Rio

I didn't think people wanted to keep birds as pets anymore, let alone exotic ones, or I at least figured the practise had remarkably decreased in recent years, but perhaps that was only in Canada and Québec, I admit I haven't read anything about it in quite some time, but ye old Rio brings it back into the forefront, meaning it must still be a problem, in different jurisdictions, around the world.

To reiterate the arguments that convinced me that keeping birds as pets was wrong, it boils down to the fact that they can fly, and it's therefore a horrible thing to keep them locked up in cages.

Even if some birds may be crappy at flying, they still cover thousands of kms in flight over the years, many habitually migrating as the seasons change, that must be a cool way to live.

If a lifeform is capable of flight and soaring from one tenacious treetop to the next, is it not extremely cruel to keep it in a cage, where it has nothing to do but lament its miserable situation?

Thoughts of soaring high above the magnificent clouds in search of food and friends and play, no doubt torment downcast birds in cages as they spend their entire lives excruciatingly jailed.

The horrors of the pandemic may serve as an example of what it's like for birds in cages (and other animals too), the extremely frustrating prolonged time when we were forced to spend so many hours at home.

It was for a good reason that is to stop the pestiferous spread of dispiriting plague, but what a horrible thing indeed to have to spend so much time locked down in isolation.

Caged birds routinely share this horror and understand where we're coming from accordingly, and pet owners should therefore think twice before locking a bird down in a cage.

Of course Rio's Blu can't fly and consequently becomes closely attached to his caring owner, the two forging a loving dynamic as she actively comes of age.

But she doesn't know that he's an endangered species until the day when an ornithologist from Brazil comes calling.

Having located a potential bird companion.

The two the last known representatives of their species.

Rio perhaps spends too much time making arguments which justify the possession of exotic birds, not to mention keeping them as pets, and not enough time focused on freedom, which seems like it should be the film's raison d'être.

Freedom is the focus in the end, nevertheless, when the poachers are thwarted and the beasties fall in love.

It's not worth the money to cage wild birds from the jungle.

The profits are limitless if you let them soar free. 

Birdy

I was surprised to discover I had never heard of Alan Parker's Birdy until last weekend, although I may understand why after having viewed it, such a shame it's been widely ignored.

In terms of animal rights, and the presentation of people who like animals, beyond belovéd nature documentaries, it's perhaps pioneering in its narrative.

In Birdy, a friendship develops between a young adult who loves birds (Matthew Modine as Birdy), and another who's more mainstream (Nicolas Cage as Al Columbato), the two interact without trying to change one another, and their reciprocally constructive friendship thrives.

Al may think it's somewhat strange that Birdy dresses up as a bird and pretends to fly, but they also bond through the reconstruction of an old car, and in other creative unique ways.

Unfortunately, they're both sent to fight in Vietnam as the draft cuts short their youth, Mr. Columbato returning with a disfigured face, Birdy having lost his mind.

The chief psychiatrist at the hospital hosting Birdy decides a visit from Al may help, and they meet up in Birdy's cell, while the film showcases moments from their past.

Why have I never heard of this film, why has it been forgotten, should it be a Criterion, it's strange seeing Nicolas Cage play the straight man?

It's possible that Birdy's gay although he never hits on Al, but he certainly has no interest in women, this could explain why the film's somewhat hush hush.

A mainstream relatable cool and comic film with an ambiguously gay lead character who loves animals, makes friends, and critiques the army, a recipe for artistic suppression if I've ever heard of one, what a shame, what a disaster!

It's still out there though available for rent from different places.

It must be one of Cage's first major roles. 

Another reason I'm surprised I've never heard of it.

But in how many films do you find leads who genuinely care about animals, films that don't try to make such lead characters seem nuts, even if having to have had to have fought in a war has driven one of them crazy, while attempting to appeal to a mainstream audience, without being overly sentimental?

Not many, Birdy may be one of a kind although I'm sure there are others I'm just not thinking of.

I loved it when they rescued the dogs.

It's tragic when Birdy can't open the window.

There should be more films about gentle souls.

That don't even have to focus on the horrors of war.

A classic '80s film deserving of more recognition.

Perhaps too many lines were crossed.

But there's nothing quite like shifting boundaries.

Conceptually speaking. 

The Starling

No telling how the shock of unexpectedly losing someone will short-circuit, but there's no doubt it's an awful experience requiring patience, understanding, and compassion.

In The Starling, a loving husband is thoroughly overcome with grief (Chris O'Dowd as Jack Maynard), after his baby daughter doesn't wake up, a beautiful gift whom he adored.

He's so overwhelmingly grief-stricken that he checks into a local hospital, where caring sympathetic professionals try their best to ease his pain.

His wife remains at home and continues to work while slowly convalescing, visiting her husband once a week and bringing treats for each encounter (Melissa McCarthy as Lilly Maynard).

But since he doesn't progress and remains sadly lost in a deep depression, she struggles to optimistically adjust, especially when he no longer wants to see her.

It's recommended she seek therapy too, guidance from a former psychiatrist working as a vet (Kevin Kline as Dr. Larry Fine), with whom she strikes up a begrudging friendship, like a therapeutic odd couple.

Meanwhile, she cleans her yard and a resident starling starts to pester her.

She responds with uptight disdain.

Then feels guilty for her hasty actions. 

The Starling doesn't shy away from emphasizing sincere distress, and related waves upon waves of anguish as the Maynards come together. 

But it also praises the painstaking sacrifices spouses make while married at times, providing an amicable unassuming exemplar of devout enduring flexible partnerships. 

So many conflicting emotions difficult to comprehend since they're new and sad, add a steady routine on top of them, and there's bound to be a lot of confusion.

Lilly honestly reacts with genuine innocence as she freely adapts, with classic aggrieved McCarthian carnage, somewhat mollified for sombre subject matter.

As Lilly tries to poison the starling, human/animal relations are oddly characterized, she also hits it with a rock later on, the vet fortunate enough to save it.

After that everything's great for the starling and it seems as if she's welcome in the yard.

This is how people who don't understand human/animal relationships write about them (perhaps like Lindsay Bluth-Fünke). 

I sincerely hope that I'm not missing something. 

The Messenger

I've been thinking that if you possessed the ability to identify sundry song birds while walking through the woods, that walk would be a much more rewarding experience.

There are so many.

I've always loved seeing bears and raccoons, deer and foxes, skunks, chipmunks, minks, but learning more about song birds now seems like the best way to expand my knowledge of the forest, which is in need of expansion, in the interests of lifelong learning.

Because there are so many of them, it's difficult to notice if species are declining if you no longer hear the song you can't identify; there are still plenty of other songs being sung, so it still seems like song bird populations aren't threatened or decreasing every year.

But according to Su Rynard's documentary The Messenger, song bird populations have been decreasing every year for at least 40 years, windows, cats, habitat loss, climate change and chemical insecticides thought to be largely responsible.

I know the inclusion of cats sounds odd.

Aren't cats and birds just interacting as they always have, like lions and zebras or wolves and deer?

It's not quite that simple, as The Messenger suggests, by lucidly pointing out that house cats are actually invasive species, brought with humans wherever they go.

If house cats are thought to be lions and song birds zebras, it's like North America had billions of zebras and no lions until domestic cats showed up on the scene, stealthily silencing many bird songs.

It's recommended that cat owners keep their cats indoors for longer periods of time, or all the time, for even if it may seem like your cat doesn't eat many birds, cats are annually responsible for 1.4 billion bird deaths, and 32 song bird species are now extinct because of cats.

The Messenger also points out how the bizarro French practice of eating ortolans whole, possibly other song birds as well, needs to stop. It's like hunting elephants for ivory. Ortolan numbers have plummeted and people are continuing to eat them, as poachers continue to kill elephants, extinction looming on the horizon, it's disgusting, plain and simple.

It's not just a trifling matter when a species disappears; ecosystems can be harshly effected.

The Messenger mentions how Mao's ludicrous campaign to kill all the tree sparrows in China because they ate grain resulted in 30 million human deaths. The tree sparrows also ate insects that ate crops and without the tree sparrows to eat them, thirty million people starved to death.

It's thought that ariel insectivores are declining in Europe and North America, song birds that live around farms and grasslands, because farmers are using neonicotinoids to kill insects. It's believed that these chemicals have no effect on the aquatic environments they saturate, but this may not be the case, and they may be killing additional insect populations in said environments which aerial insectivores eat to survive.

If farmers can find ways to encourage song birds to live on their farms, perhaps they wouldn't need chemical insecticides. Song birds and bats. According to The Messenger, song birds also excel at distributing seeds and pollinating plants, while forming links with other species that cultivate a healthy ecosystem. It's also nice having them around, hearing them sing, watching them perch and scavenge about.

Windows and lights are also responsible for prematurely ending the lives of many a song bird. Many of them can't see windows and fly straight into them. There are ways to adjust windows to make them bird friendly, notably placing distractions on them that help song birds to see that they're flying into a window rather than continuing on a safe path. Lights being left on at night near windows often attract song birds as well, who often migrate at night.

Climate change.

On the plus side, Icarus Technology allows people to track song birds as they migrate around the world. It must be fascinating following their flight paths as they travel from one continent to the next.

If song bird populations have been decreasing for decades, it's a sign that the phenomenon isn't cyclical, and something can be done about it.

The Messenger travels across the globe interviewing passionate song bird enthusiasts to help people better understand these oft overlooked naturalistic wonders.

Their songs have inspired and are inspiring great musicians. Their colouring is stunning. They play productive roles in nature. And these tiny creatures the size of one's hand travel back and forth from continent to continent to the same precise seemingly impossible to find location year after year.

If millions of people kept their cats inside for longer hours, adjusted their windows to make them bird friendly, and kept lights out when they're not using them, billions of song bird lives may be saved.

Ecotourism is flourishing here and there.

Why not apply that concept to suburban and urban environments?

The ecoburbs?

Bet they're already doing it in Germany . . .

Healing

Feel-good regenerative character building assignments can sternly yet sympathetically rehabilitate both inmate and injured bird alike, according to Craig Monahan's Healing, a family friendly sentimental melodrama.

Respectful, school-of-hard-knocksy, and well-rounded, with several strongly developed primary and secondary (somewhat one-dimensional) characters, it generically yet comprehensively annotates its subject matter, polarities within polarities structuring the altercations, emphasizing forgiveness and zoo therapy, and that no one can be left alone.

If you like animals, notably birds, there's a feast of endearing schmaltzy scenes within, the raptor Yasmin often used to transition, his facial expressions commenting on the action.

There's also a strong egalitarian dimension, Healing's principle character being an Iranian convict who was convicted for murder (Don Hany as Viktor Khadem), its narrative featuring his strengths and weaknesses as an individual, not as a member of a specific ethnicity, while still exploring aspects of his culture to indicate difference without effacing opportunity, giving both him and his Australian cohabitants an equal chance for release.

There are the odd ethnocentric slurs but they're residual, distastefully expressed.

The conflict within the polarities gives the story a gritty character which adds a real-world dimension to its ethics.

I still would have cut down the length by about 15 minutes, the cutesiness dulling its edge as too much time passes.