Oscar-Nominated Shorts Headed to Coolidge Corner Theatre


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Scene from the Oscar-nominated short Paperman. (Photo via DisneyAnimation.com)

With the 85th annual Academy Awards merely weeks away, the Internet has been all aflutter with Coopers and Afflecks, Hathaways and Bigelows. Nationwide, the media has been keeping close tabs on the twists and turns of this awards season.

Yet while full-length feature films like Argo and Silver Linings Playbook are certainly merited and deserve respect, mainstream movies make it easy to overlook some truly breathtaking talent on a smaller scale. In particular, this year’s Oscar-nominated animated shorts.

Starting Friday, February 8, Coolidge Corner Theatre will be premiering the five nominees, as well as three other award-winning shorts.

Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels looks to be a lovely parallel: a claymation that literally and metaphorically deals with a married couple that has grown so far apart over the duration of their relationship that the husband resides on the floor while the wife has made the ceiling her permanent home. Adam and Dog, a film by Minkyu Lee, takes the biblical themes of Paradise Lost and retells them in a way that we’ve never seen before: how the relationship between man and dog came to fruition. Are you a fan of guacamole? Adam Pesapane, a.k.a. PES’s colorful, fleeting stop-motion Fresh Guacamole throws some surrealism into the mix, teaching you how to make the delicious avocado dip from everyday objects, including hand grenades and tiny Monopoly houses. (Watch Fresh Guacamole below.) Even Maggie Simpson (yes, that Maggie Simpson) makes an appearance in this year’s nominees in David Silverman’s The Longest Daycare, which takes place at the Ayn Rand School for Tots.

Perhaps the most recognizable of the five is Disney’s Paperman, which played in theaters before showings of Wreck-It-Ralph this past November. First-time director John Kahrs tells the story of a chance meeting during a morning commute in a stunningly realistic black-and-white animation scored by Christopher Beck, set in mid-century New York City. The full film can be watched below (tissues at the ready, please).

Tickets to see all of the shorts at Coolidge Corner Theatre are available now at coolidge.org. $7.25+, February 8-14, Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline, 617–734–2500.

Paperman:

Fresh Guacamole:

Update, 2/8/2013, 10 a.m.: Coolidge Corner Theatre will be closed on Friday, February 8, due to Winter Storm Nemo and the suspension of MBTA service.