Birdman Director’s Tux is strange, beautiful, unique—a profoundly entertaining masterpiece

Surprising, dazzling, and so different from many of the other tuxedos at this years Oscars ceremony, Birdman director Alejandro Iñárritu’s black suit was a bold triumph of vacuous virtuosity.

How can you not be in awe of the sheer physical achievement, of the intricate choreography of the white dress shirt, of the bowtie’s strange intensity?  It’s undeniably thrilling to watch Gonzalez Iñárritu aiming so high.

When he walked on stage to claim his Oscar you go, “Whew!” You want to latch onto Iñárritu’s scruffy neck and fly wherever his surrealist sense of fashion goes, even if it’s too close to the sun.

Iñárritu’s gently curled hair was a jaw-dropping stylistic wow that pirouetted, turned inside out, and miraculously stayed aloft for two hours–even throughout the director’s rushed acceptance speeches. Did it dip? A time or two. Did it take vivid flight? Absolutely.

The decision to couple the black suit with black leather shoes, most evident when Iñárritu claimed the award for Best Picture, was so good, so profoundly entertaining, so confident that it makes you wonder whether the other Iñárritu — the director who wore a regular tie to the 2011 golden globes– was a fraud all along.

There’s no question that the 3-time Oscar winner’s choice of tuxedo gets at various flavors of modern madness with an intensity that can be punishing.  It inspires renewed faith in what we used to go watch the Oscars for: to be spellbound from beginning to end.

Lots of suits claim to be different. Iñárritu’s i