Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Micitype Pretty Good

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "The Danish Poet" is an animated short film that runs for 15 minutes and was made roughly 10 years ago. it won an Academy Award in the Animated Short Film category and was, so far, the biggest success for writer and director Torill Kove. Funnily enough, the movie was nominated for best short film at the Norvegian Film Awards (Amandas), but lost there. Kove is pretty successful with the Academy. Apart from her win here, she has two more nominations, one of these very recently.Still, I did not manage to appreciate this short film. It has a touch of everything: drama, comedy, romance, history, but I personally felt that it did not really deliver in any of these areas. In my personal case, it also did not help that I was not fond of the animation style at all. The narrator here is Liv Ullmann. This was one of her last projects, she is not too prolific anymore these days being way into her 70s. Ullmann is probably Norway's most known actress of all time, but don't worry: Her narration is in English (maybe because the NFB produced this) and the characters do not have any audible dialog. The only people I could maybe recommend this too would be Norwegians (or Danes) because of some of the historic references, but even these did not impress me. I am genuinely surprised and disappointed that this managed to beat the wonderfully moving "Little Matchgirl" back 10 years ago. Not recommended.

MartinHafer This is a sweet story about a long chain of seemingly random events that eventually led to the birth of the person who wrote the story (though it was read by Liv Ullman). Not surprisingly, there are some touches that seem very Scandinavian--such as the introduction, the way that death is talked about as well as the veneration of the story "Kristin Lavransdatter" (the movie version was coincidentally directed by Liv Ullman and I have reviewed it--but this isn't the place to get into that).The first time I saw this film, I was underwhelmed and gave it only a mildly favorable review despite it being an Oscar winner. However, I saw it again a few weeks later and was surprised how much more I enjoyed the film the second time. I really think most of the reason I wasn't impressed at first is because at least visually speaking, it's not as pretty a film as the rest of the other nominees. THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL was one of the prettier Disney films I have seen using traditional animation, LIFTED is as good a product as you'll see from Pixar, NO TIME FOR NUTS was another excellent CG film packaged with the ICE AGE films and Maestro, though made by a small studio, was nearly as pretty as more commercial CG films. In contrast, THE DANISH POET looked very old fashioned--much like a "Madeline" cartoon.The second time I saw it, though, I noticed more of the cute little artistic touches--like all the cows falling down the ramps and other odd embellishments. However, what really stood out most the second time was the really sweet nature of the film and how it caused an emotional reaction in me at the end. Charming and sweet--this is something the other films lacked. I still think LIFTED might have been the most enjoyable and best made of the shorts, but THE DANISH POET was a real labor of love and had a lot of depth to it.

ccthemovieman-1 This is an animated story about "chance" and "coincidence" ruling our lives, something the author apparently believes because it's stated by narrator in the first few sentences of the film that "we are all just seeds floating up there in the space waiting for someone to get us." With an atheistic outlook like that, it's no wonder this won an Oscar for "best animated short." Had the opposite belief been put into film, it wouldn't have stood a chance to be nominated. Anyway, Torill Kove, a Norwegian animator/filmmaker and current resident of Canada, gives us this "cute" story in which a series of circumstances all make for a happy ending. The illustrations are half the fun of watching this 15-minute award-winning short. They artwork is clean and colorful and a treat for the eyes.Liv Ullman does a nice job of narrating the film but I would have rather had a variety of voices. Having a female voice all the male characters sounded out of place.I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Kove did this story tongue-in-cheek, knowing that actually everything happens for a reason, not that all of life is sheer chance. No one is dumb enough to believe that, which is why this is a good fairy tale.

TxMike Barely 14 minutes, this is a lovely, animated film short. On the surface it is about a Danish poet who travels to meet someone who inspired him. However, it is really about how small coincidences in our lives determine so many things of significance.As the poet travels, and arrives near his destination, he is on foot and it is raining. He seeks shelter at the nearest farm house. There he is smitten by the farmer's daughter. She is in turn smitten by him. Unfortunate for the poet, she is already promised to another, the neighboring farmer.Their lives go on, other seemingly random things happen, and eventually they are brought back together. And, as the narrator says, she herself would not been born had it not been for the circumstances that unfolded, in the order they unfolded. The randomness of life, and how we react to each situation, that ultimately defines all of us.I saw this on DVD that is a collection of film shorts nominated for the 2006 Academy Awards.