There were a few really nice things that happened in the last week and one that made me scratch my head. In order…

My good friend Alex Fleisig recently accepted a job at PDI to work on Madagascar 2. Similar to how the entire world must have collectively realized all was well in the world when the first slice of peanut buttered up bread landed gently on a jellied up slice of bread, this is how I feel about hearing this news about Alex. This is one of those incredibly rare perfect fits. Congrats Alex.

Carolyn had a birthday this weekend. We had a stellar time. The rain prevented us from partaking in our original plans but our plan B was equally phenomenal. We caught the Oscar nominated shorts with our friends. I had previously seen these shorts but at this screening they actually showed some of the shorts that were up for nomination but didn’t make it. There were two or three that I hadn’t seen before and I was very happy to get to see them. As for details regarding the rest of Carolyn’s birthday, head on over and read what she has to say about it.

The Danish Poet won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. I have gone on at great length about how much I love this short so I was pretty happy to see it get the recognition it deserves. I swear this is the last I will write about it. Honestly. Ok, maybe not, one last thing. The short is now available for purchase on iTunes for a measly $1.99USD. So, if you have iTunes installed, click this handy link. I’m not sure if that link will work if you’re using a browser besides Firefox, but hopefully it does.

Lastly the thing that made me scratch my head in utter befuddlement. How did Children of Men not win the Oscar for either Film Editing or Cinematography? I’ve been told by numerous people that The Departed is a terrific film. And though I was not particularly fond of Pan’s Labyrinth story, it too is a really great and original film. Both are definitely worthy of the awards they won in other categories. Even in the realm of Film Editing and Cinematography, I’m sure both films are more than worthy to be nominated. But Children of Men was just so incredibly brilliant with its camera work I’m astonished it didn’t win at least one of those awards. Oh well.

Conveniently after posting my favorable review of the Oscar nominated shorts, I received a heads up that they’re all showing at the Lumiere Theater in San Francisco. So, if you’re in the Bay Area and you have yet to see The Danish Poet, here’s your chance.

For more info, head over here…

LucasFilm had a screening of all of the Oscar-nominated shorts tonight. I’d seen three of the five prior to this but I wanted to go and see The Danish Poet again. The first time I saw this film, my friends and I left the theater stunned with how amazing the film is. Fortunately when I left tonight, that feeling remained.

This film is perfect, pure and simple. Similarly to how you’d have to be a cruel bomb-making hermit grumpy crab man to dislike the recently posted stuff from Aardman, you’d have to hate all things that are even shy of this side of good in life to dislike this film. Even Cobra Commander would like The Danish Poet, it’s that good.

The other films were interesting. Pixar’s Lifted garnered some laughs and Blue Sky’s No Time for Nuts did the same. Disney’s Little Match Girl had a wonderful Fantasia 2000 feeling to it except it had a surprisingly dark and honest ending to its sad tale centering on a homeless girl during winter in Russia. After the screening of the films, some of the film makers were there to field questions and my suspicions about Little Match Girl were confirmed. After Fantasia 2000 Roy Disney wanted to continue that style of story telling by creating three short films centered in different cultures, hence the look that was so identifiable. And in regards to the very non-Disney ending to the film, the director behind Little Match Girl had to fight with his higher ups for three years to get the ending that he wanted. I’m glad he ultimately won.

Anyway, this post isn’t about how Disney surprised me, this post is about The Danish Poet. The amazing Danish Poet. Pure unadulterated perfect story-telling. Pure happiness confined in 14 minutes of film. Pure awesomeness. If this film doesn’t win the Oscar, the terrorists have won.

So, go here and click screenings and do anything in your power to see this film.

It took a few months, but I’ve finally managed to transition my site to WordPress. Look, it’s all New and Improvificated. There might be a few things still needing to be worked out, but for the most part, it’s all here. Yippee I say. Yippee!

If you use an RSS reader to view my site, please update the feed to the new one. And if you don’t use an RSS reader, check out Google Reader. It’s good for your health.

Edit: I’m a goon and my RSS feed link was pointing to the wrong location. Sorry if you’ve tried to add it anytime soon. It’s all fixed up now. Hurrah!