A program of movie shorts is like a bowl of party mix — work with me here; it’s a metaphor and I intend to torture it — and a lot of the enjoyment lies in not knowing what you’re going to pop in your mouth next. That’s also the downside: For every crunchy macadamia nut, there’s a stale piece of Rice Chex or a wasabi pea that’s gone off.

“2012 Sundance Shorts,” a touring collection that arrives at the Coolidge today, has a few too many questionable wasabi peas. The 10 films, all of which played the Sundance Film Festival last January, range in length from 3 to 21 minutes, and, unusually, the two longest shorts — the Brazil nuts, if you will — are the freshest. They’re also the two that most pointedly engage the real world.