Jon Lisi

It is pretty great. I wasn’t as “scared” by it as others, but the performances and filmmaking are fantastic, and you can tell that it is clearly about something.

Hilarious and nearly missed the list.

I agree with everything you say about the filmmaking and performances in Birdman, but that’s where it ends for me. The monologue Emma Stone delivers to Michael Keaton about most people not caring about his plight kind of sums it up for me.

I admire Birdman on a technical level, and thought the performances were great, but the film lacks subtlety, and the narrative is too insular. I don’t think many people will connect to the conflict of the film, in which an actor struggles to be taken seriously. I certainly didn’t, and found Chris Rock’s Top Five a more interesting and universal treatment of this subject.

Starred Up was great, with one of those star-is-born performances by Jack O’Connell

Great article on a film that I always found to be overrated (‘Pulp Fiction’ was still robbed of the Oscar, as was ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Quiz Show’), but I admire its defiantly optimistic view of the world and humanity, and the fact that it’s completely original.

Great list. I’d say that you covered the major ones that showcase his talent. One that isn’t mentioned is his brief but hilarious turn in Punch Drunk Love.

Good choices, and there are many others as well. There are certainly worse things in the world than using the cinematic medium to make a statement about a cause, but I wonder, do you think “issue” films have gotten too preachy or one-sided?

Not to say that I don’t agree with the message of many of these films, but I do sometimes wonder if I’d prefer documentaries like ‘Let the Fire Burn’ that are a little more complicated and less conclusive, and that leave the audience thinking without necessarily telling the audience what to think.