Fresh Guacamole

I won't do any describing of this because it will sound ridiculous. But in reality, it is a seamless, outrageous little two minutes that will be hard to forget. Every little bit fits magically into what seems like an actual recipe; it is colorful and unique in every way.

This is a very short film and indeed one of the reasons it appears to have had so many votes and comments on IMDb is that it is known for being the shortest film ever nominated for an Oscar. The film is about a man making guacamole, dicing up the ingredients, mixing them and ultimately serving them up with chips. The method of delivery of this is live-action stop-motion animation (for which the correct term is pixilation) and we see other objects being used in the place of the regular food stuffs – so for example a hand grenade instead of an avocado, poker chips instead of potato chips. Additionally when something is "diced" with a knife, it literally becomes a load of dice.

As a short stop-motion film it is very cool and I liked a lot the way it takes odd ideas and runs with them. We all have things flash into our minds at times, whether it is the obvious stuff like a banana being held like a gun, and essentially that film takes these silly connections and makes them work – so the starting point is that an avocado reminds the maker of a hand grenade and it goes from there. The animation is impressively smooth which is very hard to do when working with real people as we are here. The transition to dice and smaller dice is also impressively done.

In terms of the Oscar nomination I'm not sure why this film was selected when there are so many great stop-motion projects out there, but then in fairness I am not really sure how the Academy narrows the field down to a short list for nomination. I take the nomination of a film like this as recognition not just for this specific project, but rather acknowledgement and highlight of the many great little short films out there that are free of the pressure to return big profits and instead can focus on creativity and seeing what works and what can be done. Fresh Guacamole is such a film – short, creative, fun and technically impressive, I hope it serves as a gateway for viewers to other similar cool stop-motion projects.

'FRESH GUACAMOLE': Three Stars (Out of Five)

This 2 minute 2012 animated short film was nominated for a 2013 Academy Award. It was written and directed by PES and is about making guacamole from different objects around the house (that aren't edible), including dice and poker chips to name a few. PES also directed the 2008 critically acclaimed stop-motion short film 'WESTERN SPAGHETTI', about making spaghetti from different objects. Somewhat amusing and colorful but I don't know if it's Oscar worthy. As far as the animation goes I guess possibly so but there's no story here, it's just an animated cooking video with different objects.

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I have been going to the theater on a pilgrimage for quite a few years now each January-February to see the annual showings of the Best Animated and Best Live Action Shorts. I am lucky enough to live in one of the few places in the country that shows it each year. Now what I am about to say might offend some, but it seems that compared to most years, this year's crop of animated shorts is not as good as usual. While I liked a few films, I didn't love any of them--and no really memorable film was in the lot (such as a couple recent winners, "Logorama" or "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore"). Now this is not to say not to see them--but none bowled me over, that's for sure.

"Fresh Guacamole" is another film from the stop-motion genius, PES (Adam Pesapane). I've loved his other films. However, a major problem will probably prevent this one from getting the Oscar--it's well under two minutes long!! Most of his films are this short--and it seems that to have a better chance of winning these wonderful films should be a bit longer. Of course, considering the subject matter here (showing a batch of guacamole being made using everyday objects and stop-motion) it would be hard to stretch it out much more. You really SHOULD see this one--and my score of 7 only is due to its length. It is really clever.

I understand that "Fresh Guacamole" director PES has directed a number of short films. I had never heard of him until I saw "Fresh Guacamole". This 2-minute short shows noticeable influence from Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, as a pair of hands uses non-food objects to make guacamole. That's literally all that happens in the movie.

I don't see many short movies, so I don't know what the criteria are for award nominations. I thought that this one was pretty neat. As it stands, this is so far only the fifth nominee that I've seen in any category. It's worth seeing if you have two free minutes. I'm going to have to check out PES's other movies.