First Reformed

First Hit: A slow paced, thoughtful, story about a confused tormented priest.

In upstate New York there is a small church called First Reformed. Its leader is Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) who is troubled because of his past military experience and from losing his son. He’s also ignoring his illness, has a small congregation of six or seven people, and drinks a lot to push his troubles away.

He begins to start a journal which serves, from time to time, as a voice over during the film.

The church is going to celebrate it’s 250th anniversary and the big famous church in town, led by Pastor Jeffers (Cedric the Entertainer) is sponsoring the celebration. The celebration will have the mayor, the governor and a leading business executive – specifically a deep pocket financial partner named Edward Balq (Michael Gaston) who owns a company that pollutes the environment.

The complications in the story come from Mary (Amanda Seyfried) and her husband Michael (Phillip Ettinger). She’s pregnant, he wants Mary to abort the child because the polluted world the child will be born into is not something he can support. Michael is a serious environmental activist. This is born out when Mary finds a vest bomb he's made. Mary has asks Reverend Tollar to step in and help. This is difficult for Tollar.

Also, Toller’s ex-wife works for Pastor Jeffers and wants to be involved in Toller’s life but he’s pushes her away whenever possible.

The key in this story is about Michael’s activism and how it affects Reverend Toller. Toller thinks about what is happening to the earth and plans to make a big statement about this at the celebration because he dislikes Balq’s attitude and Pastor Jeffers’ control and support of Balq’s polluting company.

The pacing was very methodical and therefore the film was long. I think it could have been tightened up a bit. The ending was a bit odd as well, and it fit the overall films oddity.

Hawke is strong as the tormented reverend. He’s good in these types of roles and here he continues to excel. Seyfried is excellent as the confused activist wife whose opinion was changed by her own pregnancy. Cedric the Entertainer was very strong as the Pastor of his big time evangelical church. Ettinger was good as the confused and depressed Michael. Gaston was strong as the business man who thinks money fixes everything. Victoria Hill (as Esther, Toller’s ex-wife) was excellent. Her care and out reach was perfectly annoying to Toller. Paul Schrader wrote and directed this film. I liked the dialogue, however the pacing was just a little too slow for me.

Overall:  This film is complex in that it is about, environment issues, loss, abortion, religion and big business all mixed into one story.

The Last Word

First Hit:  I really enjoyed watching Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried, and AnnJewel Lee Dixon’s characters and interactions.

After seeing this film the other day, I read a couple of reviews about it and although I enjoyed reading their mostly negative views, I’m not in agreement with them.

What worked for me, was Harriet’s (MacLaine) obsessive compulsive behavior. Anyone that knows me, knows I have these tendencies. Therefore, I could easily laugh out loud at her statements and actions. I can understand other people not finding this amusing. I also liked the way both Anne (Seyfried) and Brenda (Dixon) could make their less overwhelming characters be seen, heard and integral to the story as well.

Briefly, Harriet is a wealthy woman living in a large meticulously kept home. The opening scenes see her as feeling forlorn and without purpose. She isn’t liking her life. She picks on her gardener while he cuts her hedges by telling him he’s doing it wrong. Her cook and housekeeper get supplanted preparing Harriet's meal when she steps in and starts cutting the vegetables. Sitting at the table with the meal, she looks at it and doesn't eat it because of her sadness.

When her futile attempt to kill herself fails thereby ending up in the hospital, she tells the doctor what he is saying to her is incorrect and demeans his ability. She’s outright rude to people. She glances at the obituary page in the local newspaper and realizes that she wants to have some control over what her obituary will say about her.

Storming into the local newspaper’s office she demands Anne, the obituary writer, write her obituary over the weekend. By giving Anne an alphabetical list of family and people she knows, she expects to see a wonderful orbit. As Anne does her research she discovers that nobody likes her. Her priest tells Anne that he "hates, just hates," her. Some of these interview scenes are very funny.

But as with most Hollywood films, we’re going to have a great ending. To get there the filmmakers have Harriet deciding to do some good things to redeem herself. One of them is to “help a poor unfortunate black or handicap” person. And into her life comes Brenda (Dixon), who is spunky, thinks the Dewy Decimal System is stupid, and has a fireball firecracker personality. As the film evolves, we get these three people learning to change who they are to become people they want to be. That’s what this film is about. Living closer to one’s truth.

I really enjoyed the scenes where the three of them interacted. The dynamic and different personalities were made for enjoyment: The pulling the “L” off the sign at her old advertising firm, the road trip, the swimming in the swimming hole, Harriet speaking with both her ex-husband Edward (Philip Baker Hall) and her daughter Elizabeth (Anne Heche), were all well thought out. I also really liked how alive Anne became when she was DJ’ing at the local radio station.

MacLaine was strong and there are few that could have made this role work as well as it did. Seyfried was excellent. Her understated strength was well intentioned in this role. She made her wall almost invisible yet clearly defined and prominent. Dixon was so much fun and created a wonderful energy throughout the film. It was a remarkable casting. Heche was perfect as the success oriented estranged daughter. Hall was strong as her former husband sharing his love for her. Stuart Ross Fink wrote a good script that had some clever lines and scenes. Mark Pellington did a good job of directing these three diverse characters. However, there were a couple of scenes, like the three of them walking with sunglasses on in slow motion, that were overdone and tried to be too clever.

Overall:  My own struggles with perfectionism were touched and laughed at while watching this film.

Ted 2

First Hit:  Some very funny laugh out-loud moments along with crude and sophomoric scenes.

This film was much like the first with John (Mark Wahlberg) and Ted (voice by Seth MacFarlane) being best friends, doing drugs (mostly pot), and acting like they are frat brothers.

However, Ted decides that he’s in love and marries Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) still has a grudge (from the first film) that Ted belongs to John. He decides to hatch a plan to have Ted declared “property” and not a human. The case goes to court.

Along the way, we have lots of cameos including Jay Leno, Liam Neeson, Michael Dorn and Sam Jones in roles that personified characters they’ve played. The crude language was more than required to make it funny but there are lots of humorous situations.

Wahlberg was OK at John but I actually like him better in more serious roles. Barth is perfect as Ted’s wife and made her role work. Ribisi is always great in his slightly perverted role. Amanda Seyfried as Samantha, Teds lawyer, was a great counterpoint. Morgan Freeman playing a civil right attorney Patrick Meighan was a typical role for him and even Ted made fun of his perfect voice. Seth MacFarlane and Alec Sulkin wrote the script, which, for the most part worked. MacFarlane also directed the film.

Overall:  It was funny but film becomes forgettable by the next day.

While We're Young

First Hit:  Uneven and the up moments happen more often than the down moments.

There are moments of insight, like when Josh (Ben Stiller) says that he’s been too focused on himself (his ego) and how he’ll be seen in the world instead of just doing the work.

He’s a documentary film maker that is 8 years stuck in a project. He’s an idealist and caught in his idealism. His wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) has a famous documentary film maker father Leslie (Charles Grodin) and this adds all sorts of complications for all three of them.

Josh and Leslie strike up a friendship with Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) who are almost 20 years younger than them. They enjoy the aliveness of this young couple and spend lots of time with them. But is the relationship really what it is perceived to be? That is the question Josh needs to figure out.

Stiller is OK, there is something about his intensity that worked for and against him in this role. Watts is far better and watching her learn hip-hop was funny and wonderful. Driver is strong as the guy who will bend the truth and look honest doing it. Seyfried was very good and her ability to be seen in the film this well as the fourth character shows her strength. Grodin was great as the crotchety, yet kind, documentarian. Noah Baumbach wrote and directed the film. There are strong moments as well as moments that needed to be cleaned up.

Overall:  It was enjoyable enough and there are some funny bits in this film that make it entertaining.

Lovelace

First Hit:  Surprisingly engaging film although it lacked a certain depth.

Deep Throat grossed some $600+ million dollars. Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) made less than $2,000 for her part and she was a porn star actress for less than 3 weeks of her life. 

Being used by her husband Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard) and other men was the basis for her book “Ordeal”.

The film develops Linda from a young teen, who didn’t like being controlled by her strict parents. As we learn, their restrictiveness came from Linda and family having to move because she became pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption which was a family embarrassment (back in those days that wasn’t uncommon).

Linda gets mesmerized by Chuck at a roller rink where she was dancing as a go-go dancer for a local band. As she experiences the freedom of being away from her parents she also discovers the controlling restrictiveness of being married to a controlling man. Chuck needs money so he convinces Linda, with her ability to not have a gag reflex, to do a porno film – and Deep Throat was born.

As her fame increased her husband got more restrictive and abusive. Except Linda, this film doesn’t dig into any of the characters too deep and even then Linda’s own personality isn’t explored too much.

Seyfried is engaging and pulls off, the innocence, lack of self-worth, and slow at finding her own voice character she needed to be. Sarsgaard is good as the menacing Chuck, although it would have helped having some background on his character. Sharon Stone as Linda’s mother was excellent and one of the better aspects of this film. Robert Patrick as Linda’s father was also very strong by coming across as smoldering, shamed, and withdrawn. I didn’t think James Franco as Hugh Hefner worked as there wasn’t the air that Hef created around him with this character. Andy Bellin wrote this script which felt like it needed to dig into the characters more. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman co-directed this film and for the most part it was OK but lacked a solid idea.

Overall:  Not really worth seeing in the theater but maybe at home.