Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Perfect cast and a good story

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

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.

I have just finished reading The Arrival by Shaun Tan and I am so impressed. Looking for interviews with him, I have found on youtube The Lost Thing and watched it. Amazing. Very well done. Nice story. Nice parable. I come to find out this short took an Oscar. And that Oscar was won against The Gruffalo. I still like The Gruffalo better, but this one is somehow deeper. I guess the old men and women of the Academy Awards Jury went for the old man sadly looking behind to the lost youth instead of the wise youth theme. Still, it was a tough choice and I can name a few years when all the candidates were of lower quality. But that is life!Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

This film is the 2010 effort from Asian-Australian writer-director Shaun Tan that won him the Oscar in the animated short category over such prestigious competition like Pixar or the Centre National de la Cinématographie. I wouldn't want to be the judge if it's the best of the year, but it's surely a cute piece of animation with an interesting story and it fits story-wise very well in with Toy Story 3 winning the full-length animation prize that year.We meet a boy who finds a giant red creature with tentacles, plays with it for a while just as if it's a dog. They have a fun time at the beach building sandcastles, but as the moment of farewell moves closer and everybody would go his way again, the boy realizes that his new companion is lost and has nowhere to go. So he first takes it home, then, after the parents complain, puts it in the shed while trying to find out where it came from, on his own and with the help of a friend. But no success. Finally, he takes it to a lost property office hoping somebody came asking for it. But is this how it ends? It's a nice little tale on misfits that offers an uplifting ending and an interesting moral (maybe that was what lifted this one above the other nominated films to Oscar glory) that finds a good balance and is not too much in the viewer's face. It's not a real standout in regard to anything, animation, story or voicework, but the combination of all the aspects resulted in a thoughtful overall result. Recommended and I'm curious about Tan's work in the future. I'd really like to see a feature film from him, maybe even centering around The Lost Thing.

'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.

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!