Feast (2014)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Crappy film

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Compared to some of the other more dramatically searching and artistically adventurous animated shorts this year, it was a surprise that this well made but conventional short from Disney was the Oscar winner. Especially since its premise seems to owe a lot to the much more interesting "Adam and Dog" which was nominated in 2011. The story of Adam and Eve as perceived around the edges of Adam's relationship with his dog seemed deeper and more involving than this much more superficial picture of a guy and his girlfriend as perceived by the man's cute dog, eagerly awaiting every meal. Still, Feast is very well made and charming.

This short won the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:This is a short produced by Walt Disney Animation Studio. It was released theatrically as an accompaniment to Big Hero 6, playing before the feature. As with pretty much everything Disney has done for a very long time, the animation is great. Here, the story is equal to the animation.Though a dog named Winston is technically the focus of the short, it's really about relationships, relationships specifically tied to food. Winston is found as a stray by a guy named James, who lures him over with a french fry. Throughout the short, in very sharply done transitions, you see Winston at various points in time and the moments are intertwined with food. First dog food, then human food mixed with dog food and eventually just human food. James feeds him whatever he's eating.Then James gets involved with a girl, a waitress at his favorite place to eat and the food starts getting healthy (read, vegetables) which Winston dislikes intensely. The couple breaks up and the junk diet comes back. But Winston's a very perceptive dog and realizes that James is incredibly sad because he's no longer involved with the girl. He fixes things between them and the role of food in his and their lives changes slightly, but still acts as the focus of Winston in the short, which creatively moves the story along. Watch the short through to the end of the credits, as the director and animators of the short use still drawings to continue the story as the credits roll.This short has been included as an extra on the Big Hero 6 Blu Ray/DVD releases and is well worth seeing. Most highly recommended.

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.

This is a great example of a story not told with words. There are words there, you can here characters speak in the background, but it is not important to the story. The words are for the feeling, a part of the environment that the story takes place in.It is about a period of a dog's life, and is mostly shown through meals, hence the title. It's an interesting concept, and leads to a fun, light hearted short that tells a cute story about life.I also liked how this short showed the passing of time. Piecing together what I assume to be high and low points in this period of the dogs life, you get a general sense of how things are going for both the dog and the owner. (But I do hope that in between some of these moments, the dog was fed properly!) The "cel-shaded" look made it seem a bit dated at first, but because of the pretty palette and all of the stuff that is happening, one quickly gets used to it, and follow it like "any other" beautiful animation.