Call A Spade by Tara Meehan (taramm) - Short, Drama - Nelson and his autistic son NJ are on a road trip to Reno. Nelson can not afford to keep NJ in his special needs school. With little recourse, Nelson decides to bet his savings at Hold 'Em. He loses. Yet back at the hotel, NJ tries his hand at a virtual casino with life changing results.  9 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey Tara, I'll try again with my review.  I already wrote it once but my connection went down mid-post and I lost it.

First of your title page needs completing and also your synopsis is quite long for a short (I'll come back to this later).

Your first slug has INT. BEAT UP CAR, how do we know the cars beat up from the interior unless you mention it been so.

You put Nelson's son is NJ but the viewer might not jump to that conclusion.

'NJ pays nor the folder any mind'?  This makes no sense to me.

Nelson pulls out of the station and heads for the hotel.  How do we know he's heading for the hotel?

E./I. should be EXT/INT

'The smoke and sounds have an immediate negative effect on NJ', show us this.

I'd insert a SLUG when NJ bolts outside.  You stated it's a single shot INT and EXT so you just need to put OUTSIDE.

I like some of Neslons banter toward NJ, it's very good.

You say Nelson asks NJ if he wants to watch TV then seconds later turns it off saying it's late.

Nelson doesn't sleep through the night, how long is this shown for?  Maybe use a montage or small scenes showing him checking the time or something along those lines.

Some of your descriptions need tightening as they contain phrases which are not needed like, by chance and he can't take it anymore.  Just show us whats happening it reads quicker.

I liked the 911 thing but the NJ being a genius thing, I saw that coming.  Kinda reminded me of Rain Man.

My main problem here lies with your synopsis which describes NJ as being autistic but this isn't mentioned in the script, although you an guess there's something wrong with him.  Mainly though your synopsis tells us the whole story and so I didn't really need to read it.

I liked the origami thing, I think you should develop this.  Maybe incorprate clues about lucky numbers or something, just throwing ideas here, feel free to ignore them lol.