Why Watch? If it’s part creepy and part endearing, it must be from Jim Henson, right? io9 keenly celebrated this find from the ATT Tech Youtube channel – a short created by Henson in 1963 for a business owner seminar from The Bell System. Even without seeing his name on the work, you could have guessed it. His unique artistic sense is on display here in a fantastic, desperate monologue from a robot that loves ingesting vast oceans of information smoke. Adorable and unnerving. Yeah, it’s Henson alright. What will it cost? Only 3 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Why Watch? In this bizarre work (half authored by the internet), artist and academic Sebastian Schmieg loaded a transparent image into a search engine, nabbed the top result, searched with that new image, and repeated the cycle. Almost 3,000 images later (2,951 to be exact), he created a 12 frames per second flip book that is both stunning, confusing, and somehow also banal. It’s our everyday extrapolated and turned into what might be called Found Object Short Film. Or it might just be true Found Footage filmmaking. How do you go from images of the universe, to breasts, to Rage Comics, to Google (the search engine itself), to graphs? Let the internet do the directing. Ingenious. What will it cost? Only 4 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Why Watch? This year, the city of Talinn, Estonia created 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero, an experimental film project which saw a bunch of different directors from all over the world create a one-minute short film which would play a grand total of one time in front of an audience before the sole 35mm copy was burned along with the screen it played on. Fortunately, digital copies weren’t off limits. Be warned that Adam Wingard‘s entry, Ultra Modern, features nudity and sadness but also be warned that it carries a sort of uneasy beauty, a vibrancy that can leave you cold, and an abruptness that makes it difficult to access. Simply put – it’s uncharacteristically abstract. What’s more, I’m not so sure it’s meant to be understood. What does it cost? Just 1 minute of your time. Trust us. You have time for more short films.

Why Watch? We’ve already featured filmmaker Zac Grigg‘s work, but if his last film were slapstick, this new work is ballet. Set to the dichotomous mix of “Ave Maria,” a gospel standard, and a bluesy, electric fusion track, this wordless story focuses on a young man searching for redemption inside his dreams. The camera work outside of the dream sequences is a bit lacking, but the rest is a stirring showcase of how versatile this director is proving to be. In short, it’s experimental, sepia-toned poetry. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time. Check out The History of the Bracelet for yourself:

Why Watch? Haven’t you always wanted to see a man and a bathtub procreate? This experimental short film from director Bobby Miller is the kind of movie that portrays a man masturbating in a shower while overdubbed 70s intermission music plays. It’s also the kind that can force cry-laughing, a confusing emotional state where fear, sadness, and pure laughter somehow live inside the same facial expression. Feel free to ball up in a corner for the rest of the day after watching it. What does it cost? Just 12 minutes of your time. Check out Tub for yourself:

Why Watch? Because the combination of animation, experiment, and Welles is a palpable one. In 1977, experimental filmmaker Larry Jordan used work from 19th century French artist Gustave Doré and the thunderous tones of Orson Welles to bring Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s most famous epic poem to life. It’s a potent story of a sea captain who kills an albatross while on the ocean and pays a hefty penalty. But chances are that you already knew that, having had to memorize it for freshman English class in high school. The version here, which is more than a bit different from Raúl daSilva’s 1975 take, is surreal at times but also direct. The engravings are wonderful, but there’s no denying that Welles is the star. What does it cost? Just 40 minutes of your time. Check out The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for yourself:

Why Watch? Because there is no because. This short film is billed as the first surrealist film, and it’s easy to see why. It apparently has a plot (involving a clergyman lusting after the wife of a military man), but it would be tough to pluck it out from watching the images alone. It’s a beautiful set of visuals (paired here with a stirring guitar-based score), but it doesn’t mean anything. On the other hand, it’s a nice reminder that filmmakers have been experimenting since very, very early on. Leave it to the French to make a nonsensical film about erotic dreams, I guess. What does it cost? Just 31 minutes of your time. Check out The Seashell and the Clergyman for yourself:

For those of you new to the column, I’m revisiting formative events in my life that have made me what I am today: A Special Effects Make Up Artist looking for relevance in the 21st Century. I have completed one year at the California Institute of the Arts Film Graphics program, and I have returned for my second year, I have moved off campus and have a small garage shop to make monsters. I am nineteen years old… My second year at CalArts, I ended up on Academic Probation. That was no easy task since students were not graded on an A, B, C, etc. scale. Instead, it was High Pass, Pass, or Incomplete. There was no “fail” but every two years (sophomore & senior) all students were “reviewed” by a board made up of a few faculty members. It probably had something to do with my cessation of attending classes primarily because they truly weren’t much more than glorified “wrap sessions.” It would be unfair to mention faculty names, but I will mention some of the classes to illustrate what I mean. I took a class called “Direct Animation” which the course description promised the manipulation of three-dimensional objects in front of a camera. To me, that is a description of Stop Motion Animation, right? It was finally something in which I had a passionate interest.

Why Watch? Because the things of this universe will steal the breath right out of your lungs. This experimental piece instantly became a favorite because it combines still and moving imagery from the NASA Cassini Mission with the music of Nine Inch Nails, and it’s edited together with keen understanding. The music and the vast nothingness make for a heavy, somber feeling, but the grandiose nature of what’s filling the void is something triumphant and brimming with cosmic importance. It, at once, reminds us that we’re small and of what something small can do. We can travel out into the blackness of the universe and bring back its beauty. What does it cost? Just 2 minute of your time. Check out Cassini Mission for yourself:

Now that we know that Ryan Reynolds’s next feature is going to be a one-man show, I’m wondering if he’ll open with, “Oh, hey! Didn’t see you there!”