There’s been so much speculation that this movie will stink. Me? I always had a feeling that the people behind this flick knew they were taking a big bite with this one and assumed they wouldn’t be doing so if they didn’t think they’d be able to chew it.
In my opinion, the trailer looks great.
The apparent premise? Superman has God-like powers that make people afraid. Those in fear include Batman who, presuming the Man of Steel poses a threat to the world, decides to take the notorious tights wearer on.
We can only hope the film ends with them patching up their differences and singing a hearty round of kum-bai-yah. After all, they’re both good guys.
But if someone has to be the victor, my money’s on Batman.
Well, at least I’m rooting for the Dark Knight.
Good Old Superman – the superhero who started it all. People love to root for him and over the years, he’s become a symbol for “Truth, Justice, and the American way.”
He’s also hard to identify with. Handsome, flawless, chiseled – shoot him and he spits out the bullet with his teeth. Set him on fire and he doesn’t burn. Blow him up and he comes back for more. He can fly, run fast, lift enormous and heavy objects, turn back time, shoot lasers out of his eyes. He has every power.
Unless you chuck a rare piece of Kryptonite at him, he’s going to eat you for breakfast and therefore, while fun to cheer him on, it’s hard to look at Superman and say, “there’s a fella like me!”
Batman? Well, his powers are derived from money, intellect, and drive. Money is obviously the big factor as it affords him the ability to spend a vast repository of wealth on his vigilante persona.
So, yeah, you might argue it’s also hard to relate to Batman except for the fact that Batman, though he probably wouldn’t budge at the sight of Kryptonite, could otherwise die in a multitude of ways!
Superman has always proven to be a difficult character to portray on the big screen. Here you have a character with so much power and one would think the ultimate foil would be an equally powerful bad guy.
Yet, for some reason the 1970’s and 80’s movies pitted him up against Gene Hackman’s caricature of a criminal mastermind. Though fun to watch, Lex Luthor was historically, at least in the comic book world, a more intelligent, cold, and calculating foe. So many old Superman films and yet the hero to end all heroes rarely met a baddie his equal.
2013’s Man of Steel sought to remedy that with General Zod, a fellow citizen of Krypton who, like Superman, also becomes blessed with super powers when under Earth’s yellow sun. In fact, I’d argue the old film starring Terrence Stamp was the best of that series because it was the only one where Superman fought a challenger with similar powers.
Man of Steel, to this blogger, wasn’t the dud that other critics labeled it. However, I have to admit, when I saw Superman and Zod smashing their way through an IHOP, a 7-11 and other chain stores, my reaction was, “Wow, that is a lot of product placement.”
Since that was my only issue with Man of Steel, I assume I’ll have a fun time watching Batman and Superman, as long as Bruce doesn’t drive the batmobile through an Outback Steakhouse or something.
Were you skeptical of Ben Affleck as Batman? Admittedly, I was. Actually, I was on the fence. On the one hand, Affleck has given us Gigli. On the other hand, he also gave us Argo. He’s given us more pops than flops, so I assumed he wouldn’t have taken the role if he didn’t think he could deliver, and thus far this trailer proves me right.
Will DC finally catch up to Marvel’s box office prowess? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
Or, Hollywood is Sorry for Pushing Crap on You, But It’s Kind of Your Fault.
In 1989, Michael Keaton starred as the first Batman to not suck. That role made his career. I’d argue that it didn’t really define him though. He’s been in zany comedies and serious dramas, performing expertly in both.
Yet, as a former Batman who’s ditched the cowl to seek out more serious roles, one is left to wonder how much of Birdman is semi-autobiographical. Does Keaton identify with Riggan? Only Keaton could truly answer that.
Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a big time actor who, twenty years ago, played a feathery comic book super hero in a series of Birdman films. They were special effects extravaganzas that made him a lot of money and were big at the box office.
Movieclips Trailers
Today, Riggan is trying to leave his past behind him and gain recognition as a serious actor. He’s broke, having sunk a fortune into a Broadway play adaptation of a work by author Raymond Carver. And true to the style of a play, the cameras follow the actors on and off stage, with very few cut scenes throughout the film.
Actors aren’t as happy as you’d think, there’s intense pressure, you can’t please everyone, and whatever you do, someone is criticizing you. You try to produce art (i.e. Raymond Carver) but alas, people just want fluff (i.e. Birdman). Even worse, once you “sell-out” and take a role like “Birdman,” the “true artist” community will shun you and refuse to consider your attempts at artistry, even if they are worthy of notoriety.
As consumers of entertainment, should we push for real, serious, dramatic art? Plays and movies where there’s all kinds of gut wrenching dialog to make you think? Or should we just have fun and watch Birdman fight bad guys?
Are purveyors of comic book movies making us all stupid? Are creators of heady dramas just too full of themselves?
These questions are asked, and never really answered, though the movie serves as a chronicle of one actor’s attempt to produce serious art only to be stymied at every turn.
Riggan’s foil, played by Ed Norton, is veteran broadway thespian Mike Shiner. Recruited for Riggan’s play, Shiner is a pretentious limelight hog and though he claims to be all about the art, he’s ultimately just as obnoxious as any movie star.
Meanwhile, Riggan has to deal with a snooty play review critic, who vows to shut Riggan’s play down before even seeing it, simply because she does not believe someone who stooped low enough to play a cartoon superhero is deserving of praise for attempting real art.
In other words, if the entertainment world is at war, then it’s a battle between the big blockbuster fluff eaters and the holier than thou tweed jacket wearers. Both think they’re the smartest people in the room. Neither is willing to meet the other half way.
Emma Stone, who plays Riggan’s daughter, Sam, earns her Oscar nomination with this speech:
TEXT OF SAM/EMMA STONE’S “RELEVANT SPEECH” FROM BIRDMAN
RIGGAN: It’s important to me! Alright? Maybe not to you, or your cynical friends whose only ambition is to go viral. But to me . . . To me . . this is — God. This is my career, this is my chance to do some work that actually means something.
SAM: Means something to who? You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You’re doing a play based on a book that was written 60 years ago, for a thousand rich old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it’s over. And let’s face it, Dad, it’s not for the sake of art. It’s because you want to feel relevant again. Well, there’s a whole world out there where people fight to be relevant every day. And you act like it doesn’t even exist! Things are happening in a place that you willfully ignore, a place that has already forgotten you. I mean, who are you? You hate bloggers. You make fun of Twitter. You don’t even have a Facebook page. You’re the one who doesn’t exist. You’re doing this because you’re scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don’t matter. And you know what? You’re right. You don’t. It’s not important. You’re not important. Get used to it.
Still, Sam’s right. We’re all just shouting in the wind, trying to be relevant, trying to matter. And at the end of the day, after movie goers walk out of the theater, after play watchers go out for cake, after novel readers put a book down, and after my 3.5 regular readers go on to read another blog…how relevant are we? As it turns out…not very.
Fame is fleeting and celebrities just aren’t as happy as we think.
Throughout the film, Riggan is taunted by Birdman himself – a gravelly voice that sounds more like Christian Bale’s version of Batman than Keaton’s. Birdman is the voice of commercialism, urging Riggan to abandon his efforts at serious drama and sell-out – do a reality TV show, make a Birdman comeback movie. Forget the hoity toy stuff and just rake in the dough.
And honestly, whether Birdman is right or wrong is left up to the viewer’s interpretation.
Big surprise of the film – Zach Galifianakis can actually act. He plays Riggan’s agent and rather than be that same old obliviously rude cartoon character he plays in every movie, he actually comes across as a competent, reliable professional, someone you’d actually want to represent you if you were an actor.
At one point, Shakepeare’s “Life is a Tale Told by an Idiot” speech from MacBeth is prominently featured. If you want to know more about that, you can read expert commentary from world renowned literary expert Bookshelf Q. Battler.
It’s a film that starts a dialog about what we, the entertainment consuming public, want from Hollywood. Because, as it turns out, if enough of us want it, they’ll give it to us. If we show them that high-falutin, chin-stroking, navel gazing, thought provoking dramas will make money, then Tinseltown will send them our way. Yet, if we keep buying tickets for Birdman-esque blockbusters, then we’ll get more comic book movies. It really is up to us.
And it’s also up to us to determine whether or not we should feel guilty about choosing comic book-esque movies over drama. Personally, I don’t. I’m a nerd. I love comic book movies. I love hoity toity stuff too. There’s room in the world for both. One need not cancel the other out.
And sure, the public often complains that Hollywood isn’t trying that hard, but then we pay more attention to viral videos, tweets, and gossipy nonsense than serious efforts at art. At one point in the film, Riggan’s stroll through Times Square in his underpants gets more attention through social media than his play ever does.
We all want to be relevant. We’re all clawing over each other to grab our piece of the public’s limited attention span. We’re all idiots. Can’t we all just calm down, take a deep breathe, stop crawling over each other for a few fleeting minutes of fame, and take a moment to enjoy friends, family, and the things that actually matter? At the end of the film, Riggan frets more about not spending enough time with his daughter than he does about his fizzling acting career.
Heck, had I not promised my 3.5 regular readers a year’s worth of posts, I might seriously consider packing it in myself.
Because if a guy who was paid buckets of money to dress up like a cartoon bird hero can’t be happy, then what luck do any of us have?
I predict this film will win best picture. Keaton’s had a long career and has yet to be graced with an academy award, so he’s overdue. Ironically, it’s a movie about a man trying to get past commercialism and make some serious art made by a man who’s trying to get past commercialism and make some serious art.
The Academy will no doubt love its message – “Hey, we actors aren’t as happy as you’d think, we really struggle to make you all happy!”
And finally, I’d just like to say, I think Michael Keaton is awesome. He made me laugh in movies like The Dream Team and Beetlejuice. And I remember seeing him in the first Batman and I thought, “Wow, Hollywood picked a guy that isn’t all buff and muscle-bound to play a super hero and he did an awesome job. Maybe there’s hope for us nerds.” So I hope tomorrow night is his night to walk home with a little gold man. (I mean an Oscar, not an actual little gold man).
Did you see it? What did you think? Flap your bird wings to the comment section and let me know.
I don’t remember how old I was, but I want to say probably around ten, give or take a year.
I wish I knew where it was. Probably thrown away long ago.
The title? Attack of the Killer Mutant Fish
The plot? Fred the pet store owner’s day goes haywire when a mad scientist walks in and dumps toxic ooze into his fish tanks. I had recently visited a pet store, thus providing me with the inspiration. Also, I was a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though had I managed to get a book deal, Eastman and Laird (creators of TMNT) probably would have sued my ten-year old self.
Medium? Written in a notebook with a pencil in horrible penmanship.
(Cue Bob Saget Narrator from How I Met Your Mother Voice) – Kids, there was a time when not everyone had a computer, or if they did, it didn’t do much. People weren’t obsessed with snapping pictures of what they had for lunch and sharing it with the world, or writing angry tirades about the waitress who brought them cold food and then posting it on Facebook. When people wanted to write, they used these things called pencils to make marks on paper. You know paper right? Thin sheets made out of wood pulp? Never mind.
Review? – As Jon Lovitz’ The Critic would say, “It stinks!” There was a lot of action. The fish grow to an enormous size. They try to eat everyone. Fred shoots the mutant fish. It was pretty much devoid of any artistic merit.
Or was it? Yes, come to think of it, it was an avant grade piece way before its time. It was a grim indictment of man’s futile attempt to conquer nature. In fact, I wrote that in pencil as a subtitle, right on the first page of my notebook:
ATTACK OF THE KILLER MUTANT FISH
OR, A Grim Indictment of Man’s Futile Attempt to Conquer Nature
By: Young Bookshelf Q. Battler
I can’t say it had much in the way of character development. Fred was given no backstory whatsoever. No wife and kids that were depending on him to earn money as a pet store owner. He wasn’t a former soldier who botched up an anti-evil fish mission, forcing him to retire and languish away as a boring pet store owner until finally, fate offered him a chance to redeem himself.
And there was literally no explanation as to why a pet store owner had a gun that he was able to use to fend off the killer mutant fish. Was the pet store in a downtrodden, crime-ridden neighborhood? Was Fred an ex-member of the Yakuza, and thus he felt the need to pack heat at all times out of fear that he could be attacked by his enemies at any moment?
As for the Mad Scientist, the man didn’t even get a name. He just walks in, dumps toxic ooze into the tanks, then leaves. Kind of a jerk, really. But who was he? Was he a deranged Chemical Engineer, whose ideas were rejected one too many times by his scholarly peers, so he decided to take revenge and take over the world with an army of killer mutant fish? Perhaps he was Fred’s arch-nemesis? Maybe Fred and the Scientist once fought in battle during their Yakuza days and now were clashing again?
Personally, I just like to assume Fred stole the Mad Scientist’s woman.
Anyway, I wish I could find the notebook that contained this harrowing tale. But this blog post will serve as the treatment, so if any big time hotshot book agents and/or Hollywood bigwigs are reading, let me know if you are interested and also how much money you want to throw my way.
Sometimes I think all these “leaked” trailers are just a way for studios to beta test their films – get the audience’s reactions and make tweaks accordingly. I just have a hard time believing there’s such lax security around such a massive movie.
But oh well – it looks awesome. Ultron is no Pinocchio.
Bookshelf Battle 