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Posted: |
Feb 23, 2015 - 2:13 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I did not particularly care for BIRDMAN, and find it to be hugely overrated. The 'one-take' gimmick quickly wears out its welcome, and the dialogue is rather full-on and grating for my taste (I'm not a fan of Woody Allen either, or French films like POLISSE, which all subscribe to the same ideology). Same with the "score". Interesting one-off experiment, but nothing worthwhile or lasting.
BOYHOOD, on the other hand, is a marvelous piece of cinema and one of my favourite films of last year. This is also an experiment, in a way, with the many years of shooting the same boy -- but it's experimentation that makes sense. It's a film about 'being' more than it's a particularly eventful narrative, and I like that. Just an observation on 'being human' and growing up with all that comes with it. With Linklater, less is more!
So for me, it's an easy choice -- BOYHOOD all the way!
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Posted: |
Feb 23, 2015 - 4:04 PM
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By: |
DeputyRiley
(Member)
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Joan, Richard Linklater is by far and away my favorite director of all time. Most of his films, absolutely including Boyhood, have always spoken to me on very profound and truthful levels. Boyhood is a feat of unconventional storytelling, of committed artistic achievement by all disciplines involved in the craft of moviemaking, and a beautifully honest story of family and growing up. I highly, highly recommend you see it.
Having said that, it isn't your typical movie. Not a lot of "big" things happen. The "big" things that happen are found (as they usually are in real life) in the small moments, the milestones of life and growing that contain immediate or often reflective truths. Cumulatively, the small moments that make up the characters' lives in Boyhood amount to anything as grand or epic as Hollywood tries to crank out, only Linklater and co. explore the grand and epic depths and heights of the heart and the soul, not of spectacle and grand pronouncement.
I can see people not digging Boyhood, people who are more used to common Hollywood fare, big tried-and-true story beats, clear-cut heroes and villains, etc. Some may just not care for Linklater's style, and that's cool. To me it's as good as it gets, and as someone whose opinion and perspective on this board I respect, Joan, I hope you'll give it a chance. I hope anyone else reading this will, too.
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Side note...Now if only the single remaining film in Linklater's filmography will only be released on DVD: 1996's Suburbia, starring Giovanni Ribisi, Parker Posey, Steve Zahn, and Nicky Katt. My favorite movie of all-time, tied first place with Carlito's Way. I'm dearly hoping that the attention Boyhood has garnered will shed some light on this little-known work of art, based on a play by Eric Bogosian, which is inexplicably only available streaming or VHS -- no DVD!
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Both of these movies are dramatically lo key that rely on a central gimmick.
I submit that the 'single-take' of Birdman does nothing to help tell the story.
Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's long takes worked beautifully for Gravity, do not help the story so much here.
There was a scene where Emma Stone rants at Michael Keaton that was played in wayyy too close framing, and it took me right out of the movie.
I'm more neutral on Boyhood. It's not meant to be high-stakes drama, and the slice-of-life story is played very well by the entire cast. Whether it was filmed over 12 years with the same people or over two months different age actors, I don't think it would have mattered.
Still, I'm glad Linklater made this. As an experiment it still succeeds beautifully as a coherent film.
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I enjoyed both, Joan, though perhaps the absurdities, satire and magic realism of BIRDMAN were more my cup of tea when I saw it than BOYHOOD. I really admire the latter, and films like it - like Winterbottom's EVERYDAY, or the 'growing up' 90 minutes of TREE OF LIFE. In this case I'm not sure it had 3 hours in it - maybe 2 hours 30 would have been enough? - but episodic narratives can be like that. They aren't a cause and event chain, so they don't have the same rhythmic essential end. BIRDMAN has a couple of endings too many as well, but was, as a filmmaker, exhilarating.
IMITATION GAME is like a well-cooked meal you've eaten many times before. It's done well. No particular excitement if you know the subject. These two are stranger one-off dishes you should try sometime. (BIRDMAN a bit closer to 8 and a HALF or ALL THAT JAZZ.)
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Posted: |
Feb 26, 2015 - 10:39 AM
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By: |
Jon Broxton
(Member)
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In my review of BIRDMAN I wrote this about the film:
"While Birdman certainly has its fair share of positives – the acting being the most obvious, which is across-the-board superb – I found the rest of the film to be horrifically self-indulgent, the worst kind of ‘meta’ film making, and pretentious to the extreme. Iñárritu’s choice to shoot the film as a series of long and apparently unbroken takes, Hitchcock-style, is technically excellent, but distractingly gimmicky, while the ‘immediacy’ of the camerawork often results in the film having bizarre framing, forcing us to experience the film an inch away from Keaton’s nostrils, or having Stone’s already gigantic eyes completely fill the screen. I also was annoyed and a little insulted by the way the film seemingly talks down to its audience, virtually daring them to be bored and restless, taunting them with action sequences, and then berating them for enjoying them. This sneering sense of intellectual superiority got under my skin somewhat, and soured what could otherwise have been an interesting rumination on stardom, relevance, and creative fulfillment."
I still feel the same. For me, BOYHOOD was a better film than BIRDMAN, but both THE IMITATION GAME and THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING are better than both of them - I think IMITATION GAME should have won best picture.
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