is to make a movie.
• Critics: We’re not all bad.
• MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: If you have seen Birdman, I’d like to discuss my interpretation of the ending. Okay, here we go. On opening night, Riggan uses a real gun and shoots himself in the face. Miraculously, he survives. You would think that after this event, somebody would send him to a therapist. Instead, he is rewarded with a new nose, new fans, and a revitalized career. To me, this ending carries a Taxi Driver-type irony: an insane man is rewarded for bad behavior thanks to the media. Unlike Travis Bickle, Riggan seems like more of a threat to himself than others. In Birdman, Hollywood is a sad world filled with enablers. You can do anything you want, as long as it eventually lands you a book deal.

“And that’s why you always leave a note!” Image via Digital Spy

Oh Spider-Man, why do you always play with my emotions like this?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a movie that didn’t need to exist, given that a perfect Spider-Man sequel already exists. Yet, here it is. While it is here, it might as well be loud, proud, and filled with search engine product placement.

Picking up a bit after the first Amazing Spider-Man left off, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finds Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) on the day of his high school graduation. As always, he is late, because he has to chase a bunch of people through recognizable Manhattan landmarks before he can watch his girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) deliver her valedictorian speech. While Peter loves Gwen Stacy, he also knows that dating Spider-Man can be a dangerous thing. Of all of the different stories in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Gwen Stacy romance is probably the most interesting to watch. This makes it one of the few superhero movies where the romance is better than any of the action. I think that Garfield and Stone’s real life romance is partly to thank for the onscreen chemistry.

On top of the romance, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a film told in three villains. Ever since I saw Iron Man 2, I have preached against the Multiple Villain Syndrome that plagues most superhero movies. Yet, no one seems to listen (probably time to yell more on Reddit). Each villain has their strengths and their flaws, but mostly they have flaws. Let’s start with Electro (Jamie Foxx). His alter ego, Max Dillon, is a nebbish Oscorp employee who is creepily obsessed with Spider-Man. I loved the start of that character, as it was weird enough to not belong in a big blockbuster. Then, he becomes Electro too quickly and any semblance of backstory is gone.

Then, there is Harry Osbourne (Dane DeHaan), who becomes the Green Goblin. Harry and the Green Goblin are two of the most important characters in the Spider-Man universe, so it’s surprising that the movie barely gives them the proper introduction that they deserve. Despite the fact that the Amazing Spider-Man series is supposed to be a way to introduce Spider-Man to a new generation, you can’t really watch it without knowledge of the previous movies. Instead of a Harry backstory, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 decides to delve into the lives of Peter’s parents. Then, it does absolutely nothing with that information. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has the power to do something great. Yet, it also wants none of the responsibility.

The third villain is The Rhino (Paul Giamatti), who (spoiler alert?), is barely in the movie. He is in there either to tease another movie I am not sure if I want to see, or to satisfy the needs of people who were dying to see Paul Giamatti do a cheesy Russian accent. It’s okay, Giamatti now has enough money to build a second pool or whatever movie stars do with their money.

The biggest problem with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is that it keeps throwing challenges at Spider-Man and never quite knows how to handle them. Usually, writers and directors should have a better handle on their characters. Now, Spider-Man always has a lot on his plate. This is what defines him as a hero. Spider-Man 2 basically explores these same grounds, but it understood which issues were actually important to both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the equivalent of watching four screenwriters (not an exaggeration) run circles around each other for 150 minutes.

Throughout The Amazing Spider-Man 2 there are shades of what could have been, and ultimately there is disappointment at the mess that ended up on screen. Besides all that, I had a fun time. It did what a subpar superhero movie is supposed to do: it entertained at a moderately fun level. I just feel like at this point it is time that audiences started expecting something better.

Brain Farts From The Edge (SPOILER ALERT)

• Don’t worry, there are no cranes in site this time around.
• The end scene might be one of the worst I have seen all year. It is a blatant attempt at pandering. It is like they were trying to put in a message that wasn’t built up to at all.
• Okay, now we can talk about Gwen Stacy’s death: This was handled very well in the film. If you’re a fan of the comics, then there were teasers throughout (Peter and Gwen on top of the bridge). In the movie, the death takes place in a clock tower, and the tragedy is handled in a tasteful way. Emma Stone was such a great part of these movies, and it is sad to see her go. Poor Spider-Man, he’s always accidentally killing the ones that he loves the most.
• I wish this ended with Peter standing by Gwen Stacy’s grave and then giving up on being Spider-Man. That would have been a much stronger cliffhanger than Paul Giamatti in a rhino costume.
• On that note, Peter’s deep struggle of whether or not to be Spider-Man seems trivial here, when it should have been a larger focus. Giving up the ability to swing across New York City with web launchers must not be an easy decision to make.
• Sally Field is a great Aunt May. Overall, she’s a great lady, too.
• When Electro blows out the power in the city, everybody immediately freaks out. Okay, blackouts are bad and cause chaos. However, things don’t immediately explode the second a city stops running. Calm down, Marc Webb.
• Take it easy with the faux-Queens accent, Andrew Garfield.
• Four writers. Four f***ing writers. Did they just let everybody at Sony have a say in this?
• So…how much longer until Guardians of the Galaxy comes out?