Sorry to see you guys whom I respect finding so little to like in BIRDMAN. It was far and away my favorite movie of a very weak year.
From first frame to last I felt I was in the hands of a director who knew EXACTLY what he wanted to accomplish with each beat and each camera move. I thought the acting was uniformly excellent but really wanted Ed Norton and Emma Stone to never leave the screen, their sequences were so damn exciting to watch. I loved the sense of realism that would slip into fantasy and then slip back with no excuses and no explanations. It was a roller coaster I loved being on for the whole 2 hours of the ride.
There was more love in the other Birdman thread, aside from long tangents on how platform releases work, and that no one cares how many seats are in the St. James in a fictional movie, etc.
I saw it yesterday and it was very bizarre, but the performances in it were excellent. I'm not surprised that Michael Keaton is a contender for the Oscar.