Celebrity Shorts

The on and off screen talents contributing to these short films use their celebrity in a variety of methods and settings. Occupation starts the program with a man at a film screening who can’t stop yapping to the man next to him about being a reviewer and successful businessman. When the he thinks to ask the man what he does for a living, the man, who is legendary director Lars Von Trier, lets a hammer help him explain his life’s work. For the Love Of God features the voice talents of Steve Coogan and Ian McKellen in an irreverently perverted claymation tale of a priest, his mother and their pet jackdaw, who guides the priest in his quest to find the ultimate spiritual/sexual gratification. Arrested Development’s Tony Hale stars as an office worker with the ability to change the past in CTRL Z, at least until his keyboard gets fixed. A very pregnant Jenna Elfman directs and makes a cameo in Stuck, a sweet and very literal cupid tale also featuring Ethan Suplee as the chubby bow slinger and Kelly Preston as one of the beauties a guy tries to date to get past an arrow sticking out of his chest. FCU: Fact Checkers Unit is a funny little piece of extreme fact checking when FCU is ordered by their editor, played by Kristen Schaal, to determine whether or not Bill Murray does indeed enjoy a glass of warm milk before bed. Decedents comes with an "unfinished” tag on it but what there is impresses. A lush CGI forest is the setting for a tale of two plants who experience the danger and beauty of life’s natural cycles. Whoopi Goldberg voices an older flower who acts with harsh wisdom in a surprising climax that carries vital moral implications. Disney or Pixar should snap up screenwriter Heiko van der Scherm in a hurry. Kate Hudson directs this year’s weakest short. Cutlass, staring Dakota Fanning, Kurt Russell, Chevy Chase and Virgina Madsen, is a pretty pointless story of how rampant capitalism makes parents stupidly give in to their children’s senseless materialistic whims. Unfortunately, Hudson approaches the topic as one of endearment, hardly surprising for a Hollywood child who could probably talk good old pops into getting her whatever flashy car or guitar that was getting her undies in a bunch at the time. I Am Bob is a brilliant finish. Bob Geldof plays himself, stranded at a celebrity look-alike convention with no money or ID. Nobody believes him but find plenty of humour in his having to ask for money to use the phone. The humanitarian/musician is forced to compete against a fake Geldof in a hilarious rendition of "I Don’t Like Mondays,” only to face the ultimate annoyance of losing a lightning question round about himself due to a long standing misquote attributed to him. Geldof and the other celebrities’ sporting good nature make for self-effacing good times.