Birdman began playing yesterday in four theatres (two in Los Angeles, two in Manhattan) and took in $135,602 or $33,901 per situation…pretty big-timey. Presumably a portion of the HE community saw it last night and…well, you know what. Please. Thank you.

“Birdman is one of the most antsy, emotionally exposed, drill-down big-city comedies I’ve ever experienced, and probably the most transcendent, spirit-lifting film I’ve seen this century with Children of Men running a close second. It’s actually more of a psychological angst-and-anxiety movie with an infusion of Ingmar Bergman enzymes and occasional hyena laughs. It’s not a laugh riot per se but when it connects it’s fall-on-the-floor.

“And yet Birdman is (and I love this aspect) fundamentally a New York-centric flick about the state of current creative aspirations and values, and a film that hates the fleeting, Twitter-propelled consciousness that defines almost everything today. It’s in love with the real-deal gleam and glimmer of the Broadway stage and the tough, anxious performers who put themselves on the line in front of discerning audiences…all that romantic All About Eve smell-of-the-crowd lore fast-forwarded 65 years.

“It follows that Birdman despises the Hollywood that has manifested over the last 20 or 25 years — a town of ADD, effects-driven, ComicCon-catering swill merchants. So don’t kid yourself — this is a nervy anti-Hollywood movie that the status-quo clingers and comfort-seekers are probably going to shy away from or regard from a certain distance.” — from my 8.31 Telluride review.