I first became aware of this movie through the soundtrack by Peter Gabriel. I first bought it years ago on audio cassette, long before I saw the movie. It became one of my all time favorites with both adrenaline running pieces and beautifully peaceful music that you can fall asleep to. It almost made me afraid to see the movie because I feared that it would forever change the way I listened to this music. But certain pieces like “The Heat” have been used in so many movie trailers now that it doesn’t matter where you first heard it. So eventually, I had to rent the movie on videotape and see what all the fuss was about.

“Birdy” was the second part of a double feature I saw last Thursday at the New Beverly Cinema on a double bill with “Angel Heart.” Both were directed by Alan Parker who as a director seems particularly interested in characters that are lost in their obsessions and need others to bring them out of it and back into reality. It stars Nicholas Cage and Matthew Modine in some of their earliest roles on film. They play friends from Philadelphia who are in many ways complete opposites, but they become the best of friends through Birdy’s connection with birds and his desire to become one.

“Birdy” is a great movie, a great character study about two young men who grow up together, and who are forever changed by the war they are drafted into. The movie is based on a book by William Wharton which chronicles two characters who are thrown into World War II. For the film, it was changed to Vietnam which would soon become a major location for films like “Platoon” and “Full Metal Jacket among others. The movie starts with the two main characters who are now out of the Vietnam War, but who are forever scared by it permanently. In the end, all they have is each other.

The movie goes back and forth in time as we start off with Nicholas Cage’s character coming out of the hospital after his face has been seriously disfigured in combat. Bandaged like a Frankenstein creation, he is no longer the ladies man we see getting to first base like before. Al ends up going to an army hospital where Birdy (we never learn his real name) is holed up in a cell not saying a word. After the damage the war has done to him, Birdy has seemingly accomplished what he has set out to do – to become a bird in his own mind.

We then see these kids during their high school years in Philadelphia where they seem like complete opposites, but who both want the same thing in life. They want to fly away from their problems, but Birdy is a little more literal about it. With Al, he has an abusive father to deal with who thinks nothing of smacking his son around when he screws up, and being on the high school wrestling team helps him deal with his frustration of not being able to stand up to him. With Birdy, he has a tough as nails father who is nowhere as sympathetic and understanding as his janitor father, and who is always taking away the baseballs that the kids unintentionally keep batting into her yard. Both Al and Birdy get together in money making schemes like carrier pigeons they feel they can make a profit from. They later turn their attentions to a car in a wrecking yard that they manage to get running again.

Al really represents Birdy’s strongest link to the outside world as Birdy falls deeper and deeper into his obsession with birds and in wanting to fly away from all the troubles in the world. Birdy never shows any interest in anything else that you expect teenagers to indulge themselves in like girlfriends, making out, or being normal. One of the funniest expressions Birdy has is when he talks about how bad he feels for women that they have to have breasts that they just have to carry around and how they flop all over the place. I can’t think of anyone else who would make that argument (man or woman).

The scenes that Birdy spends with a beautiful yellow canary he ends up getting and naming Burda are some of the most interesting scenes here. It’s not just some National Geographic special you are watching as we see Birdy studying these birds ever so closely, almost making love to them. There is one amazing sequence where he is dreaming that he is flying like a bird and Parker shoots the scene from a bird’s eye view as we go around people and fly over cars and then way up into the sky above. All this done to the instrumental tune to Peter Gabriel’s “Not One Of Us.” Even without that song

While all this may make the movie sound like a nostalgic journey to the past, it is actually a very hard hitting movie which has its funny moments, but also has its awkward and painful moments. Seeing Matthew Modine going to a prom, only because his mom threatens to get rid of his birds if he doesn’t, is painful in terms of how much we know that he doesn’t want to be there. Hell, I would have killed to date the girl he goes out with! And seeing at the start of the movie where these two characters are at a moment where they are forever changed, we know that these two are on a descent which may permanently rob them of their humanity. We know things are not going to end well for these two, so there is a strong air of unease as we get towards the point where they are drafted into a war that they are lucky to come out of alive.

Seeing these two young actors early in their careers (this movie came out in 1984!) reminds you of just how talented they have always been. Nicholas Cage’s role of Al is one of my favorites of his as we see him as a fun loving guy, and then as a frightened war veteran who is terribly uncertain of what lies ahead for him. Having to spend so much of the movie in bandages could seem so limiting to some actors, but not to Mr. Cage. I heard that before he started making this film, he had his wisdom teeth taken out, and he insisted on having it done without Novocain. Just hearing about that makes my mouth hurt! Talk about suffering for your art! And the suffering Cage goes through as this character is pretty raw and genuine. I like to see him play more roles like this in the future instead of him doing another movie like “Ghost Rider.”

Matthew Modine is an actor we haven’t seen much of recently. The last thing I remember him being in was probably “Transporter 2” with Jason Statham. His role is especially hard to play because it could easily look so broad and ridiculous, but Modine makes Birdy’s love for birds seem so real that it almost doesn’t matter that he has cut himself off from the world around him. When we see him at the hospital, he is almost completely speechless and has to convey how he feels through expressions, and that is something you need to learn to be a great film actor so that you don’t emote all over the place. This is one his best performances as well, and it lead him to a career where he has played many different roles.

This is one of Alan Parker’s best movies, and it stands alongside his best work like “Midnight Express” and “Mississippi Burning” among others. Alan has not just made some simple antiwar movie about how unnecessary the war in Vietnam was, but of the bond of friendship and how it can never be completely broken, especially when you are in need. In essence, the scars (both physically and mentally) that are inflicted on them in combat bring them together because it seems like no one else can fully understand them. The heart of this movie is in the way these two guys lean on each other, and how they recognize each other’s strengths. Parker gets that and makes it the main thrust of this excellent motion picture. In the end, most of his movies deal with people in a place that seems so alien and unwelcome to them.

And of course, I can never get sick of Peter Gabriel’s score to the film. Some say that is dated, but I say bullshit to that. While it may seem weird to compose music to a movie that takes place in the 60’s with an electronic score, it fits perfectly into the themes that Director Parker portrays in this movie. Like the characters, it is in its own world and dwells in both the beauty and the pain of life. The music is cribbed from a lot of Peter’s other albums (he freely admits this in the album notes), and it would have been interesting if he did include some of the lyrics to songs used here like “Wallflower” as it deals with the mental state these characters are stuck in and need to fight out of.

“Birdy” is one of those great movies that stays with you long after the movie has ended, or long after your VHS tape of it is all faded and worn out. It also has one of the best endings of any movie I have ever seen. I refuse to ruin it for you. You just have to see it for yourself!

**** out of ****

“Harry Angel is searching for the truth... Pray he doesn't find it.”

Right now, I cannot think of a truer tagline for a movie than the one for “Angel Heart,” an Alan Parker directed movie starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, and “The Cosby Show’s” Lisa Bonet. It follows the story of Private Detective named Harry Angel played by Rourke who is hired by a mysterious man named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro in his best impersonation ever of Martin Scorsese) to track down the last whereabouts of a famous singer. This singer is presumed dead, but it turns out that may not be the case as Harry finds that he was transferred out of the hospital years ago, and while people say that this singer is dead, they cannot convince themselves of that. Angel’s journey into discovery takes him from the snowy and gospel filled streets of Harlem all the way out to the sweaty bayous of Louisiana. In “Angel Heart,” curiosity may not kill the cat, but it can sure frazzle and scar it for life. We search for the truth throughout our lives, but we never taken into account the possible consequences of what we may find.

I caught “Angel Heart” last Thursday at the New Beverly Cinema where they were showing it as a double feature with another Alan Parker movie, “Birdy.” Sitting in the theater with a very tiny audience on a weeknight (let’s leave the pun out of this), I can’t believe just how long it has taken for me to get out and see this movie. I remember when it was first released, and how it got an X rating (NC-17 today) for this sex scene between Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet where as they make out, the water dripping from the ceiling turns into blood. The version of this movie was the R-rated version that was released theatrically 20 years ago (yikes!), but the unrated edition can be found today on DVD. In fact, when it first came out on VHS, I think it was actually one of the very first movies to be shown on video in the way it was intended to be seen, without the MPAA breathing down its neck. Of course, this was years and years before Blockbuster Video came into play with its “family friendly” policy that did not allow for any NC-17 movies. I hate censorship of any kind, especially sanctioned censorship!

Was the movie deserving of its X rating? I doubt it. Considering that there are other acts of violence throughout this movie like a heart being cut out, someone blowing their brains out, and another person getting a very sensitive part of their body being cut off, the sex scene should seem almost tame in comparison. It’s depressing to see that this hypocrisy of the MPAA goes on to this very day where they find sexuality in movies more unnerving than violence or someone getting blown away literally. Of course, it did offer the movie some free publicity which must have tickled the producers to death.

“Angel Heart” is a heavily atmospheric movie that makes you feel the coldness of New York, and the never ending heat that makes you sweat like never before in Louisiana. It is not a loud slam bang movie, and it does take its time in setting up the story and of the locations that the movie was shot in. Each city in the movie is an important character, and they reflect the nightmares and dreams of the main characters in the film. If this movie were to be made today, I imagine the studios would want the characters to be younger and more hip and take away some of the dark stuff… I hope this is one movie that filmmakers can leave off of the remake table. It does have some exciting moments and some shoot outs and chases, but they never seem put there to “liven” up the film so to speak.

Back when this movie was made, Mickey Rourke was a much bigger star, and this is one of the movies he seemed to do without the benefit of shampooing his hair. This fact continually dogs him to this very day. As Harry Angel, he does excellent work in making his character seem tough and sleazy, yet resourceful and vulnerable. Harry’s life unravels faster and faster as he digs deeper and deeper into the mystery that surrounds him. Watching Rourke in a roll like this reminds you of what a strong and brave actor he can be. Back then, he was not afraid to play on the dark side of a character and to give us someone who was not so morally sound. His off screen antics seem to get the best of him these days, but thanks to his performance years later in “Sin City,” we can never forget how great of an actor he can be.

The movie credits itself for having “a special appearance by Robert De Niro.” Special appearance? That seems to imply that you see him in the movie once. On point of fact, you see him several times throughout the movie as Louis Cyphre (pay close attention to that name). It’s one of the few performances where De Niro never goes over the top and gets all threatening like he does in movies like “Mean Streets.” This film was also made way before De Niro went into making nothing comedies (“Righteous Kill” should correct that). As Cyphre, De Niro gives a delicious performance of a man endlessly fascinated by the corruption and decay of the soul. His character feeds on that just as he feeds on hard boiled eggs. When he says that the egg is the symbol of the soul and then slowly bites into it in front of Rourke’s character, it is a very chilling moment. De Niro looks like he had a blast playing this part.

Lisa Bonet was deep into playing Denise Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” when she was cast in this. I imagine the MPAA tricked themselves into giving this film an adults only rating because they got all hot and bothered at one Cosby’s TV daughters showing her breasts. I can see them now:

“We can’t let kids see this movie! They will never look at one of television’s famous daughters the same again! This will destroy their innocence!!”

A lot of the controversy surrounding this movie almost hides the fact that Bonet was actually really good here. A lot of people probably assumed she got this part because of her success on “The Cosby Show,” but Alan Parker made it clear when the movie was released that he picked her because he felt she was right for the part. Having seen this movie, I completely agree. I also have to admit that it was fun seeing her naked, but anyway. Lisa’s character of Epiphany (perfectly named by the way) is a mysterious person who seems to say everything yet reveals nothing, and she captures the mystery of this character very well and keeps us guessing of what she really knows. It’s almost a shame that her career has descended into obscurity, although I get the feeling she doesn’t mind it all that much.

Director Alan Parker has made a lot of great movies over the years like “Birdy” and the experience that is “Midnight Express” to name a few. Like “Angel Heart,” they deal with lost souls trying desperately to free themselves of whatever is holding them back. There is a lot holding Harry Angel back in this movie, but when he finally gets to the truth, he will find that being held back was actually a blessing that he could never see. Alan gives the movie a distinctive look as it takes place in the 1940’s. Parker also directs his actors very well and gives them each a memorable moment that sticks with you long after you have seen the movie.

Trevor Jones did the score, and I’m wondering if I can possibly find it anywhere. It’s probably out of print at this time. Trevor does great work capturing the tension and the atmosphere, and of aiding the filmmakers in realizing the horrifying truth that Harry has spent this movie trying to find.

The trailer for “Angel Heart” goes out of its way to make it look like this is the second coming of horror by comparing it to “The Exorcist” and “Chinatown.” This movie does not reach those heights and was never in a position to do so, but it is still a very good movie worth seeing for those who have an interest in the devil and/or the occult. Both play a big part in this movie.

***1/2 out of ****