The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to 2015’s’ multiple Oscar winning critical darling Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts.
Hmmmm, we see that cinemas or distributors or whoever are continuing their habit of milking long-thought-dead cash cows via special “anniversary” screenings…just in case there are a few more pennies to be had. This time, it’s that dreary, laboured, deeply pretentious snore-fest The Revenant from self-aggrandising pest director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Seriously, The Revenant came out all of ten years ago…what’s next, six-month anniversary screenings of Avatar: Fire And Crap? Anyway, yep, The Revenant blows, but it’s not Iñárritu’s biggest cinematic insult. No way! Now, what would that movie be?
Quack quack, tweet tweet, squawk squawk…seriously, was there a more overrated movie in 2015 than Birdman? Or, sorry, to refer to it by its full title, Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)? Those boneheads at The Academy handed over their Best Film gong, the critics collectively swooned, and the world’s movie-going hipsters tied themselves in knots over the film, banging on about its “incredible script” as if it was written by their nauseating poster boy of coolness, Charlie Kaufman, and working themselves up over its “filmmaking techniques” and “long, continuous takes” as if they’d never seen nor heard of Alfred Hitchcock’s equally tedious flick, Rope, or that Orson Welles-helmed slab of claptrap, Touch Of Evil.
Starring the world’s worst Batman, Michael Keaton, as a washed-up Hollywood actor who desperately wants to move on from Birdman, the superhero character that made him famous, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s overly long, horribly tiresome film is way too impressed with itself, and obviously high on its “metafictional” attributes. Yeah, whatever.
If Alejandro González Iñárritu had really wanted to push the envelope, he would have cast Adam West or Val Kilmer in the lead role! As he always has, Keaton gesticulates as if it’s going out of style, and plays everything to the back rows, rivalled only by the equally histrionic Edward Norton and the increasingly irritating Emma Stone, while Naomi Watts phones it in as usual. And don’t mention that beardy prick from The Hangover…
But the worst thing about Birdman? That banging, clanging, nightmarishly insistent drum score by Antonio Sanchez! It’s like that weird old street drummer from Taxi Driver snuck into the studio and laid down his own track without anyone knowing! Or if Alejandro González Iñárritu had flipped too much for that equally horrid critics’ darling, Whiplash. Drumming? Really? As if the self-satisfied dialogue and shrill performances weren’t annoying enough, those drums bash everything home, reminding the audience that Birdman is a film literally flying – at great speed – right up its own arse.
The Revenant: 10th Anniversary is in cinemas now.
Want to read more from The Butcher? Check out his angry missives against Lethal Weapon, Blazing Saddles, Strictly Ballroom, Donnie Darko, Psycho, 12 Years A Slave, Red Dog, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Breathless, Elizabeth, Miracle On 34th Street, The Full Monty, There Will Be Blood, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Magnificent Seven, Gone With The Wind, The Right Stuff, 81/2, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Shawshank Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz, Jaws, Black Swan, Gladiator, Chopper, I’m Not There, Interstellar, Marvel Studios and Citizen Kane.
