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For Halloween this year, Michael Keaton is dressing up as an Oscar contender.

Keaton stars in "Birdman," the most crazily inventive and brilliantly executed movie of the year so far. Keaton plays Riggan Thompson, a former movie icon — best known for playing a superhero in a series of '90s blockbusters — now trying for career redemption by mounting an adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story on Broadway. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu ("Babel," "21 Grams") creates a dizzying visual spectacle, with the camera seemingly following Riggan and his cohorts (a great cast that includes Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan and Emma Stone) in a single unbroken take. But Keaton, channeling a whole career of off-the-wall characters, shines at the movie's center.

Jake Gyllenhaal also gives a dynamic performance in "Nightcrawler," playing an amoral hustler who discovers his niche when he stumbles into the world of freelance TV crime journalism in Los Angeles. He gets a camera and police scanner, captures footage of horrific accidents and murders, and sells them to an unscrupulous TV news director (Rene Russo) eager to boost her ratings. Writer and first-time director Dan Gilroy uncorks a stylish noir drama, about one man's ability to capitalize on the awful intersection of greed and desperation.

"The Good Lie" is a thoughtful drama that depicts the plight of some of Sudan's "Lost Boys," a generation of young men who escaped civil war to grow up in refugee camps. The drama depicts a group of these young men (most of them portrayed by former refugees and child soldiers) surviving hardships in Africa and discovering new life in America. Reese Witherspoon co-stars as an employment caseworker who befriends these men, but the real focus is on the Sudanese and their remarkable resilience.

"Before I Go to Sleep" is a snoozer of a thriller, starring Nicole Kidman as a woman in a state of perpetual amnesia — waking up every morning with no memory of her life for the past several years. She is aided by her husband Ben (Colin Firth) and a neurologist (Mark Strong), but as she tries to remember her past she must figure out which man she can really trust. The plotting is sparse, and the brooding atmosphere can't cover up the holes in the story.

At the Broadway, there's "Art and Craft," an interesting but unsettling documentary about serial art forger Mark Landis, a Mississippi recluse who has donated his fake works to museums around the country. The film gets uncomfortably close to Landis, revealing a fragile and possibly damaged character who seems to need professional help more than he needs a camera intruding on his life.

Lastly, Lionsgate is launching a one-week re-release of its 2004 horror hit "Saw" to celebrate its 10th anniversary. You have been warned.