In the animated short Western Spaghetti, a cook slices up a Rubik’s Cube to season a sauce of pin cushions and aluminum foil, simmering over flames of candy corn. Sliced dollar bills, shaved Post-it Notes, and chopped dice are added to taste. In another pot, pixie sticks boil in bubble wrap until done. The finished pasta, topped with shredded yarn, looks good enough to eat, but that’s not the point: The innovative animation is what you really fill up on. The stop-motion piece of brilliance picked up awards at the Sundance and Annecy film festivals in 2009, and joins a collection of other small wonders at the Holiday Animation Film Festival, a quick dunk into the animation scene that should be a part of any Exploratorium visit in the post-Christmas cool-off. It’s also a chance to see early work by Sita Sings the Blues director Nina Paley, along with new work by S.F.’s Michael Langan, the man behind last year’s very weird and subsequently award-laden Doxology.
Dec. 26-30, 12 & 2 p.m., 2009
