PAULIE

'''Paulie''' is a 1998 film starring Tony Shalhoub, Gena Rowlands, Hallie Kate Eisenberg and Jay Mohr. It is about the adventures of a smart-talking bird who frequently finds himself in trouble. Jay Mohr - whom apart from playing a minor on-screen character - performs the voice for the titular character Paulie.

Contents

Plot

External links

Plot

Misha Belenkoff, a Russian immigrant, works as a janitor at an animal testing lab. One night while working late, he hears singing coming from the basement. He goes down to investigate, and finds that it is a blue-crowned conure doing the singing. The bird is startled by Misha and berates the janitor for interrupting him. Misha immediately runs away to tell the scientists working there. They follow Misha to the basement. Misha tries to get the bird to talk, but he refuses. The scientists scold Misha for wasting their time and leave. Misha becomes angered with the bird, but then starts to reminisce about his time in Russia, where he was a professor, and expresses his disdain at the fact that he is now a "cleaner of bird crap." He wishes he had someone to talk to, and the bird tells him to "join the club." Misha is amazed that the bird can really talk. He tries to get the bird to say something else, but he won't. Misha reads up on birds and finds that this particular bird likes mangos. He brings the bird a mango slice, to which the bird reacts indifferently. Misha baits the bird by pretending the mango slice tastes very good, and the bird finally gives in and speaks. The two establish a rapport and the bird tells Misha how his life began.
The baby bird was given to a little girl named Marie, who has a speech impediment, as a birthday present. Since she cannot decide on a name, her grandfather names him "Paulie". While she learns to speak correctly, so does Paulie. He not only mimicks words, but can understand them and can form complex sentences. Marie's father, a military man, does not like the bird. When Marie tells her parents that the bird can talk, they don't believe her and even start thinking the bird might be a bad influence on her. She decides that Paulie must learn to fly to prevent them from ever being separated. The thought of flying scares Paulie, but Marie wants to teach him anyway. She takes him outside a window to try and demonstrate how to fly, but she ends up stumbling down the roof and almost falls, but her father catches her. He decides Paulie must go, and takes him to a pawn shop, where he is bought by an aging artist, Ivy. She teaches him manners, and even takes Paulie back to Marie's house, but they find that she and her family have moved. It turns out that she has moved to Los Angeles. After a great deal of persuasion, Paulie convinces Ivy to commence a journey from New Jersey to Los Angeles to find Marie. During their trip across the country, Ivy begins to lose her sight. Since she can't take him any further, Ivy proposes Paulie learns to fly. This still scares Paulie, and he refuses. Ivy finally loses her sight entirely, and shortly thereafter passes away. Paulie, deeply saddened by Ivy's passing, decides he must finally learn to fly. He takes off and flies to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunrise, one of Ivy's dying wishes.
After travelling for some time, Paulie arrives in eastern Los Angeles. He then joins a group of performing parrots owned by Ignatio, a Spanish speaking man. Paulie falls in love with a supposedly attractive female parrot of the group named Lupe. He thought Lupe was an individually speaking parrot like himself, but she was nothing but an imitating parrot, making him slightly lose interest in her. During a nighttime performance orchestrated by Ignatio, a petty thief named Benny, who was familiar with Paulie from a previous encounter at the pawn shop, decided to kidnap the parrot for his own profit. He called the police as part of his plan to take possession of Paulie and claimed that Ignatio was giving liquor to underage people. During the following riot by the police, Benny weaved his way through the chaos and snatched Paulie despite his protests.
In a short amount of time, Benny was able to teach Paulie the art of stealing money from ATM machines with other people's credit cards. After a while, all of the people they were stealing from had empty credit card accounts. Benny's girlfriend starts to get fed up with the small amount of stolen income that Benny and Paulie are taking in and demands jewelery from the man. Paulie is sent into a house which Benny believes to contain high-quality jewelery. Paulie enters through the chimney, with Benny and his girlfriend waiting outside for Paulie to return. Paulie quietly steps through the house, but despite his efforts in taking a valuable diamond necklace, he was unable to escape through a closed window. Benny and his girlfriend ditched Paulie when they saw Paulie’s panicked pleas for help through the window. Paulie is then cornered by a boy with a plastic bow and suction cup arrows. The boy's grandfather then comes into the room and places a bag over Paulie’s eyes.
Paulie recovers in a building where he is observed and tested on his abilities to read, speak and identify images. Paulie only agreed to complete the tasks for the manager in return for the location of Maria’s whereabouts. The manager betrayed Paulie and then Paulie went into a frenzy in the conference room where he was to display his speaking talents. For this, the manager ordered his wings to be clipped and to be placed in a cage down in the basement for an indefinite amount of time. Misha quits his job in anger at the same manager who locked Paulie in the basement and Misha helps Paulie and various other animals escape from the research institute.
At the end, Misha takes him to Marie's new house. Misha got the address from a book on birds at the beginning of the movie he looked at to see that the species Paulie is likes mango. So, Misha takes a bus to Marie's house. They see a little girl, and are excited, thinking it's Marie. But, seeing her face, they realize it isn't Marie. Later, a beautiful young woman, Marie, aged now about 20, walks out of the house and heads towards Paulie and Misha. Paulie doesn't believe that she's Marie at first, but Marie explains that many years have passed, and sings Paulie the song her mother used to sing to her, after which Paulie believes that she is Marie, and is full of joy. They invite Misha inside, Paulie flies around for a bit for the first time in years, and lands on Marie's shoulder. They all walk in, and here the movie ends.

External links

★

★ A bird's review of the movie and the confirmation of Paulie's bird species. Paulie is not a lovebird. The lovebird is smaller than a blue-crowned conure.