God of Love

Plot synopsis:
Raymond Goodfellow rides on a country road on his motor scooter. His voice over explains, “You can’t control who you love. You can't control who loves you. You can't control where it happens, or when it happens, or why it happens. You can't control any of that stuff.”
The film flashes back to three months earlier to Ray’s time as a confident, self-centered lounge singer/dart thrower. Ray’s band consists of his friends Fozzie (guitar), Frank (stand-up bass) and the “love of his life” Kelly (drums). Before he joins the band onstage, Ray prays to God asking him for assistance in getting Kelly to love him. Despite Ray’s ongoing affection to her, she seems drawn to Fozzie who, claiming he's genuinely uninterested, is rejecting Kelly’s advances.
After Ray’s crowd pleasing performance, he is informed by the bartender that someone has left a package for him. The package contains “love darts.” The instructions for the darts explain that when someone is poked with love dart they are immediately attracted to the first person they see. This attraction lasts for 6 hours. At the end of the 6 hours if the love is meant to last it will, but if the love wasn't meant to be, it won’t.
Ray tells Fozzie about the darts and they both agree to have a test run. While the band walks home from a gig, Ray throws a love dart catching a prissy Jersey Girl named Angela. The first man she sees is Ray’s quiet, low-key bandmate Frank. Just as the instructions promised, Angela falls in love with Frank immediately. Ray and Fozzie follow the new couple around. After exactly six hours, Angela appears to still be in love with Frank and Ray declares the darts “effective.”
Ray enlists Fozzie’s help in creating the “most romantic six hours” ensuring that Kelly will remain in love with Ray after the love dart’s initial power ends. Fozzie is able to offer several tips, knowing a surprising amount about Kelly and the things that are important to her.
Ray goes to Kelly’s house and strikes her with a dart. As promised by the dart’s instructions, she immediately falls in love with him. They go on their date which goes perfectly. Towards the end of the six hours they kiss. When the six hours end, Kelly looks uncomfortable, thanks him for the evening, and leaves. It is clear that the love from the dart did not last.
Ray consoles himself by poking one woman after another until he has a whole flock of women (and one man) who are completely in love with him for six hours. During this time all he can do is talk about getting Kelly to fall in love with him again. He even contemplates convincing her that she has diabetes so she has to poke herself with the love darts over and over again.
The love darts wear off and he is alone again, ready to try his last dart on Kelly one more time. Walking home from another gig with his band, Ray prepares for his final throw at Kelly. Moments before throwing the dart he realizes that his loyal friend Fozzie is really in love with her and that she is really in love with him. Instead of striking Kelly with the dart, he hits Fozzie right as he looks up at Kelly. The two instantly fall in love with each other.
A wiser and less self-centered Ray returns to his apartment. He finds another mysterious box outside his apartment with a note that says “nice work.” He opens the box and finds Cupid’s bow and arrow.
The film flashes forward to three months in the future at the point the film began. The band continues but without Ray; Angela is the new singer. Frank & Angela and Fozzie & Kelly are still very much in love. Ray is many miles away driving on his motor scooter on the country road his bow and arrow tied to his back. He repeats “you can’t control who you love, or who loves you.” He ends by saying that love doesn’t make sense. He knows all this because “I am the God of Love.”

Tags: flashback

Review:
Excellent short film.
I was extremely pleased with this short comedy.
The film is incredibly well directed.
The dialogue is quite pleasant throughout the story and very well delivered, especially by its leading man/director.
The interesting thing about this film is that it is very well executed from all angles.
Comedies often fall victim to standard or boring cinematography.
"God of Love" however, is very well shot.
It easy to see the consideration give to each and every piece of imagery.I found myself reciting pieces of dialogue for weeks after seeing the film.
They also do a great job getting the viewer to join them on the wild ride that is the world they've set up in the film.
We don't feel the need to question whats happening (the out of the ordinary aspects), we as viewers just buy in and enjoy the ride.Its hard to imagine any reasonable way this film could be improved.
I strongly recommend it to anyone that enjoys watching movies.
Hard to picture a more enjoyable short film.
"God of Love" was a wonderful experience to sit through.
I don't often give movies tens, but in cases like this where I can't imagine a change that I could make that would improve it I happily give it all the points it deserves.
It's quick and clever dialog, unusual story and deft, casual acceptance of it from all the characters was excellent.
Ray was a character presented with complications, but without getting dark, heavy-handed or untrue to his original writing, he transitioned and grew all within the context of a fun and endearing comedy.
An impressive feat for which Matheny deserves as many awards as he picks up..
Luke Matheny might be the 'God of Short Films'!.
'GOD OF LOVE': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)This 18 minute black and white short film won the Academy Award last year (2010) for best Live Action Short.
It was written and directed by Luke Matheny.
Matheny stars in the film as well.
He shot the film on the Red One camera (very effectively) with director of photography Bobby Webster.
In the film Matheny plays an expert dart thrower and lounge singer named Raymond who's in love with a girl in his band named Kelly (Marian Brock).
Kelly has strong romantic feelings for Ray's best friend Fozzie (Christopher Hirsh) though, who won't go near her due to 'friend code'.
Ray prays before every show for God to show him a way to win over Kelly's affections.
His prayers are answered one day (or so he thinks) when someone drops off a box of darts with magical 'love potion' powers.
The trick is they only work for six hours so Ray must find a way to earn Kelly's 'true love' in that time.
The movie is quirky and charming and magically upbeat.
It doesn't play down it's true message though and skimp out for cheap and clichéd effect.
In that way the movie is especially strong.
The performances are all great (especially Matheny) and the dialogue sharp and witty.
The black and white is a nice effect and the cinematography is beautiful as well.
It's hard to rate a film so short, as with all short films (it's not even the running length of a half hour sitcom), but taking that into account I'd have to say it's one of the better live action shorts I've ever seen.
Very nicely done!Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rzBIHq5e3E.
Somebody tell me about the actual dart-throwing!.
So, somebody tell me, is Luke Matheny actually making all those incredible bulls's eyes with his dart-throwing??
It sure looks like it.
That's pretty amazing if he is!
The film is kind of like the guy's random talents all in a nutshell: jazz crooning, dart-throwing, Scrabble-playing...and I suppose he probably plays the accordion, too.
What a riot!Endearing film.
Has a relaxed, jazzy pace, the black-and-white works great, every actor has an interesting face no matter how minor, Sasha Gordon's score perfectly cues the impending schemes, the onset of love susceptibility, the low-key developments.
Matheny has a great eye and charming imagination.
And culture, thank heaven.Check out his earlier short, "Earano", which can be seen on NYU's website.
Somehow Matheny's work manages a kind of innocent idealism and decency that I thought was dead nowadays.
Looking forward to seeing his feature film(s)..
Maybe not profound but certainly the most enjoyable of this year's crop..
Well, I just got back from my yearly pilgrimage to see the nominees for the Best Live Action Academy Award.
Compared to other years, this is an interesting field, as I actually liked all the films and see there being no clear winner.
Usually I have at least a few of them I don't particularly like but this is a good crop...but there also is no clearly 'perfect' film as well.
So, in light of this, my predicting that "The Confession" will be the most likely of the films to win is not at all certain--as I see this as mostly a three film race but any of the five could easily win.While I certainly would acknowledge that "God of Love" is not exactly profound, it is very different from the other nominees this year.
While the other four films are all VERY dark in tone, "God of Love" is the opposite--a quirky little comedy that felt very refreshing when I saw it--it was a nice change of pace.
While I don't think it's technically the very best of these films, it is my favorite and it has a good chance of winning since it is so different--although slight.The film is striking for two big reasons.
First, it's filmed in black & white--an unusual but very artistic choice.
Second, the actors (particularly the lead) are very non-photogenic--not at all the typical sort of actors you'd see in films.
In many ways, though, it reminds me of some of Fellini's films, as he LOVED to but bizarre-looking people in movies and eschewed the typical 'pretty faces' you'd see in other movies.
I loved this and appreciated how such non-traditional folks were given a chance.The film is about a likable loser, Ray (Luke Matheny--who also wrote and directed this lovely film).
He is in love with one of his bandmates but she is only interested in his friend, Fozzie.
And, Fozzie has no interest in her!
So, in desperation Ray prays daily from help from God. And, since the film is a fantasy, the gods decide to help him--sending him a set of cupid-like darts through which he might be able to find the girl of his dreams.
The film goes many different directions and never exactly goes where I expected--and I loved this.
I also loved the film's quirky sense of humor, unusual style and plot as well as how incredibly artistic and well filmed the movie is--it's a real work of art.So will it win?
Tune in and see--I'll update this review when I find out the results.
I think that despite its slight nature it has a good shot, as the other films are all so similar that perhaps they'll fight each other for votes.
Also, the other two best films of the crop ("The Confession" and "Wish 143" are so similar in many other ways that I can't help but think that "God of Love" might manage to slip through with enough votes to take the prize.
Regardless, Matheny is immensely talented and I can't wait to see him in other projects--whether writing, acting or directing.
An adorable and easy to like movie.UPDATE: Wow, this never happens.
I actually picked this category correctly.
In a conversation I had with a friend who saw the films with me, I told him that although I thought "The Confession" was the best film that it and "Wish 143" were so similar in tone and style that "God of Love" would win.
Insanely enough, "God of Love" won and I think my prediction was correct--something that NEVER happens!.
A triumph, very smart, very funny.
"God of Love" is an English-language short film from 5 years ago.
It runs for almost 20 minutes, is black-and-white and I applaud Luke Matheny for what he did here in terms of writing, directing and acting.
I do not often completely agree with the Academy, but I believe they got it right when they handed him the Live Action Short Film Oscar.
Hilarious acceptance speech by the way.
Check it out.
Matheny has great recognition value due to his physical appearance and that elevated the film as well.
I am really glad to see his recent success with the television show "Maron".
I have not seen it (yet), but it sounds a bit like "Louie" to me.
I hope Matheny can step into full feature films at some point too.
I would certainly watch it.Now, about "God of Love": First of all, do not be misguided by the pretentious-sounding title.
This film is everything but pretentious.
It's simple, funny (very tongue-in-cheek) and creative and the title reference comes from the very last quote of the main character and it's not really meant seriously.
Also the choir at the end is really just for comedic purposes.
The story is as simply as effective.
A guy (Matheny) loves a girl.
She, however, loves his best friend.
And his best friend won't date her because it would be wrong to hurt his friend like that.
Quite a mess.
Then, Matheny's character one day finds a dart with which he can get people to fall in love with each other, sadly only for 6 hours.
After that, the two have to have made a real connection so that the love stays, even if the effect from the dart wears off.
He tries it on a friend and it works.
The two stay together.
Sadly, things do not go that well with himself and the girl of his dreams.
There were a handful hilarious references and scenes in here, like the diabetes part or the scene where all the girls are following our hero.
I very much enjoyed watching these 19 minutes.
Give it a chance, you will not regret it.
One last thing I forgot, there is also nice singing in here..
Funny but uneven in spots, the lead character is intentionally obnoxious.
This short won the Academy Award for Live Action Short.
There will be spoilers ahead: This short is about a band with an unusual twist.
The lead singer croons while he throws darts and does trick shots.
He's also part of a love triangle, where he's in love with the drummer, who in turn is in love with the guitarist, who is the singer's best friend.The singer, Goodfellow (interesting name, that) prays for help in winning the young lady's affections.
He would have done well to recall the old Chinese curse, "May you get everything you wish for".
Goodfellow gets a very special box of darts from the Olympus Foundation (one of the nice touches in this short.Goodfellow, oblivious as well as obnoxious, makes life interesting for quite a few people as he pursues what he wants regardless of the consequences, until he has an epiphany.The end of this short is beautiful and Goodfellow makes some very funny and on point observations during the voice-over at the end of the short.
This is available on DVD and Blu-Ray as part of a compilation of Oscar winning live action and animated shorts from Shorts International and the DVD is well worth buying.
Recommended..
God of Drivel.
A dopey jazz singer is in love with a female band member who doesn't return his affections.
God, or something else, provides him with magic love darts that make whoever they prick interested in the first person he or she sees for six hours.
Dopey singer tries to make his crush fall for him, but her affections always wear off.
Finally, he gives up and sets her up with a guy she likes.
Maybe love will find him one day?
I sure hope not.
The movie is needlessly shot in black and white and has very sexist overtones.
We aren't given any reason for this guy to get a girlfriend other than his desire for one.
A bland indie "comedy" is lurking in this concept.Not Recommended