Kurt Loder Reviews Birdman and Fury

Comebacks are hard. Twenty years ago, Riggan
Thomson (Michael Keaton) was an international movie icon—the masked
and feathered crime-fighting superhero Birdman. He bailed out of
the franchise after three pictures, but the typecasting damage to
his career was done. Now, low on dough and desperate for
redemption, he’s determined to stake a claim as a serious actor. He
has adapted a very serious Raymond Carver story and is bringing it
to Broadway, with himself as both director and star. It’s not going
well. New York theatre snoots dismiss him as a Hollywood has-been,
and tabloid jackals pepper him with off-topic questions like, “Is
it true you’ve been injecting yourself with semen from baby pigs?”
Worse yet, the Birdman—feathers and all—is making a comeback, too.
What a nightmare. Kurt Loder applauds
Birdman, writing that few movies attempt to do
anything this fresh.

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