Birdman

"I just kept thinking, 'That's Mr. Mom, man!'" -Jon

This is a story about the internal dialog/struggles/petty drama of an actor, self-absorbed and exhausting to watch battle his inner-demons but...

...this guy's inner demons include not just a failed marriage, dried up career, mountains of self-doubt, and a just-out-of-rehab daughter (though, those are there); this guys biggest demon is a Birdman character he played 20 years ago...and some some magical realism...and some incredible meta-dialog wrap-around storyline gymnastics. I was engrossed in it from the first scene to the last.

Like all of director Alejandro González Iñárritu's work, this is painstaking, tense and beautiful. There are moments of comic relief, but always at the expense of someone. 

The camera work is fantastic...edited and cut as if it were one continuous shot (almost) which gives it a cinéma vérité look and feel (although this is certainly not), which is also a nod to how the play unfolds within the movie as real-life bashes its way onto the stage and stretching the boundaries of the fourth wall become the key to resolution of the story.

I'd love to talk to a theater person about this movie...it's been a LONG time since I was on the stage or behind it and I think that would add another dimension all together.

Michael Keaton is really, really good in this.