In your mouth you have these things called taste buds. The amazing thing is that everyone’s buds are different--even people who came out of the same birth canal. For example, we lurv broccoli and begged for it as a child. But our siblings, and this guy, hate it. Taste buds don’t make sense. Tastes buds are kinda like humor receptors; everyone’s sense of what is good is different, and thankfully no one can tell us what to think is funny, or tasty for that matter. But one thing is for sure: there are a truckload of funny people in Austin who can fulfill every comedic taste, some of whom will be cage-matching this evening as the Cap City Comedy Club hosts the finals of the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin contest.

Last week Bryan Gutmann, the reigning Funniest Person in Austin, was at the helm as the field was whittled down to just seven sub-five-minute shorts. Tonight, in between each finalist, to assure that your guts receive no mercy from their chuckle-pummeling, Gutmann’s FPiA predecessors Matt Bearden and Doug Mellard will be brining the pain, you know, in a tickle war kind of way. (We would actually really like to have a tickle war with Matt and Doug. Fingers Crossed!)

From what we have seen, the field is varied, with subjects such as live-in-deadbeats with funny accents, southern rebels confused about whether they are fighting for slavery or freedom and the choice every man must make between surrendering to Jesus, Satan or lovely lady lumps (the frontal, very bouncy kind.)

Needless to say, Austinist thinks that all of these filmmakers are winners, but we all know that children perform better when they are receiving a grade, so let the dream crushing judging begin! Our very own Film Editor Matt Smith will be sitting at the judge’s table, joining other upstanding Austin film aficionados such as Shawn Badgley (Austin Chronicle), Mike Akel, (CHALK), and Austin's most athletically outfitted band, Awesome Cool Dudes! We do not envy this most monumental decision that they have been tasked with, but no doubt this accredited panel will use a surgeon's precision in carving out the winning short from the rest of the pack. That lucky film’s creator(s) will be awarded two all access badges to this year’s Austin Film Festival, the honor of having their short screened at said festival and a year’s worth of bragging rights and broccoli. Okay, maybe not the broccoli part.

Funniest Filmmaker in Austin Finals
Monday, August 27th
Cap City Comedy Club [Directions]
8pm, Free!
[MySpace]