Wow, Dan O'Shannon, what an exquisite, will-be-a-classic, little story you wrote, and narrated by one of my favorite actors, Paul Giamatti. I thought the narrative of the story transcended the sentimental ingeniously by having an ordinary ceiling fan as your story's protagonist and his love interest a diminutive, nondescript (for a time) potted plant. Their spiritual copulation reminded me of Donne's famous poem "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning":If they be two, they are two so / As stiff twin compasses are two; / Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if th' other do. //And though it in the centre sit, / Yet when the other far doth roam, / It leans and hearkens after it, / And grows erect, as that comes home.//Such wilt thou be to me, who must / Like th' other foot, obliquely run; / Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun. I only wish The Fan and the Flower were in book form too, so I could read it to my grandkids...I would set it alongside George Saunders' The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp. They'd love it! And I love your TV shows, Dan--Modern Family and all the rest--but I hope you also give us more of these gems...what a gift, thank you! And thank you for dropping in on my sister's class tonight in the snow! Your presence was magical and inspiring. :) Mary 3/30/2011

Wonderful short film from Bill Plympton.The plot is simple a fan and a flower fall in love. To say more than that would spoil one of the most charming animated films ever made.Told with simple black and white lines this is a film that will move you. Its a simple tale told perfectly. I know when the film ended I was upset that it didn't continue on. The wishing of that was pure greed on my part since the film is exactly as long as it needs to be. there are no grand flourishes or showy pieces. Its simple economy.See this film. More importantly see this film with some one you love since in its way it will say more about how you feel then words can express

This is departure from Bill Plympton's usual work, which is not to say that his cadre of fans won't find it equally enjoyable.It is a charming little film depicting the unlikely romance between a ceiling fan and a potted flower. I know how odd that sounds but this engaging film makes it work. The cute little old lady shown only in silhouette reminds me of my own grandmother. And the sacrifice and twist at the end make for an enjoyable pay-off.You can get it over at www.Filmporium.com. The $5 DVD also includes the frustrated rodent tale "Gopher Broke" and the appealing short "The Hill Farm".

How this one missed being nominated for an Oscar, I'll never figure out. Possibly the committee didn't think it was a Bill Plympton because it is, at its heart, a love story. Who knows? In any case, I found it delightful and charming. Because I want to discuss some of the details, this is a spoiler warning: Most people at least somewhat familiar with Bill Plympton's work from shorts like Your Face and 25 Ways To Quit Smoking would probably be surprised to learn that this is a love story-and a beautiful one at that. The twist is (and with Plympton little, if anything, is simple and straightforward) that the star-crossed lovers are a ceiling fan and a flowering potted plant.There are all kinds of Plympton touches in this short-his animation style, some of the visuals paired with the narration (as when the fan is first trying to impress the plant with his three different speeds) complement and accentuate each other quite well and there is humor tinged with sorrow here.This is a visually marvelous short, with one section in the latter part of the short showing the passage of time and the changing of circumstances by a very creative and effective use of silhouettes in a doorway.The ending of the short is marvelous and mixes tragedy and triumph, where out of ruination springs renewal and love transcends life. It's all tied together very well by the narration, done by actor Paul Giamatti.This short is available on a DVD collection of shorts which compiles eight of the shorts nominated for the Academy Awards in the Animated and Live-Action Short categories (all five Live-Action and three of five Animated nominees are here, as well as two extra animated shorts added to fill out the disc). The disc itself is excellent and is well worth getting for this short and the others. Highly recommended.