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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Carol Altschuler, of Elkins Park, left a voicemail earlier this week: Based on a two sentence description she’d read in the Inquirer, she ventured into town over the weekend to catch Bird’s Eye View at the Roxy Theater.

This is part of her review, the message she left on the phone: “Unbelievable … The movie was a riot… The whole animal thing, the alien thing… I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a real find!”

Ah yes, the animal thing, the alien thing. Cybela Clare, the Rittenhouse Square writer/director/producer and star of Bird’s Eye View, communes with cockatoos. She has an ardent animal rights agenda that makes Brigitte Bardot look like Mademoiselle Milquetoast. And then there’s the alien stuff: a flashback to Clare’s character’s childhood, a little girl gone missing in a blast of light. There’s are testimonials from women who were abducted and impregnated by aliens. There’s even stuff about missing bovine body parts – cow organs taken into space on flying saucers.

A true indie, a piece of cinematic outsider art, Clare’s faux-doc thriller combines Dan Brown huggermugger with paranormal X-Files intrigue with dialogue that’ll make you laugh. But behind it all is a sentiment, and a sense of spiritual adventure, that defies ridicule. Bird’s Eye View is an odd and goofy enterprise, shot with the aesthetics of an infomercial, and boasting a plot that’s literally all over the map (the Mediterranean, South America, Central Park).

Altschuler says she’s urging her friends and family to check out Bird’s Eye View. I second that emotion. Really. It’s weird, wacky, kitschy, campy, and ultimately kind of sweet, too.

Playing at the Roxy Theater, 2023 Sansom Street, 215-923-6699. Click on the Bird’s Eye View website here.

Posted by Steven Rea @ 4:23 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About Steven Rea
Steven Rea has been an Inquirer movie critic since 1992. He was born in London and raised in New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a major in English and Creative Writing, and attended the Writers Workshop graduate program at the University of Iowa. His column, "On Movies," appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment, and his reviews normally run in the Weekend section on Fridays.

Steven Rea's previous blog posts can be found here.