Le Festin

This short film tells the journey of a man's romantic relationship through the eyes of a dog.

Despite it being only six minutes long, "Feast" is remarkably informative. It tells how a man finds love, loses love and finds love again, all in the space of six minutes, with little dialog to convey the messages. The story unfolds by the type of food the dog eats, which is interesting angle and yet it is very convincing. The animated story is very sweet. It manages to touch your heart and fills you with love and warmth, which is pretty amazing for a film that is so short. I really enjoyed it.

A man's best friend to the very end.

The story is about a man's love life is seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.

Feast is a 6 minute short film that by now judging on the date of this review, this short film has been nominated for Best Short Film at the Oscars and who knows... it might win. Okay so this a short film and that means this review might not be has long as my other reviews, so basically it's a short little review on this cheerful short film, well it might be a long review.

I got to say that the first ever scene in this short film with the little dog barking and being a happy puppy was the cutest and the most adorable thing I've seen since the beginning of the 2008 film Bolt. Have you ever got that feeling inside of you that it's so cute that you can't take to much cuteness, yeah that's this.

What Feast got so beautifully well is showing a cute little dog who loves junk food and in the background there's another story happening with two lovers and they relationship, but has the short goes along it quickly turns surprisingly depressing. Feast is only 6 minutes long and it brilliantly give you all the cuteness, cheerfulness, depression and back to happy again and Feast gives you all that in a matter of 6 minutes, it's a bit like Up with the opening scene where you already know everything about them and it's only last for a couple of minutes, I mean that right there is masterpiece of directing and writing.

The animation is so colorful and so beautifully bright that the animation is the icing on the cake for this touching and a well made short film.

Your dog will always want to eat what you're eating - well, most usually, anyway, especially if it's not *good* for the dog particularly. Thank goodness, of course, this short from Disney (which won, deservedly I might hope, the Oscar for best animated short), doesn't show the aftermath of eating such things for a dog. But it's not really about that per-say, though of course if you have a dog you'll recognize it immediately as being accurate. What it's about is how a dog relates to its master, and what the filmmakers get so brilliantly in six minutes is how a dog can learn if it's put into the position to observe and react and feel its master's behavior.

So at the start of this, for the first minute or so, we're just seeing how the dog loves to eat - the junkier, the better, and god help him (or her?) when it comes time to the super-bowl - but then after this, we know just from the food that things have changed. The man is eating healthier because of the girl, so the dog gets less portions and more things like, uh, soy crisps or whatever. But then the girlfriend leaves this man, and he goes into over-eating depression mode. The dog is just happy to eat... until it sinks in the master is definitely *not* happy. This must be rectified. So off to find the ex-girlfriend...

Of course things are simplified into a quickness, but it's the sort of wonderful, compact, to-the-point and yet with a lot of depth and heart quickness that one has seen in other things produced by John Lassiter (though not to the same depth, I was reminded of the break-neck pace of life as the opening of Up had, how quickly life can move). And of course the dog itself is probably TOO cute, and I don't mean to say that as if to pinch the dog's cheeks, it's like they make the dog programmed to be that way... as if from a computer! At any rate, Feast is all about the love of food, but the love for humans that trumps it. It actually takes time to make the background as important as the foreground. Emotional effects/affects are really what's at stake here, not so much what the dog gets into its belly, which is what makes it so great for kids and adults - maybe adults more-so - as it plays to just making that right connection as an adult or as a kid.

Feast was shown in theaters before Disney's Big Hero 6, and serves as a nice vehicle for the fun-loving mayhem that takes place in that particular film. This short is a heartwarmer from start to finish, concerning an owner and his dog who bound over the foods they eat and the company they share while eating. This kind of connection to anyone who owns a pet is a familiar one, and it's a beautiful representation of a man/dog relationship. As expected, Disney hits the appropriate notes here, playing to ones emotions, childlike sense of whimsy, and cuteness factor in having a fun-loving dog chow down on whatever is placed in front of him. Despite all these clear and evident tactics, the short amazingly works and serves as the Best Animated Short winner for good, albeit simplistic, reasons.

Directed by: Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed.

'FEAST': Four Stars (Out of Five)

A 6 minute Disney animated short film; which played in theaters (including 3D ones) before the feature length Disney animated hit 'BIG HERO 6' (it's also been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, at the upcoming 87th Academy Awards). It's both hand-drawn and computer animated and tells the story a dog, that loves to eat, who's spoiled by his owner, with all kinds of human junk food. The dog's owner falls for a waitress, that works at a restaurant nearby, and we witness their relationship through the eyes of the dog. The dog's diet also changes, for the bad in his mind, because the waitress is a vegan. It was directed and co- written (with Nicole Mitchell and Raymond S. Persi) by animator, turned first time filmmaker, Patrick Osborne. The visuals are beautiful to watch (of course) and it's nice to see a love story, about humans, told through the eyes of a dog. I'm an animal lover and too often we see films told through the eyes of humans, and can only guess what any animals (in the film) might be feeling or thinking. This short is brilliantly told from the opposite perspective. Given the cool subject matter it could have been a tad more touching and emotional though.

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