Son of a Don is an intriguing 10 minute (well 14 minute if you include the incredibly long credits). It’s a genre crossing, mafia comedy short that feels a little like a snapshot of the OC mixed with Goodfellas. It sounds crazy, it sounds like it shouldn’t work, but for me it did.

The story is that of a Father and son’s strained relationship. The Father, Avi, is played by a brilliantly cast Carlo Rota, whilst the son Frankie is played by a less convincing Jonathan Baron. Frankie is heading to college and over protective Avi is doing his best to make sure his ‘Prince’ has the best time possible. Queue comedic moments as Avi does his best to make Tony Soprano look subdued an unobtrusive.

The problem with the short film is that it’s not always funny. The first half, especially with the youngsters, is great. It’s snappy, it had me chuckling and it drew me in. The problem with the transgression into the older Frankie is that I suddenly felt like I was in American Pie meets The Godfather, it just didn’t work for me.

This wasn’t helped by clunky dialogue. In particular the exchanges between Frankie and the beautiful live interest felt stilted. This dodgy dialogue was amplified by some dubious sound editing. In particular the chainsaw sounds and shouting from the goons in the background grated with me, you could just tell that it was all added in post.

Despite these problems the Director shows promise. The RED camera, as usual, provides a superb aesthetic. In particular the scenes at the house party look great. One question I would raise, as it’s one that affects any aspiring Director/Producer of short films, is how they got permission for the music they used (I love the use of the commercial tracks and felt they really complimented the film perfectly). How could they really afford 9 commercial tracks? Do they just stick them in and assume that the label won’t go after them? The film was made by Son of a Don LLC so I suppose you would simply fold the company if anyone attempted to sue you? It’d be great to hear how the production team get round this.

All in all I’d give Son of a Don ***

This commercial from the French channel Canal+ is superb. It’s a fantastic demonstration of how you can work backwards from an end point to generate a compelling film. It’s action packed, fast paced but most surprisingly (seen as though Canal+ are French) it’s funny. It’s actually really funny.

I predict it will do very well at the upcoming Cannes Festival, it’s up for quite a few awards.

E3, the electronic games expo has been the talk of the Internet this past week. What I’ve noticed is that increasingly the trailers for the best games are some of the best animated short films you are likely to see. One game, from the exceptionally talented Bioware, is Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s set for release in 2011 and is going to a MMORPG.

At the moment I haven’t seen any of the in game footage. However, if this short film/commercial is any indicator on the artistic talent developing this title then rest assured that this will be a smash hit. The 5 minute film is incredibly exciting. It features some of the most beautifully choreographed lightsaber fighting I’ve seen outside of the films. It also featured a stunning, dare I say Avatar-esque, rendition of the ill-fated planet of Alderaan.

As if the above was not enough Star Wars action for you check out the other Star Wars game trailer below. This is from The Force Unleashed II and is also looking incredible. It proves, if it ever needed proving, that Vader is the most devastatingly bad-ass bad guy in film history.