The Found Footage Festival is right at home in the Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse, where the smell of beer is present but not pungent. It has a warm atmosphere that facilitates the humor in poking fun at some truly bizarre videos that co-curators Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett have collected and edited down to the bare bones over the years.
In its fourth volume, the festival contains 16 different segments, each approximately four minutes long. The curators announce each segment and then provide snark and commentary, similar to “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
Many of the videos speak for themselves, full of people and situations and products so strange they are very nearly inconceivable — which probably means they are real.
The festival is very much a trip through time to the pit of strangeness that the segments make the ‘80s out to be. It is a glimpse into the mindscape of people who put out dating videos, produce homemade exercise tapes that consist largely of jumping up and down and even make instructional videos for male and female masturbation machines.
The tapes are absurd and at times funny in their stupidity, but others push the limits of reason enough that the booze at the Drafthouse definitely facilitates laughter and a stable psyche.
The 90-minute show is like a long collage of stupid human tricks, despite the fact that the people from across the country who made them intended for them to be taken completely seriously.
The fact that such people exist — let alone the fact that they had the audacity or thickness to ever envision that the videos they made could ever possibly be a good idea — is the driving force behind the festival’s comedy.
Not for the more conservative of thought, as the segments often push the boundaries of sanity and rarely evoke anything resembling normalcy. When the videos are genuinely funny, it is nearly entirely based on how strange and absurd they are.
There is nothing wrong with the festival. It is strange, amusing and funny at times, but rarely is it uproarious. It is instead a reminder of the people who inhabit the world, the videos they make and the things they do under the influence of stupidity, alcohol or mind-altering substances — including their own egos.
You can reach this staff writer at bkoenig@theeagleonline.com.
