Why Watch? Today is the End. Rather, This Is the End opens today. It seems like an appropriate time to highlight another comic take on the apocalypse, and one with an equally blunt title. Andrew Zuchero‘s The Apocalypse played both Sundance and South by Southwest earlier this year, gleefully terrorizing festival audiences. Now we get to watch it ourselves via YouTube. The calamity that strikes the earth in The Apocalypse isn’t particularly complex, nor does it need to be. Five minutes is just about enough time to establish the kind of disaster (heads exploding) and look at its immediate aftermath. The trick, which I’m hardly going to reveal before you’ve watched the short, is reminiscent of the bonkers Canadian zombie flick, Pontypool. There’s no need for explanations, and there’s even less need for multiple locations. A few friends are hanging out in an apartment, and heads start exploding. Zuchero’s assault on human life is odd, hilarious and furiously quick. Also, you get to watch Kate Lyn Sheil’s head explode while Martin Starr watches in horror. What’s not to love about that? What Will It Cost? Just over 5 minutes.

Halfway through the 2012 Borscht Film Festival, a documentary screened titled Rising Tide: A Story of Miami Artists. In the film, which offers a basic guide to the growing art scene in the city, local paper sculptor Jen Stark acknowledges the way the digital world allows contemporary artists to flourish outside of major art centers. “Ever since the Internet came out,” she says, “ I never thought I had to be in New York or wherever.” It was a resonating quote to hear in the middle of an event so devoted to both regional communities and how they can come together as a broader, networked collective of filmmaking scenes. The central occasion for Borscht, which was held last weekend, is a screening of shorts either made by local filmmakers or commissioned by the Borscht Corporation and at least shot in Florida. Many of the films involve an overlapping of talent, and by the end you’ve seen 20 works that have given you a good sense of what’s happening with the underground “Miami New Wave.”