6th Grade Thoughts on … Oscar Shorts!!!

We watched two films this time: An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It and Ice Merchants. Which one deserves the gold statue? Let’s see what our sixth graders think!

The ice merchant was the best short film. It didn't make a whole lot of sense but it was really good in the end. I loved the short film because it was super cute. When the cliff started to fall the baby hugged the man and it was adorable. When the man and the baby jumped and saw a woman that was saving them they hugged her. I think that the woman was the dead mom. Then they all fell on a pile of hats, and the woman disappeared, so i think she was a ghost. - LH

Out of the two shows I watched I really like the first one “an Ostrich told me the world was fake and i think i believe it”. One thing I noticed was that the owner's mouth fell out. I was very confused when this happened. But once the video passed it was starting to make sense. The characters were made out of clay to make a short film, so the mouths had to be switched to make the right emotions. - AQ

I believe the movie Ice Merchant was good. I think the movie is good because the ending is really good. They had to jump then his wife I am assuming tried to save them. This suggests that Ice Merchant was a good movie. - MG

One of the thoughts I had about Ice Merchants was about the woman at the end of the film. Why was she put in the film at the end? In fact, why was she put in the story at all? The film follows this son and the Father and their daily routine and how it basically repeats everyday. Did the woman parachute down to the village with them and then stop and leave or did something happen to the woman? She eventually joins them at the end. The father was wearing a red hat and the son was wearing an orange hat and the woman was wearing a yellow hat. At the end of the film we finally see that the son and the father land in a pile of their own hats. At the bottom of the pile there are yellow, red and orange hats but as we slowly move up we notice that now there are only red and orange hats at the top therefore strengthening my point that something may have happened to the womsn. And when the film is about to end, red, orange and yellow hats all land in one place. Making the viewers think that this process or routine is gonna continue. — LA

I think that the movie An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It. I liked it more because it had more excitement and I always wondered what would happen next. I think it was an interesting and strange movie. It also had great details. While the movie Ice Merchants was not very exciting and rather peaceful. — MS

I like the Ostrich one better because it was funnier than the Ice Merchant and the ice mechant was not funny that why i like Ostrich better. — OH

I really liked ¨ an ostrich told me the world is fake and I think I believe it¨because I feel that on a mental note and i love how the guy dealt with the ¨big news¨.of the world being fake .It also shows a story.and i don't take it in a literal way i think you have to really think about it before you make assumptions about it. — IJ

I personally think “An ostrich told me the world was fake and I think I believe it” was better. I think it was better because it was just sort of more interesting, almost as if it were a mandala effect which I find cool.I enjoyed how he was told the world was a sham and not to believe it because the next day no one would believe what he said he saw. This is why I enjoyed “An ostrich told me the world was fake and I think I believe it”  more. — MO

I like “An ostridge the world is fake and I think and I believe” . I like that file because it showed a true life story and when he was there and the office and that because it was  like when he felt weird and he imagined that everything was gone and that he was nervous that no one was there and that everything was gone and invisible.   — MS

A ostrich told me the world was fake and I believe it This was an okay movie because it was a stop motion movie. The reason why was because of how the face changes is weird and every second the expression changes. This is why this movie was okay. — JT

I found the Ice merchants interesting and detailed. I noticed there were no words, but I could still figure out how much love the father had for the son. That's how much detail there was even with no words. So, in short, i loved this short film — MM

I liked Ice Merchants the best. I loved the storyline and how the mom ended up saving them when they were falling. I also noticed that the little boy tried to save his moms mug. I still have many thoughts and questions about things that happened in this story. I feel like the Ice Merchants had more details and actions than the Ostrich story. The way that the hats were falling was also cool to me because it was just like a repeating cycle. In my opinion the Ice Merchants story was better.  — ML

The movie starts in an office and Neal starts to notice some odd things like the window flashing or his coworker missing legs. But Neal falls asleep on his desk and then wakes up at night time But when he goes to the elevator an ostrich comes out and walks around and starts talking about how the world is fake. The Ostrich points out a door and says to walk in and Neal does and falls into a tray of his own mouth. It was overall a weird movie and reminded me of robot chicken. —BR

The movie  “an ostrich told the world was fake and I think I believe it” was very enjoyable. The suspense of not knowing what was going to happen was very interesting. It gave the watcher a reason to keep watching and stay interested. In movies its always good to keep the watcher interested. — KP

I think Ice Merchants was better because of how much I wonder. The animation overall was amazing and even without talking, the characters were so alive and you could almost hear what they would say. There also seems to be a lot of emotion coming from the characters. This movie makes me wonder, Where is the mom? What is the backstory? What was the inspiration for this story? — AW

I like Ice Merchants more because no dialogue makes it more interesting to understand. You’ll have to pay attention to smaller details to understand what the characters are trying to communicate. This is why I like Ice Merchants more. — MM

I liked the second movie better because I feel like it had a better storyline and it was way easier to understand. I like how the family all came back together at the end of the movie to show who they really are. They were lonely their entire life but then when the house came down they jumped but then the mother came to comfort them and then landed in the pile of hats they have all made together that saved their life. — JD

I think the ice merchants is the better short film because it had a really cool drawing style and a cool plot. I liked the yellow things that belonged to the mom, and how the red dad and the the yellow mom made an orange kid. I like the problem of the story, and how it is solved by a pile of hats, and how the yellow hats die off in the pile when the mom died. — HC

I personally liked the second movie more because it is a sort of sad story but it makes it a happy resolution it has lots of tension and you can tell that they have lost someone due to the hints it gives you over all both movies were super good but the second one was better due to the moral and the seriousness this is why i liked the second movie more — MB

The ice Merchants was the better movie in my opinion because it has a really good drum on it aspect look to it and has a good climax falling action alone within rising action Some things I wonder of is why they live on a cliff  I thought that they might be a father and son. — LR

I liked the film. An ostrich told me the world is fake and I think I believe it. It is very creative and the stuff that happens is very unexpected. The main character is a stop motion character and is fake. He is trying to sell toasters but cannot get any sales. When he is walking around the office you can see outside of the windows that the sky glitches from blue, and clouds to a green screen. One of the workers is sitting in the air and not a chair. The glitching shows the real word and how the world he is in is fake. He falls asleep and everyone has already left. The elevator opens and there is an ostrich. This was very unexpected and creative. The ostrich then tells him how the world is fake. This explains why they were floating and glitching. The main character goes into a room and falls into the real world. If this was your first time watching it, you would definitely not expect this to happen. I really like this film, it is super creative and really interesting to watch. I hope this film gets the award. — AW

I like the second one because the story was meaningful, very well animated, and it made sense to me. In the story the mom was “saving” them and I think she passed away. In the story the child tries to go for the yellow mug that I suppose is the mothers. This evidence gives us a hint that the story was meaningful. It was sad towards the end, but it also shows the importance of that mug. The hill they land on after they jump is huge. Most of them are yellow at the bottom but then turn red and orange with no sight of yellow at the top. Red and yellow equals orange, and the mom was yellow and the dad was red, so yellow +red = orange. So, the story was meaningful, very well animated, and made sense to me.-KC

I liked the second movie better because I liked how there was more of a thinking aspect and how you had to use your imagination to figure what happened a little yourself. An example of this was if there was a wife and if she died or left. This supports my claim because the movie never tells you if he had a wife or not or whether she died or left so you have to use the clues in the movie like how there were 3 cups in different colors red, orange, and yellow and they didn’t use the yellow one. Also at the end you see all the hats that they lost in a pyramid and at the bottom there are all 3 colors and at the top there is only red and orange. These little clues make you think about what happened, making us use our imagination much more than the other short film. — EG

I liked the first movie we were shown better. I liked them both but this one stuck out to me. It stuck out to me the most because it felt animated and not like stop motion but also I think it had more meaning than the other one. I feel like it meant more than just someone believing a bird. I feel like it meant that the main character was bored in his life and he felt that it was repeating every day. That is why the first movie stuck out to me more. — KF

I liked the Ostrich story better than the father and son one because I feel like it has more action than the father and son one. In the Ostrich story I liked how the movie was in stop motion and how they were wood/clay figures. I also was confused on why the Ostrich was able to talk. In the film when it turned night the guy woke up in his office and he met the Ostrich and he was talking to him about the storage closet and how the guy has never been near it. By the end of the story it was a cliff hanger and that made me want to know what was going to happen next. That is why I liked the Ostrich one better than the father and son one. — JE

I like the Ice Merchants more than the other movie it had sad parts and happy parts to good parts, it had the happy son swinging to the home falling to the dead mom to the moms mug was put up to the and the other one was not my favorite good but not as good as the Ice Merchants.  — TG