Pretty Bird (2008)

Though picked up for distribution by a major Hollywood studio, "Pretty Bird" didn't seem to have received much (if any) exposure in theaters, and it doesn't take long into watching it to figure out why. To be sure, the cast is talented and appealing, and there is nothing really wrong with the premise of the movie. But it is the actual execution that sinks things. The characters more often than not are somewhat thin; their motivations and other personality touches are murky. The tone is inconsistent; the movie can't decide whether it's a quirky comedy with dramatic touches, or a drama with comic touches. The plot elements are somewhat confusing at times; it seems that linking material that would have made things a lot clearer either wasn't filmed or was edited out. Also, the ending seems somewhat abrupt, as if director Paul Schneider was running out of money towards the end of shooting. In the end, while the movie is not aggressively bad, it is all the same very unsatisfying. But it may be of interest to independent filmmakers; if this movie could play at the Sundance film festival and somehow get nominated for a grand jury prize, there is hope for other independent filmmakers no matter how disappointing their movies may be.

Curtis Prentiss (Billy Crudup) has a new idea for an invention. He enlists the help of his friend Kenny Owenby (David Hornsby) who owns a mattress store. Mandy Riddle (Kristen Wiig) works at the store. Rick Honeycutt (Paul Giamatti) is an unemployed rocket scientist. The invention is a rocket belt but Curtis has no technical knowledge and no money.Billy Crudup is wrong for a wacky indie comedy lead. He is not at all funny. It should be much more of a dark comedy early on. Paul Giamatti is fine as a foil to a funnier character and he's also fine in a black comedy. Hornsby does his normal thing. Kristen Wiig is hilarious when she actually gets lines. In general, there are not enough funny jokes and Crudup is not the best one to deliver them anyways. It's a weak attempt at writing and directing from Paul Schneider who is usually an actor. Actually he could have played Curtis a little bit better than Crudup. The last third turns into something darker which isn't set up in the first part of the movie. I can see what this is attempting but it doesn't work.

I'm going to say a lot of nice things about this film. Before I do that, unfortunately, I've got to deal with Pretty Bird's ending. That's because it's really, truly, incredulously bad. This movie is like sleeping with a supermodel and then finding out she gave you crabs. It's like eating a sumptuous meal only to come to the last bite and sink your teeth into a human finger. It's like buying a 200,000 dollar sports car and then having its engine explode when you're pulling up your driveway. Writer/director Paul Schneider did a masterful job for most of this motion picture but then it's like he lost the last 15 pages of the script and then forgot those pages ever existed. This story doesn't conclude. It awkwardly ceases. Pretty Bird has the sort of ending that, if you care enough about how a story wraps up, will retroactively discredit and undermine everything you watch before it.With that out of the way, I loved everything about this film except those last 5 minutes. There are a couple of award worthy performances from Billy Crudup and Paul Giamatti, a marvelous screenplay of interlocking personalities and new perspectives on stereotypes you think you understand, imagery that matches the uncomfortably human with the aspiring ideal and a soundtrack that's often affecting and never annoying. Slap an even halfway decent ending on this thing and it would clear the high jump of cinema greatness with 6 inches to spare.Curtis Prentiss (Billy Crudup) is a handsome man with a dream to build a jet pack, which everyone in this story calls a rocket belt, and somehow make a lot of money with it. He enlists out of work aerospace engineer Rick Honeycutt (Paul Giamatti) to build it, with the whole operation funded by Curtis' old friend Kenny (David Hornsby). Now Kenny, though ably performed, is the same been there, done that closeted homosexual character that was cliché back in 1998. Curtis and Rick, though, are marvelously realized human beings of depth and dimension. Curtis' self-confidence and charm are not just compensation for his insecurity and self-loathing, they're a desperate attempt to cover for the fact that he doesn't connect with other people on an emotional level. The only person Rick seems emotionally connected to is his wife and you get the sense he doesn't know how that ever happened. Rick's a smart man who never bothered to learn how to interact with others and, before Curtis comes along, finds himself unemployed with nothing to show for all his brain power. Curtis is a man of ambition who drives a car that's far too old for any ambitious fellow.And writer/director Schneider doesn't just create two compelling characters. He also does interesting things with them. There are two scenes in particular that are exceptional. One sees Curtis trying to talk a potential investor into putting his money into their rocket belt company. Curtis is the salesman/marketing guy who's usually the subject of derision in fiction and real life, but Schneider almost forces the audience to look at Curtis trying to persuade a disinterested moron into giving him money Curtis absolutely has to have. It's a job that requires Curtis to embrace humiliation and servility and you can't help but respect his willingness to take on the burden in order to play his role in rocket belt enterprise. The other scene is of Rick making love to his wife, smartly played by Elizabeth Marvel. They're going at it doggie style on their bed and at first, it appears like this is going to be the joyless coupling of two middle aged people in a joyless union. Rick even leans over to get a drink of water in mid fornication. But then Rick and his wife start to talk to each other. Not about sex but about the phone call Rick got from Curtis sounding him out about the rocket belt idea. As they talk you can see them both getting more and more into the sex as it blends together with the conversation as an expression of the bond between them. They're not fictional constructs having a great movie screw. They're a 20 year married couple having a pretty good Tuesday night boink. There's a bunch of moments like that throughout Pretty Bird that flesh out the characters without excessively complicating their nature.On the way to its fershluggina finish, this is a delightful ride along the merry go round of three people caught up in a crazy dream. As long as you can put up with the disappointment at the end, you should definitely give this movie a look.

This is another quirky independent film, this one about a pair of business-oriented dreamers who are all attitude and no substance. The great idea is a working rocket belt, something neither of them know anything about. What they have instead is an abundance of business models, motivational pep talks and winning slogans.For the actual rocket belt they succeed in hiring an actual unemployed rocket scientist who begins to develop a prototype. Much of the humor is Gogolesque, treading a fine line between absurdity and apparent success. They are successful in raising money from dreamers like themselves. There is a broad satirical implication that "the money people" are a class apart requiring to be spoon fed a certain business formula unrelated to reality. Nevertheless, the project is satisfyingly rejected by the big-time investors, summarily dismissing it as needing "more science". The film is thus very amusing from the outset and I was prepared for more amusing developments. But the story takes some unfunny turns. The rocket belt becomes the focus of in-fighting which is carried almost to the point of bloodshed. This turn of plot probably because it is based on a true story.The film turns into one focusing on male bonding or the lack of it. The two original entrepreneurs are best friends with a bond that supersedes anything, including reason. The third partner, the rocket scientist, engages with the two to gain recognition, but in the long run the original promoter is implacable. At issue is the prototype rocket belt itself which he has hidden. You aren't supposed to ask the seemingly reasonable question why the scientist, who is the only one who knows how the thing works, doesn't just build a second prototype--maybe this time one capable of better than the 30 seconds flight time.So much is this an all-male film that what might otherwise have been a romance developing between the original promoter and Kirsten Wiig's character is simply dropped, as if for lack of interest. It all adds up to a flick which starts out very funny and is worth watching to the end, but with a little let-down so far as humor is concerned.