Alternate Movie Reviews#1 - Birdman

      Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

                                    - directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Cast-

a Certain Uncle - Barack Obama

Brat Guy - Vladimir Putin

a Certain Uncle`s twisted Daughter - Narendra Modi

Insecure Actress - some unknown insecure actress

Sidekick Actress - some unknown sidekick actress (maybe insecure but doesn't show.)

Birdman is a powerful unintentional satire or prophesy about the world and what grabs the viewer by the nuts is the vaguely real, bordering on quasi- Kafkaesque story line.

The movie starts with a Certain Uncle suspended in midair, a possible yogic posture or maybe a Godot of a situation or a Black Hawk ready to attack. It becomes clear that he is trying to revive the glory of his past accomplishments as a superhero ( WW2, Cold War, Afghanistan, Iraq) which ended with a flopped black comedy, Vietnam. A Certain Uncle, to be a superhero again, has adapted a Raymond Carver`s short story for a Broadway performance, which just seem to have one dialogue regarding how true love is (or isn't) about killing people. The play is sure to suck, as the movie in the beginning suggests.

After the Certain Uncle injures a lead actor ( Pakistan) by his psychic abilities ( yes he does seem to possess them, destroying things without touching them, which is quite ironic because the things he does want to affect, like his relation with his daughter or girlfriend or the world in general, seem not to be affected, touched or untouched), Brat Guy comes in to rescue the production.

Now, Brat Guy from the start has an upper hand as he is not only a better actor but is also artistically very weird ( or more weird) ( he tries to bone the Insecure Actress on stage { the preview show becomes a major hit when he steps out of the bed, on stage, with a " Massive hard-on"} and Ukraine doesn't take it in good artistic spirit.) Brat Guy seems more at home in the world (theater) doing everything according to his whim, while a Certain Uncle just keeps fucking things up for being in control and what not.

A Certain Uncle also has a twisted Daughter, played superbly by Narendra Modi. She is just out of rehab after ten long years and is trying to be, well, inconspicuous, and fit into the world. She is a mess, even after being inactive for ten years. The relationship of the Twisted Daughter with a Certain Uncle is a complicated mixture of hate, admiration and frustration( she is his ' assistant' but actually can just as well be considered a helping hand, a woman Friday.) What she says ( will walk, talk and even roll around if it gets her a nice treat) and what she does ( smoke pot behind his back) are two polar opposite things.  But she surely seems to have the hots for Brat Guy. They eventually bone too, which doesn't seem to sit well with the Certain Uncle but begets her a promise of 12 nuclear power stations and hell lot of oil and natural gas, courtesy, Brat Guy.  

While all this is happening a Certain Uncle is haunted by his Birdman superhero past, which in a husky military general voice keeps telling him that he is ummm... a motherfucker and a no good and a wash out and all that kind of jazz. But a Certain Uncle is hell bent on being ' Relevant' again and chooses to ignore the George W Bush voice in his head, and carries on his innocuously innocent plans of performing a lame-ass show for the world.  

A sequence towards the end of the movie is quite interesting in this respect, i.e a Certain Uncle`s desire, bordering on an obsessive compulsive need, to prove himself worthwhile again, to be a world saving hero. A Certain Uncle realizing that the Brat Guy is humping his Twisted Daughter,  goes out to well, let the cigarette do the venting for him, and involuntary finds himself locked out of the world with the end of his robe stuck in the door. A Certain Uncle, who has to get into the world to prove himself and well, act his part in the play, takes off his robe and marches in his immaculate white and quite tight briefs and enters the world from the front door. Hell is raised. His semi-naked video ( about training Al-Qaeda and making out with Saddam Hussein) goes viral. The play is a hit.

But these were just preview shows, and the main critic, Old Woman who Licked a Homeless Guy`s Ass, has not even seen a single one of them, though is ready to trash the whole thing and throw him out of business, as she tells a Certain Uncle in a bar. Basically Israel is pissed because she isn't as famous as the Certain Uncle and doesn't want him to take the limelight away from her as the main Muslim killing machine.  A Certain Uncle gets very fucking upset and throws crap at her, which is the usual shit a washed out artist tells a disapproving world, that she can`t 'feel' and she just labels, she doesn't  'see' but just..well whatever. Old Woman who Licked a Homeless Guy`s Ass is unperturbed.

Just before the main show, a Certain Uncle has a major but uplifting psychotic episode. He gives in to his past, who is now walking ( and flying) and talking to him visibly in reel-time, dressed as the Birdman. A Certain Uncle jumps off a building and with impressive drone attacks destroys Iran, Syria and is ready to save the world( himself?) from the Islamic terrorists by being ready ( finally) to kick the world in the nuts. He glides down  in front of the world from his world conquering but imagined feat and goes in without paying the taxicab driver who actually got him there and is a poor, beaten and fobbed off Red Indian.

A Certain Uncle goes into his dressing room, picks up a real gun ( which is supposed to be not real and just a prop) and goes on stage, says his lines and BOOM! blows his brains out. Old Woman who Licked a Homeless Guy`s Ass, is the first to leave, hurriedly.   

This is quite unlike a Certain Uncle and might hint at his presence in the China occupied Tibet, where he might have learnt Vipassana meditation and probably the art of self sacrifice. The viewer is made to believe that the miserable fuck of a Certain Uncle has finally said good bye to his meaningless life, but, no. The viewer is reminded of the dialogue between the Certain Uncle and W Bush voiced Birdman, ' ...and rise again like a Phoenix..'  Well, that's what happens. He is miraculously saved. The certain unworthy a Certain Uncle has paid for his, well, arrogance and dumbness in real life blood and every critic is sold. Even Old Woman who Licked a Homeless Guy`s Ass, who writes the best review.

A Certain Uncle turned Phoenix now looks surprisingly like a ripped off Birdman himself ( with sucky art direction and costume design) but he doesn't stop hallucinating and sees W Bush again, taking a dump and sounding disappointed with him. So he goes to the window, and well...yes, jumps off.

The last scene of the movie is quite symbolic. A tired and shaken, Narendra Modi enters her father`s room and obviously because he isn't there, and the window is open, she goes there panicking and freaking out, sure to see her father`s body, a mere pulp on the sidewalk. But no, the viewer is made to believe, through her gaze that he is not down there, but up in the sky, probably flying, soaring high like a Black Hawk, destroying and killing innocent people, without even touching them.

The beautifully cinematic experience that Birdman provides to a viewer ( if the ripped copy is of good quality) is majorly because of two reasons.

a) the balanced real life CC and

b) the one long shot that the movie is shot in ( and some montage sequences at the end)

It is a movie about a nation relapsing into its normal abnormal self and its good Republican propaganda for next US elections.