Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Gena Rowlands | ... | Ivy | |
Tony Shalhoub | ... | Misha Vilyenkov | |
Cheech Marin | ... | Ignacio | |
Bruce Davison | ... | Dr. Reingold | |
Trini Alvarado | ... | Adult Marie Alweather | |
Jay Mohr | ... | Benny / Paulie (voice) | |
Buddy Hackett | ... | Artie | |
Hallie Eisenberg | ... | Marie Alweather (as Hallie Kate Eisenberg) | |
Matt Craven | ... | Warren Alweather | |
Bill Cobbs | ... | Virgil the Janitor | |
Tia Texada | ... | Ruby / Lupe (voice) | |
Laura Harrington | ... | Lila Alweather | |
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Peter Basch | ... | Graduate Student #1 |
Emily Mura-Smith | ... | Graduate Student #2 | |
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Hal Robinson | ... | Grandpa |
Paulie, an intelligent parrot who actually talks, relates the story of his struggle to a Russian immigrant who works as a janitor at the research institute where he is housed and neglected. Paulies story begins many years earlier when he is given as a gift to a little girl who stutters. Eventually, he teaches the girl to speak correctly but is taken away by her father because he believes the girl cannot distinguish fantasy from reality because she believes the bird can talk. Paulie goes through a series of adventures with a pawn shop owner, an ageing widow, a Mexican-American troubadour and a would be thief before being taken to the institute where he now lives. Written by <lodger13@iwl.net>
This is a really heart-warming family movie. It has absolutely brilliant animal training and "acting" (if you can call it like that) as well (just think about the dog in "How the Grinch stole Christmas"... it was plain bad training). The Paulie story is extremely well done, well reproduced and in general the characters are really elaborated too. Not more to say except that this is a GREAT MOVIE!
My ratings: story 8.5/10, acting 7.5/10, animals+fx 8.5/10, cinematography 8/10.
My overall rating: 8/10 - BIG FAMILY MOVIE AND VERY WORTH WATCHING!