Birdman and Whiplash - Two Movie Reviews for the Price of One!

Birdman.  Wow.  This is going to be a relatively short review because I have little to say about it.  The movie won MANY awards in the winter of 2015, most notably the Academy Award for Best Picture.  Seriously?  I honestly don't get it.  Michael Keaton also won a Golden Globe for Best Actor.  That I sort of get - maybe.

I made it through watching the whole movie, but I really didn't enjoy it.  I found it confusing.  It is also labeled as a "comedy".  I found NOTHING funny in the movie at all.  "Black comedy" maybe? No, I still don't get that.  I was left feeling let down by "The Academy" and wondering who paid whom for all the awards!

Michael Keaton plays a washed-up actor who had portrayed a hugely popular fictional superhero called Birdman.  The fame of that role had put him on top in the acting world, but he is tormented by the voice of Birdman.  In this film we see him slowly losing his mind as he directs and stars in a play on Broadway based on a Raymond Carver short story called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".

The ONLY thing I liked about the movie, and the ONLY reason I stuck with it was because it was set in a real Broadway theatre, so we got to see a lot of the back rooms, and the stage set, etc...  As a theatre person, that was cool to me.  What was NOT cool was waiting for the movie to get interesting or entertaining.  As I turned it off, I just scratched my head and said, "HUH?"  

Recommendation - Only watch it if you too want to see the back rooms of a real Broadway theatre!  

Whiplash.  This is going to be an even shorter review because I watched about 30 minutes of this movie and turned it off in disgust.   I really wanted to like this movie because I really like the actor who played the lead music instructor - JK Simmons - who actually won an Academy Award for this role.  However, the music teacher is so violently abusive, both verbally and physically, of his students, that I couldn't stand to watch it.  About the 3rd time he was poised to go off on one of his students, I turned the movie off - I was done.  I really don't want those images in my head.  I have read the plot online, and it is very predictable and very unpleasant.

Recommendation - don't put yourself through watching this.  Just read the story online and move on.

Thanks for reading!  Come back again soon!

:)Amy