In God We Trust

What would happen if you died, and were destined to live the rest of eternal life in hell, on the technicality that not quite enough good deeds had been done to qualify for eternal bliss in the great above? Most likely what the main character in this hilarious short does: RUN LIKE HELL!!!

This film is a fast paced race for survival with a man on a mission to amend his life -- after escaping the halls of judgement -- while a bunch of angels track him down for a kill. In the style of "Run Lola Run" the main character speeds along from destination to destination overcoming obstacles along the way. The plot is much less serious than the aforementioned movie however, and comes up with hilarious scenarios for our hero to deal with.

With great cinematography, accompanying music, and a great sense of humor this is one short not to miss!

You can see it if you like at www.atomfilms.com

Robert (Richard Speight Jr, best known as Lex in the now defunct show, "The Agency") gets hit by a bus and sent to purgatory, where after he hears that his "score card" is less then stellar, he escapes. Now it's up to him to get his "good points" up enough to avoid hell In this twenty minute short. This is the first work I've seen from Ivan Reitman's little boy, Jason. And it's proof that sometimes talent doesn't skip a generation. May not be as good as some of his father's work, but I can definately see the potential. This short is pretty damn amusing.

My Short Grade: B+

Where i saw it: Atomfilms

While Jason Reitman certainly has plenty of connections, at least he is trying different forms of filmmaking before following his talented father. Funny, eclectic, and interesting, I really thought this was a great little film to watch.

Sure, some of the jokes seemed a little forced, but the dancing scene is priceless. It was also fun to see how ingeniously purgatory was portrayed, a lumbering beaurocracy between the upper management and the mail room (hell). At least we know the younger Reitman is cutting his teeth and refining his work before he tries to make longer films.

This is an early short film by Jason Reitman a name that rung a bell somewhere so looked him up on this site to discover he's the Canadian director of acclaimed films such as THANK YOU FOR SMOKING , JUNO and UP IN THE AIR .so that makes him relatively rare in that of the many short films I've recently seen he's gone on to having a very successful career in making feature length films

From the outset we're shown the directors talent as he uses the language of cinema such as editing as the camera pans across space on to Planet Earth and a crash zoom lens hits upon a man called Robert picking up a quarter on the a road that ends up becoming a fatal mistake . At this point I thought I might be watching a short film inspired by a rather disappointing British sit-com from the early 1980s called DEAD ERNEST that starred Andrew Sachs who found himself in Heaven and did all he could to be sent back to a mortal life . This isn't in fact how this short film pans out and despite its title and premise only the most bigoted bible basher will find anything offensive about it . It's a film dealing with redemption and contains a lot of charm and this is mainly down to Richard Speight as Robert a rather u, likable loser type character . As I said earlier the director uses some impressive camera work and keeps a consistent tone throughout and while there might be a slightly twee element it's a very enjoyable black comedy

Of the 30 shorts I saw at Sundance, this was by far the best. The imagery was bright and fun. You almost want to get up and cheer for the hero throughout the film. I don't know if or when this film is going to come out but if it does---see it!