An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It (2022) User Reviews

Some Laugh Out Loud Moments, Thinner Philosophy

[wall17 · 7/10 · 6 March 2023]

So take "The Matrix", "The Office", Wallace and Gromit, a couple of B-grade Twilight Zone episodes, and add a very healthy dose of the classic Loony Tunes "Duck Amuck", mix them in a blender, and you will get something close to "An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake..."

I will say from the outset that there were several laugh out loud moments here, as the existential crisis of an office worker who (no spoilers, it's in the title) has reason to believe he's not actually real develops. It's an enjoyable little piece of pulling back the curtain to see how the Wizard of Oz operates, with what I'd normally say is a fun and intriguing premise.

That's where this left me a bit flat (no aspersions on our more two-dimensionally oriented animators) however. The ground here, so well sowed by PK Dick, has been amply harvested in recent years by "Vanilla Sky", "Inception", and a host of others littered across streaming outlets. There's no big reveal here, as you know from the first moment what the character eventually learns. Then there's no release to the tension, as in the end everything is as the viewer sees it to be from frame 1 (I know this because the frames are all counted off in the corner of the screen - a shoutout to Godard's "Le Mepris", perhaps? At least among many other films-within-films premises.)

So we're left with a feeling of unease, sadness, and no real insights into the dilemma our little office drone has. It's a cute little film but needed just a touch more story to complete it.

Something's not right

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 10 March 2023]

"An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It" is a really long title for a fairly short movie we have here. This one only runs for slightly over ten minutes, so it makes it into double-digit territory, but not by much. This one scored some solid awards attention in Europe and also in my country Germany, but the biggest success is of course the Oscar nomination and it already won the Student Academy Award in 2022, so we will see how it will fare at the 2023 Academy Awards then. The writer and director and voice actor here is Lachlan Pendragon and this is, according to imdb, his fifth short film release since launching his career in 2015. It is definitely his biggest triumph so far and not one of his other works even has a rating on imdb. This says it all. It is a fairly smart and creative film from beginning to end. An ounce of "The Truman Show" and of course these moments when the character really gets out of the picture were interesting. We see the hand of the creator there and you can wonder to what extent there is a reference to us human in fact and God.

Is the protagonist just falling for a conspiracy theory? Is he actually losing his mind? Is he right all along? Does he even want to be right with the consequences coming with it? The moments when he tells the other employee, who was a bit of his friend maybe, that there is something unusual in the storeroom and they look inside and there is nothing unusual stay in the mind. Also, how then the protagonist really tries all he can to rip off the other guy's mouth because he saw before that that people do have open mouths in this film indeed and this is also where they play with us at the very end with this last shot that shows us the main character's both and how he reacts to the situation. That boss by the way was already unhappy early on because the main character did not close as many deals with buyers as he should have. It seemed possible for the main character to get fired the following day. Well, what he experienced surely trumped that. But yeah, we hear it briefly, he was selling toasters or something. Not a desirable job. Before I end the review, I would like to say that the moment when the guy actually meets the ostrich there was maybe the best from the entire film. I also really liked the ostrich's voice. And what it says. How it questions everything. Or tells the main character to question everything. Such a bizarrely funny moment. So yeah, this animated short film here from Australia is worth seeing. For me it is in the middle of the quintet quality-wise, but don't really think it has a great chance to win the Oscar. We will see. There could be better and worse winners I suppose.

An Ostrich Told Me I Live in Stop Montion World

[jack_o_hasanov_imdb · 6/10 · 6 March 2023]

It was an interesting concept and animated short film. It was shot with the stop montion technique and used very well. But there is one thing I don't like. Story. Actually, the story is interesting. But it is not a subject to be told in an 11-minute short and animated film. This movie tried to being "The Matrix" or "The Truman Show". It just didn't make sense. When the movie is over, I ask myself. So ? What happened ? Is that all ? What was the message ? Why ostrich ? I just made a point here. It's a short animated film shot as a stop mongion just to get it "cool". It wasn't bad, i think the story is unfinished. It was nominated for an Oscar award. I don't think it deserves to win. Now I have my favourite, and that movie is the most deserving one.

Amazingly good

[MsShirlyS · 12 February 2023]

Showing the audience how stop motions are made is always a sweet reward after watching the movie, but the creator of this short animation went way further than that.

I was more than satisfied to see the relationship of two dimensions of the time, one of the motion graphics and another of the production of the motion graphic, all at once. It's awesome to see the supposed-to-be-emotionless puppet character developed his self-awareness and made his own choices. It is not a strange subject for many sci-fi movies, but probably the first time be seen of a stop motion character.

It's also a lovely story many of the audience can definitely connect to. It is amazing to see so many layers in a less than 10 mins animation.

An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 23 March 2024]

"Neil" is under pressure from his boss to increase his toaster sales tally. If he doesn't buck up, he's out - and he only has til tomorrow! Bluntly, he's bored of this telephone-bound existence and in a moment of absent-mindedness starts to notice a few oddities around the room. Next thing he's face to face with a talking ostrich - and that's telling him that all around him is fake. Upon closer inspection he realises that his colleagues are little more real than airfix models! Is he real? Is any of it? What's with this great big human hand that looms over him? It's a quickly paced and quite intriguing stop-motion animation, this, and as "Neil" starts to become aware better of his plastic surroundings, the story invites us to consider our own routine environments and choices, too.

"The world isn't quite what it seems."

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 24 February 2023]

I've never been big on feature length animated films, but when I had the opportunity to see all five contenders for this year's Best Animated Shorts Oscar, I thought why not. Quite honestly, I don't see what made this one so special. The story describes stop motion by virtue of being made in stop motion. An office worker in telemarketing makes the discovery that this is the world he lives in and tries to convince his co-workers of it with less than satisfying results for his effort. The ostrich in question most likely is the hook to get you to take a look at this eleven minute flick. When the office guy figures out what the ostrich tried to tell him, he just quits!, and so does the story.

This picture is a contender for a 2023 Oscar in the category of Best Animated Film Shorts. I was lucky enough to catch it along with the other four contenders for this year's Academy Award at the Paramount Theater in Middletown, New York. If not for this limited showing, I don't know how else I would have been able to see it. So, Congratulations to the Paramount for making it available to enthusiastic cinema fans like me.

Read The Title

[boblipton · 4/10 · 19 February 2023]

Here's a nominee for the Best Animated Shorts Oscar. In the past, the category has been plagued with pieces that could have been done easily as live action. None of this year's fall under that curse, nor the one about "animated radio", a lecture with some pictures. This one has the look of stop-motion done in a computer.

Have you ever looked at a coming attraction trailer that tells you exactly what you will see in the movie, and thereby killed any desire to see the movie, because you know exactly what will happen? Here's a case where you can read the title and know exactly what will happen, because as soon as the character believes it, the cartoon stops.