In "Bustout," two hipsters--the Superkiiids, according to the credits--run around like chimpanzees and, well, bust out of stuff as Dan Deacon's "Okie Dokie" plays in the background. Comedians Pete and Brian--you might know them from FunnyorDie.com's "FCU: Fact Checkers Unit"--make their first of two appearances in this program in "Knock Knock," in which one tells the other a series of increasingly depressing and morbid knock-knock jokes; kinda funny.

 

It's hard to tell if "Hirsute," starring and directed and written by A.J. Bond, is trying to make our head hurt with its time-travel story line or if our brain just goes gloopy whenever time travel is mentioned thanks to repeat viewings of Primer. Either way, "Hirsute"'s story about a somewhat mad scientist being paid a visit by his future self is wryly amusing, well acted, and highly engrossing. Jake Mahaffy's "Inertia," another very short film, is also wry, with its medieval example of its titular concept.

 

"Nintendik," David Kratz's way-dumb six-minute video-game sex something-or-other tempts us to review further with a City Paper cameo, but we're not biting. Animator Bill Plympton's latest short, "Shuteye Hotel," on the other hand, similarly grosses us out at times, but also entertains. People keep checking in to the Shut Eye but never come out, and so two cops investigate the goings-on in the hotel's very-high-up penthouse. Pete and Brian reappear in "Flirting With Andrea Schnoonens," caught up in a nearly endless bout of saying the exact same thing as each other.

 

Mike Brune's brilliant 22-minute short closes out this program with something you always hope to see at a film festival--that is, something completely unlike anything you've ever seen before. While vaguely Antonioni-esque in its pacing and mystery, "The Adventure" is its own thing. As an average-Joe/Jane middle-aged couple drive around a state park and admire its beauty, they joke about how much it would cost to purchase. Just when you're getting tired of this conversation and its extended silences, they turn onto a service road, and then the mime shows up. Amusing and unnerving.