The Lost Thing (2010)

This short won the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead: This short is based on a book written by Shaun Tan, who also adapted this for the screen as well as co-directed. There really isn't a false note here. This is beautifully animated, excellently paced, the narration is superb and it keeps your interest throughout.Essentially, this is the narrator looking back to an incident earlier in his life where he found "something", "a lost thing", something which seemed completely out of place, which nobody else seems to either notice or care about. The boy goes about trying to find someplace where the "lost thing" will no longer be "lost", but instead will find its place.I found it fascinating to watch this around the edges of the main story, because there are a lot of little things going on here which are nice to spot as the story unfolds. There's a steampunk feel to this that I enjoyed particularly. The ending is bittersweet, particularly the final bit of narration at the close.This short is on a Blu Ray/DVD combo release by Shorts International comprised of Academy Award winning animated and live action shorts. The compilation itself is quite good and well worth getting. This short is marvelous and is most highly recommended.

'The Lost Thing (2010),' winner of the 2011 Oscar for Best Animated Short, is narrated by Australian comedian and musician Tim Minchin, who I thought an odd choice. The film unfolds like a storybook, so I had envisioned a warm fatherly narrating voice (we can blame Adam Elliot for putting Geoffrey Rush into my head), but Minchin's whiny, apathetic Aussie drawl is completely at odds. But it works. The storyteller is, in fact, a first-person narrator, so it does make sense that he would sound like an ordinary bloke.A young man, while scouring the beach for bottle caps, comes across a bizarre mechanical beast: part industrial boiler, part crab, part octopus (if you can imagine that). The man can't identify this odd creature, but nevertheless gets the feeling that it is lost. He takes it home, where the extraordinary creature is treated with relative apathy by friends and family, so caught up are they in their own dreary lives. The "lost thing" is eventually returned to its home, a vibrant land of mechanical gizmos living in perfect harmony.Co-directors Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan forge a stiflingly Orwellian atmosphere, complete with oppressive shadows, dim lighting, skyscrapers of filing cabinets and administrative forms. The setting is a drab version of Melbourne (as suggested by the trams), set in a nostalgic portmanteau of industrial past and post-apocalyptic future. The graphics are computer-generated, and yet they have all the character and warmth of traditional animation or claymation.

'THE LOST THING': Four Stars (Out of Five) One of the best animated short films nominated for an Oscar last year (2010), this one tells the story of a boy (voiced by Tim Minchin) who finds an odd and mysterious creature on a beach, which no one else seemed to notice. He takes it home with him and attempts to find it a place of it's own to live but finds little help as he discovers no one else seems to care. The film focuses on our modern civilization and how busy and self centered we are to notice amazing thing right in front of us. It of course delivers the message that as a child we still have awe and wonder for such things but eventually grow out of it. It's directed by Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann and written by Tan. The film is quirky, nostalgic and cleverly animated. It's got that classic monster befriends child charm to it. One definitely worth the recognition it's received.Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBqNUf10kuk

Perth Comedy Muso Tim Minchin narrates this charming, if somewhat bizarre animated short. It's only about 30 minutes long and it's based on a children's book by Shaun Tan, also from Perth.A boy discovers a large and rather strange contraption on the beach. The only way to describe it would be like a 12ft crab-like industrial boiler... with tentacles. It doesn't say much, but it seems to love playing fetch. The boy can't understand why everyone around him is totally oblivious to it. They must have more important things to pay attention to. The boy spends a bit of time with it, they form an instant bond and it soon becomes clear that this inexplicable thing... is lost. The boy tries taking it home with him but his parents are none too pleased to have a large unidentified lodger. What is a boy to do? Surely this thing... belongs somewhere.The Lost Thing is a cool little toon for all ages. The animation is a bit like Pixar meets Aardman. You can view a low budget, subtitled, Minchin-less version on YouTube, but if I were you, I'd hold out for the real deal. I must admit that I'm from Perth and I'm a huge fan of Tim Minchin so my review is a bit biased, but now I've discovered a new homegrown talent. Shaun Tan has a uniquely brilliant imagination. Let's hope that he makes a full-length feature or at least a collection of shorts soon, because the only problem with Lost Thing... is that it's too short. The DVD contains a few extra features that make up for the short running time and there's also a bonus sketch book that's definitely worth thumbing through. Just consider it to be a preview of things to come. Watch this space!