On the Internet Nobody Knows Who You Are: HollyShorts 2025 -...

Dave Freeman in ‘Dave Nation” Episode #894 as portrayed by Jesse Einstein.

HollyShorts 2025 has many shorts in competition this past three days (most of which I spent on the road to Texas). Last year, the count was 427. The short that caught my eye was “On the Internet Nobody Knows Who You Are,” a 23 minute, 26 second offering from J.M. Logan that starred Jesse Einstein as Dave Freeman.

Jesse films himself for a feed called “Dave Nation” (GoPro?), and the Episode of Dave Nation we open on is #894. He explains that his father took him camping in his youth to a lovely forested area at the top of a mountain Dad referred to as Magic Mountain. Now that his father has been dead three years, Dave wants to take his father’s ashes to the top of Magic Mountain and scatter them there. (It’s a scene reminiscent of a similar undertaking in “The Big Lebowski.”)

Things do not go exactly as planned.

For one thing, even when he was young, Dave wasn’t keen on hiking and camping. “I was 12 years old. The last thing I wanted to do was to be alone with m dad in the woods.”

Dave Freeman (Jesse Einstein) of “On the Internet Nobody Knows Who You Are.”

But Dave sets off, despite the information that the next day is going to require a 6 mile hike. He has many small setbacks, but the bear attack in the night leaves him saying, “I have no gear, no tent, no food, no socks, and I don’t really remember how to use a compass.”

Who knew,” he asks, “that bears ate socks?”

Things get real very fast when Dave thinks he is hopelessly lost.

I love short films like this one that are more about being “real” and less about teen-age eternal love or Grandma (that would be me) becoming friends with a youthful soccer player from Nigeria or Timbuktu. (I won’t name names, because the acting in that one was great, but the originality of the piece was not.)

This one reminded me of the award-winning 7 minute short “Retirement Plan” that Irish Director John Kelly has just posted on YouTube, which is hilarious. (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mqa4zfJdx4)

Atop Magic Mountain in “On the Internet Nobody Knows Who You Are.”

“Retirement Plan” was the best thing I saw last spring at SXSW, with the possible exception of “The Studio.” This one reminds me of it, except that it was 3 times as long. The cinematography and sound are great and Jesse Einstein—who looks exactly like a real-life friend of mine named Jimmy Mack—did a fine job. The original score by Antoni M. March, used atop Magic Mountain, was suitable in that spot.

Apologies to the HollyShorts people for my belated and unimpressive output this year. I was driving from Illinois to Texas during most of the (short) festival run. Things did not go exactly as planned. Unexpected things happen when two fossils set out to drive 1,000 miles. They generally happen in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Then, you have to twist tie your car together and drive 6 hours in that condition, which is even worse than Dave Freeman having to hike the last 6 miles to the top of Magic Mountain. Pulling over every so often to remove pieces of your ruined vehicle and keep them from flying off and causing catastrophes for other vehicles on the road: one tactic. Telling your spouse “act invisible” when GPS tells you there is a speed trap ahead: another less useful tactic.