In God We Trust

First saw this at the Toronto Film Festival, and it was great. Better than some two hour features I saw there! This director is a talent to watch, I hope he is already working on a feature. I think you can see this little gem for yourself at atomfilms.com. It was there a few months ago.

I can't tell you too much about the story, cause I don't want to give it away! The actor was in those Doritos commercials, and some other stuff, he's very familiar. The writing is all there, and the acting by (forgive me, I don't know the names) the "purgatorial officer" was hilarious. You could tell that the people making the short were having fun. Well, if they weren't they sure looked it. Try to find this somewhere, you be glad you did.

We loved this short film. When one of us got AtomFilms hi-def, this was one of the first films we got on it. Simply splendid! We loved it! The little details made the film! Aspiring film makers, take notes! :) The music was brilliant!

Robert dies, goes to purgatory and discovers he is destined for hell(for little things; like he never danced... aside from at a funeral). Robert escapes and gets a bit of a second chance. He starts out scaring the bejeepers out of two paramedics, who -thought- his body was caput, then he heads out to make things right.

This film has an educational quality, too. yeah. We learned that smoothies can help save you from eternal damnation. Good to know.

I caught this movie the other day on cinemax and I liked it. It's one of the best short comedies I've seen, its fun, easy to watch, and it left me with a big smile on my face when it was over. I truly enjoyed it. I recommend you catch it next time its on cinemax.

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

A man is distracted by a quarter lying on the street, which causes him to get hit by a vehicle and killed. Arriving in purgatory he is shocked to find that his records says he got sufficient negative points during his lifetime to condemn him to Hell – nothing anyone can do, it's the system. A Windows (Purgatory Edition) issue gives the man a chance and he bolts for the elevator, taking his soul back down to his body. Happy to be alive, the man discovers that the admins in Purgatory are now trying to kill him again to return him to his rightful place.

This student short film has a touch of Final Destination about it in the structure but it has more than enough of its own going on. Starting with ha surprisingly well done car accident, the film takes us into the comedic admin of the afterlife before the escape attempt which has various comic attempts to return him to death, while at the same time the man ranks up positive points without even knowing it. Generally it has a nice comic tone and some particularly funny moments, although it must be said that some of the material and delivery could have been tighter and funnier – some jokes are just okay and need a bit of carrying. The film looks and sounds good though and I was impressed by the sharp image and mostly good shooting in locations and external – okay purgatory could have done with a bit more design in there, but it works for what it is.

The acting is mostly good with only some of the weaker jokes showing the cracks – the delivery needed to step up to make them better but it doesn't. Mostly though it is a nicely written and delivered short film which is consistently amusing throughout even if not as perfectly sharp and hilarious as it could have been.