Weekends

This Oscar-nominated short offers a surrealistic point-of-view movie as a small boy spends the weekdays with his mother, who is studying to be an accountant, and the weekends with his father, who has cool samurai swords and plays video games with his son. These sequences are interspersed with dream sequences of flying. Each parent tries to move on with life, which causes the protagonist some alarm, but in the end, nothing much happens and life goes on.

Has animation entered its anecdotage? That period of long, rambling discourses that seem to start out well and pertinently, continue with some interesting-seeming details and then after a white, end with nothing at all being different? Because that's what happens here. This is quite unlike being in a phone conversation with my great-aunt Esther, who would keep you on the phone for hours. Every forty-five minutes like clockwork, she would say "You know what I mean?" When you replied "Yes, Esther" to prove you hadn't hung up on her, she would switch from that interminable story to a different endless one.

Perhaps this short might have some value to kids whose parents are going through a divorce, wondering if the world will ever move on. However, the program at the IFC where I saw this notes "Not suitable for children under 8". So much for that thought.

"Weekends" is an animated short film written and directed by Trevor Jimenez. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2018. While it lost to Oscar heavyweight, Pixar's "Bao," the film was both thought-provoking and realistic from my point-of-view, as a recently divorced dad, figuring out weekends with my three kids. Jimenez made the film through the co-op program at Pixar, which permits employees to use some company resources to make their own independent short films.

I feel like I can identify with both the father and mother depicted in the film. Despite the circumstances, the new reality of the divorced parent is still one of hope. There is hope beyond a divorce. Life changes, there are adjustments to be made, new work to be done when you move on to any new endeavor. But ultimately, there is hope.

I would recommend this film for divorced parents, but not necessarily for younger kids. The film is rated "R." There is a scene that implies domestic violence (not shown) between the divorced mother and a love interest leading to the end of that relationship. This can be both frightening and unsettling to kids. Some of surreal dream sequences of how the child perceives the events occurring around him are also disturbing.

The best animated short film of the 20th Animation Show of Shows. Simply put, this is the story of a young Asian boy who struggles with his parent's separation, and has to transition between being with his father on the weekends and his mother during the week. It is a fairly sad film, accompanied by Gymnipedie No.1 all throughout, but it has both its scary and comedic moments as well.

Stunning animation, beautiful music, and a relatable story, Weekends is a film that you should definitely find the time to watch, maybe this weekend?

Hoping this wins the 2018 Academy Award for Best Animation Short Film.

"Weekends" was nominated for Best Animated Short, but like most of the time these days, this independent film lost out to a Disney or Pixar short (in this case, "Bao" by Pixar).

The story is told without words and a few times I felt confused as it wasn't always easy to tell what was happening (especially with the father at the end) and the film was incredibly somber...made more so by the lovely but depressing music by the French composer, Satie. The film consists of recollections by a child about being passed from parent to parent on weekends because of a divorce.

So is it any good? Well, I loved the hand-drawn animation....it was unique looking and very nice. As for the story, however, it just felt as if I needed more...more to understand what was occurring. It is not an easy film to love but it is well made.

Wasn't the best out of the 5 nominated. I actually preferred tweet tweet over this one.