Movie Review: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a rare and unexpected delight from director Alejandro González Iñárritu, a filmmaker who has made a habit of producing dense, multi-plot storylines that converge in their final moments to offer some Great Truth. Birdman somehow feels both narrower and more transcendent. When the score's percussion takes over, a stifling anxiety sets in. When its symphonic sounds take precedence, Birdman soars. There is no need to clumsily converge at the conclusion because the linkage between Birdman's subplots is already baked into its script, a tale of the backstage chaos that ensues when former blockbuster action star Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) mounts a serious comeback in a new venue, Broadway.

Movie Review: Gravity (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

Alfonso Cuarón—the director who so flamboyantly enhanced the dystopic Children of Men with a number of extended single-take shots nearly impossible to deconstruct—opens his newest film Gravity with its own dizzying, extended take which I clocked at 20 minutes long. It brilliantly introduces laidback veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and his high-strung novice subordinate, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) on a routine spacewalk. The shot establishes the majesty of their work environment in space and slowly ratchets up the unsettling feeling that in this unnatural environment the dangers are far from predictable. Emmanuel Lubezki's constantly pirouetting camera contributes to the stomach-churning feeling of disquiet that gradually increases as the shot goes on way past what most audiences are subliminally accustomed to. So when an unforeseen collision demolishes the space shuttle the two astronauts are tethered to, the shock and terror is more than palpable. In 3D on an IMAX screen, it is unforgivingly all-encompassing.