ViewGuide

Created Jun 04, 2011 01:45AM PST • Edited Jun 18, 2018 07:30PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Sweet San Francisco – eccentric and accepting – takes wing in Judy Irving and Mark Bittner’s Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

   Telegraph Hill – as anyone who’s been there knows – is a wild nubbin overlooking Alcatraz. Fits that it would host a flock of jail-broke cherry-heads with a couple of blue-crowns and other birds of paradise mixed in. Such colorful diversity is perfectly San Fran.

   The documentary shows how Telegraph Hill also attracts various hawks, native species who occasionally feast on the interlopers. (Speaking of birds and Alcatraz, the big house in the middle of the Bay once held human raptors, pigeons and a few parrots too.)

   In any event, animal lovers will find Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill a delightful San Francisco treat.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   The documentary profiles Mark Bittner. Drawn to San Francisco by the music, the coffeehouses and the beauty, he finds his bliss as the parrots’ keeper, feeding, tending, even grooming them. This gentle San Francisco hero is a seeker of experience who becomes a provider of protection for the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. Ineffably cool, that.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Judy Irving’s film pleasantly covers the Northeast corner of the City by the Bay, telling a lovely, intriguing tale, a romance with a middle, an end and a new beginning.

    Mark Bittner’s observations about the avian Circle of Life are refreshingly heartfelt yet unblinkingly realistic.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.2

    Nothing gay about this San Francisco movie except a cute same-sex couple trapped in a marriage of convenience. Parrots. We’re talking parrots here.

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

19. Rudeness Polite 1.1

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    rFactor 1.0 = totally real.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0