GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "The Old Lady and the Pigeons" is a 25-minute animated short film from almost 20 years ago. It was done by Sylvain Chomet at a young age and, even if this film "only" won the BAFTA and did not win the Oscar (lost to Pixar)and was "only" nominated, he managed to build a successful career on this short movie. He was certainly not the most prolific filmmaker, but when he made a new movie, it was quite successful. For example he managed to get several more Oscar nominations and that is really not a given as he is not an American filmmaker and his movies never reached great audience figures outside of France.Now about his work here, I would say it is a good movie and he deserved the nomination all in all and a win may have been a bit too much. Maybe this film should only have run for 15 minutes as the basic plot is not really that much for almost half an hour. Still I have to say, it never dragged. With the basic plot I mean a guy who is starving realizes that a pigeon-feeding lady at the park has terrible eyesight and starts eating with the other pigeons from that day on. The woman also takes him home and makes him special meals. Is she really that stupid and blind? This is a pretty good film on the art of make-believe. But who is the artist in the end? Watch for yourself.

Robert Reynolds This short was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be mild spoilers ahead: This short was done prior to The Triplets of Bellville, which is a masterpiece. The animation, character designs and backgrounds are the same style as Bellville. This short is even odder than Bellville.The short centers around a gendarme who is starving (I guess the job must pay horribly or something, because with one exception, every other character in the short is overweight or grossly obese, particularly the American tourists). He discovers a large gathering of seriously overweight pigeons to find that an old lady is feeding them.Instead of doing something sensible, like strangling a pigeon or two and eating them, he actually takes one home and uses it as a model to construct a large pigeon head (there's a particularly disturbing shot of said pigeon later in the short). The Gendarme then goes to the old lady's apartment and insists on being fed, which she does pretty much daily.Ultimately, the gendarme grows grotesquely obese. One Christmas Eve, he discovers the intentions of the old lady aren't to his long term benefit and departs the apartment in a hasty manner.The close of the short is funny and the gendarme gets what he deserves. I should very much like a DVD or Blu-Ray release of this in the US, but doubt it will happen. It's well wort tracking down. Most highly recommended.

Maciek Kur After "Tripplets of Bellvile" (which is my favorite animated movie of all time) I was hungry for more of Sylvian Chomet unique world...Thankfully I've soon found "The Old lady and the pigeons"! A movie set in the same universe and with the same charm and grotesque of the "Tripplets". Its short but but it will make you want watch it over and over again (over and over) Its very hard to describe this story without ruining for you as all of movie elements connect together in a wonderful way and story is building in a very oryginal way you never seen beafore. In fact this movie has "oryginal" written all over. Just trust me when I say - if you enjoy Tripplets or have a dark sense of humor you will enjoy this one very much!WHY THEY Don't MAKE MORE MOVIES LIKE THIS is a riddle to me...

Monkey Bastard An absolutely splendid French short about a (to say the least) starving gendarme who discovers a lady feeding pigeons in the park and dresses up like a pigeon in a desperate attempt to get food. Strange indeed. Very nicely done, it really captures the atmosphere of Paris. Great animation, odd story, and the fat American tourists are just too damn funny.