Reviews for this film from our members:
- Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
- Excerpt: Ma il lavoro di Inarritu è sincero e riuscito, un piccolo gioiello di scrittura, di regia e recitazione: forse le singole parti si impongono sul risulltato complessivo, come spesso è successo in passato per i film del regista messicano.
- Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Alejandro González Iñárritu y su equipo proponen una tremebunda maratón técnica coronada por un elenco volcado en dar vida a los protagonistas de esta fábula sobre la fama, la identidad, la percepción propia y ajena. Un trabajo fundamental que perdurará en el tiempo.
- Chris Barsanti @ PopMatters
- Excerpt: A onetime Hollywood superhero takes a stab at respectability by adapting Raymond Carver’s writings to Broadway in Iñárritu’s hallucinogenic satire of the entertainment industry.
- Nicholas Bell @ IONCINEMA.com
- Excerpt: Exploding with a vibrant, restless energy, it’s one of those films able to manage the tricky balancing act of melding a real life persona with an allegorical dress.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Josh Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Some fresh takes on midlife crises, celebrities in America, and the wild popularity of the social media.
- Sarah D Bunting @ Tomato Nation
- Excerpt: John Ramos, Mark Blankenship, and Sarah D. Bunting discuss Inarritu’s latest magical reality.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: “Birdman” is just a character piece with a lot of set dressing and an out-of-the-box approach. There’s a lot of in-jokes for movie buffs and drama folks, which adds to its value. It may not be what you expect, but there are some laughs to be had and a strong sense of character led by Keaton.
- Samuel Castro @ Ochoymedio.info [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Un ensayo sobre el ego que usa como coartada la vida actoral de Michael Keaton para crear engañosas resonancias.
- Bill Clark @ From The Balcony
- Excerpt: Birdman is a true original; a work of technical wizardry, virtuoso acting, and compelling storytelling unlike anything we’ve seen before.
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Iñárritu displays a flair for comedy and shows off great technical skill but his high wire act always has that carnival barker in the background.
- Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: [Cinematographer Emmanuel] Lubezki makes ample use of mirrors to create ad hoc reverse shots, but for the most part the emphasis is on allowing the roaming camera to work with the actors to fill in the gaps where more traditional compositions would have been used. The camerawork is akin to the jazz drumming that makes up most of the soundtrack; you need tremendous skill and precision to appear that spontaneous and improvisational.
- Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: Despite Keaton’s real life decision to rise above the expectations connected to stardom, his investment of autobiographical details into his performance is an acknowledgement that artists at any level cannot easily ignore criticism when they are so tied into their vehicle for expression.
- Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Esta película es eterna, con un estilo muy caprichoso.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Here is a biting dissection of people whose egos must be big enough to compensate for their soul-crushing insecurities.
- James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: ‘Birdman’ Is A Perfect Blend of Technical Filmmaking And Artistic Storytelling…With A Superhero
- Candice Frederick @ Reel Talk
- Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators
- Excerpt: Art and insanity are both defined by repetition.
- Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: ‘Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)’ delivers the highest standards in all categories to convey the story of a man risking it all to reinvent himself before it’s too late.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Intense and immersive, it’s an exhilarating visual experience for those who enjoy highly imaginative cinema.
- Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Iñárritu captures the teeming, electric sense of the location in a way that few recent films have managed, recalling classic films whose grungy-glamorous portraits of urban gods captured both the city’s boiling, stygian ferocity and vigour, a crucible of possibility.
- Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: The proceedings have an immediacy that is exhilarating. Iñárritu directs his cast like a symphonic piece, each one carefully entering and exiting the scene at various parts of the 119 minute movement.
- Travis Hopson @ Examiner
- Excerpt: Birdman is a remarkable achievement on both sides of the camera, and it’s going to be tough for any film to compete with it as the best of the year.
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: It’s all a bit satirical. Or maybe not. Look, over there, Shakespeare in a superhero cape!
- Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: Birdman’s script is tight and intricate, the actors bringing it to life and on the top of their game, and the result is one of the best movies of the year. My biggest problem is firmly declaring whether Birdman is very good or great.
- Ben Kendrick @ Screen Rant
- Excerpt: Birdman provides a thought-provoking and inventive exploration of artistry, family, and the difference between power, popularity, and prestige.
- Jennie Kermode @ Eye For Film
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Each year, only a handful of films really evoke a “wow” or blow one away. There is a frisson in seeing a motion picture so original, unclassifiable and rule-breaking that it invigorates. For 2014, meet “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).”
- Oktay Ege Kozak @ Oregon Herald
- Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
- Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight
- Excerpt: The percussive sound of the drum score in “Birdman” jazzes up the staccato dialogue, blending us into a world of farce, frailty and the forbidden desire to be appreciated.
- James Marsh @ The Society For Film
- Excerpt: Attempting to review Birdman, the new film from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, is somewhat trepidatious, not least because midway through the film, troubled protagonist Riggan Thompson launches into a bile-spewing tirade against just such criticism. In his case it is New York Times theatre critic Tabitha Dickinson, whose reviews can make or break a play in just 500 words, but the attitude and the sentiment most certainly spreads to cinema critics too. One of the many great ironies in the film, however, is just how much these artists pander to their critics, are beholden to their audiences and scrap in the gutter with each other in search of those precious few moments in the spotlight, and column inches on the front page.
- Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
- Excerpt: In less capable hands, this could have degenerated into a soulless meta exercise. But ‘Birdman’ pulls off its self-reflexive magic trick and manages to be a funny, complex, if imperfect, meditation on art and humanity’s pursuit of meaning.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Matthew McKernan @ FilmWhinge
- Excerpt: Birdman is a film without a point, a masquerade of intelligence and witty remarks without an ounce of intellectual or emotional weight.
- Brent McKnight @ Giant Freakin’ Robot
- Excerpt: For all there is to praise in ‘Birdman,’ a movie convinced of it’s own cleverness, there is always a ‘but’ looming.
- Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
- Pat Mullen @ Cinemablographer
- Excerpt: Keaton’s career-best performance is a thrill and it’s one of the most unique feats of screen acting in years.
- João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: A juntar a um guião digno de aplausos, “Birdman” aproveita-se também da genial direção de Iñárritu
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: It’s missing the subtlety that would really make it soar: the thematically underbelly of it all is almost relentlessly pounded into us, and each of these wonderful parts feels aggressively over-the-top when combined into an ungainly whole.
- Kristy Puchko @ Kristy Puchko
- Excerpt: There’s a splendid lunacy to Birdman. It radiates with emotion and energy, spinning through its continuous editing style with an elegance and ego that is intoxicating.
- [New – 7/2/15] | Nuno Reis @ SciFiWorld Portugal [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: O maior trunfo de “Birdman” é nunca sabermos o que é realidade e o que é ficção, num inteligente jogo de emoções aberto a diferentes interpretações.
- Jamie S. Rich @ DVDTalk
- Excerpt: For about 80 or 90 minutes, Birdman is good, heady fun with a virtuoso filmmaking style and dynamite performances. Then for the last half hour, it’s a lot of squelchy philosophy and narrative flailing as its various pieces malfunction and fall by the wayside.
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: There is virtually no way that Keaton could brush off comparisons between his own career and that of the character that he plays in Birdman, a once great box office star of a hit superhero franchise who walked away from the series at its height but never really found that level of success again.
- Amir Siregar @ Flick Magazine [Indonesian]
- Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Birdman’ is Hollywood insiders navel-gazing, hang-wringing, and soul-searching about how to be taken seriously as artists, sure. But it’s also the best Hollywood has to offer: it’s unpredictable, bold, and unapologetic, manned by a completely committed cast and crew working at their collective peaks.
- Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A savage satire of Hollywood celebrity gone to seed…delivered with an irresistible degree of cinematic panache.
- David Upton @ So So Gay
- Excerpt: Its scattered energies seem less the product of a stimulating theatrical experience than a lack of coherence and an absent willingness to think these plot lines through.
- Sarah Ward @ artsHub
- Andrew Wyatt @ St. Louis Magazine
- Excerpt: Birdman is a relentlessly focused film, a voyeuristic scramble through Riggan’s troubled production as opening night approaches.
