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Good movie but grossly overrated

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A documentary about a pet cemetery in California, and the people who have pets buried there.Roger Ebert wrote that the film is an "underground legend," and in 1997 put it in his list of The Great Movies. This is a very strange film to have on the Great Movies list, especially considering it is probably not generally thought of as Morris' best. He is much more well known for "Thin Blue Line" or "Fog of War", for example.But everyone has to start somewhere, and he started off with some quirky people. We see that here, and we see that with "Vernon, Florida". The Criterion collection was wise to package the two together, because they are very much the same sort of story in a way. Is it America or just humanity in general that has these oddballs?

Documentaries can be either very dull or very interesting depending on their subject matter and how said subject matter is presented by the filmmakers. Now, a California pet cemetery most certainly qualifies as a truly eccentric subject for a documentary; it's so inherently strange a topic that it requires a certain amount of taste and restraint on the filmmakers' part to seem serious and involving instead of like some laughable and ridiculous freakshow. Fortunately, producer/director/editor Errol Morris handles this particular subject -- a pet cemetery, the cemetery's owner and employees, and the various people who have buried their deceased pets in the cemetery -- in a commendably delicate, subdued and respectful manner, thus making this strikingly offbeat and original one-of-a-kind feature a genuinely remarkable achievement. Morris wisely shoots the numerous folks he interviews in an appropriately plain, prosaic and unadorned straightforward style, allowing these engagingly colorful individuals to speak at great length, sometimes quite clearly, sometimes rather haltingly, always directly to the camera. There's a welcome and praiseworthy paucity of phony, affected pretension and heightened cloying preciousness evident throughout; however, there's still plenty of authentic heart-wrenching sentiment to be savored in this picture. It's here in spades and is made all the more poignant because it's presented with such great unwavering conviction and a real sense of purpose. While this highly unconventional is definitely out of the ordinary, it's thankfully never really bizarre or grotesque. Instead, it's just different -- and it's this astonishing differentness which makes "Gates of Heaven" a uniquely moving and riveting gem.

As an animal lover I found many poignant moments here. The woman who would sometimes forget her dog was dead--I went through that myself in my teens with my beloved childhood dog, so I know how painful it is. And the cemetery owner's theory that pets are more important now because of the pill makes a lot of sense. Nevertheless, I feel certain Christopher Guest MUST have had this film in mind when he made "Best in Show"! Oh my god there is some unintended hilarity here. On the part of the interviewees, that is; I'm sure Morris knew what he had. The cemetery family, the rendering plant manager...hoo boy! The overall feeling, though, is that we love our animals and they are indeed very special and precious. The elderly woman talking about her ungrateful bum of a son was very sad...I'm going to go call my mother right now.

At first glance, Gates of Heaven appears to be a documentary about the lives of people that run pet cemetaries. On second glance, you realize you are witnessing a visual essay on the subject of death and dying, and how these average folk deal with it.There are esesentially three parts to the film. All deal with either the struggle to build a pet cemetery or maintaining a pet cemetery. The most interesting segment is with a family who runs a successful cemetery in the desert of California. You see generations of a family that has done nothing but run this business. They explain the philosophy behind why they choose to bury pets, and why pets deserve burial just as humans do.Morris lets the camera do all the work. With the exception of two shots every other one is static. A talking head documentary that could probably fit the definition exactly. Morris knows when exactly to inject humor into the film, just enough to keep you interested. If you saw this film nowadays, you would expect it to be on Lifetime or some other obscure cable channel. With a third glance and possibly a fourth, you can see the message Morris is trying to get across. Everyone has a way of dealing with death. It is just how you deal with it that determines how comfortable you are with it.