Riggan Thomson, unlike the drummer of Whiplash, the year's other film about an artist who beats thimself to prove his worth, is his own sadistic taskmaster. Michael Keaton’s character in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) lives on the thin line between hysterical delusion of grandeur and the sobering reality that he just might not matter. Riggan is an actor whose success in a series of “Birdman” movies has made him a global star. He decides to test himself by producing, writing, and starring in the Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Read more . . . 

 Thrashing jazz drums accompany two of the best films released this year. Both efforts are about artists who are more than willing to torment themselves in order to prove worthy of their demanding crafts. In Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, young Andrew Neyman, played by Miles Teller, goes to extremes to realize his dream of becoming one of the world’s great drummers. 
(In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, Michael Keaton’s aging movie star Riggan Thomson, already rich and world famous, drives himself mad to prove his stature as an artist. - reviewed separately)
Whiplash, directed by Harvard graduate Damien Chazelle, is based on an 18-minute version of an earlier film with the same title. His charming first feature, Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench, was shot in black & white entirely around Boston, and is filled with as much tap dancing and singing as you would find in a low budget 1930′s musical. It is a delightful short film about music and the travails of young love. Justin Hurwitz, who wrote the music for Guy And Madeline … also wrote much of the score for Whiplash, in which the earlier charm and hoofing gives way to blood, sweat, and tears  Read more . . . 

Who knows? Might the book or movie of Gone Girl plant a seed of uxoricide or perhaps mariticide in your brain? You are probably familiar with the novel’s storyline, which focuses on a man who is all but convicted by the media and public opinion for murdering and then salting away the body of his wife. In David Fincher’s film adaptation (screenplay by Gillian Flynn, who is also the author of the spooky and disturbing novel), the plot is exploited to satirize middle class marriage and woe. Ben Affleck is perfectly cast as Nick Dunne, the much-too cool husband with the lying cleft chin; the icily beautiful Rosamund Pike handles the well role of Amy Elliott-Dunne, Nick’s missing wife.

Fincher does a good job at making our skin crawl while we chuckle at the audacity of the goings-on. Think of the hideously displayed bodies in his earlier film Seven, 

Read more . . .