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.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Overall:  Visually entertaining, poignant message and fun to watch.

The “setup” I thought was a bit weak when there’s an explanation as to how and why this very large spaceship/planet/thingy named Alpha become home to species from a thousand planets. However, getting past this we are introduced to Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) who work for the government of Alpha. Therefore, the best interests of the government, not any particular species is their focus.

The film also documents, at the beginning, the destruction of planet Mul, which was occupied by highly evolved and functioning humanoids that focused on giving back what it receives.

The Defense Minister (Herbie Handcock) instructs Valerian and Laureline to guard Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) because the Commander warns that the ship has an expanding radioactive bubble in the middle of the ship and they cannot figure out what it is or why it's there . Unfortunately for the film, Filitt acts in such a way that he gives it away that he’s implicated in this radioactive bubble. This could be because of the way the character was written or because Owen often plays this type of double crossing character.

Valerian and Laureline are also sent to find the “converter” which replicates items it ingests. It is a survivor from the planet Mul and really belongs to the remaining humanoids as part of their way of life. They also find a pearl which was used by the Mul members to feed the converter and then the planet itself.

Filitt is then abducted and Valerian must search the ship to find him discovers that the “radioactive” menace in the core of the ship is not what they think it is. As they figure out what really happened to Mul and why Filitt is implicated, Laureline convinces Valerian to give the converter and pearl to the rightful owners, allowing them to restart their nirvanic race. It is hard for the major to break his dutiful role and use love as the answer.

DeHann was good and embodied the youthful character required to make this film work. Delevingne was, to me, the star of the film. Her wide-eyed soulful intelligence worked and made the film complete. Owen was, and is always, good as a self-righteous villain. Rihanna was very strong as Bubble. Ethan Hawke was wonderful as Jolly the Pimp. Hancock was OK in a pivotal but distant role. Luc Beeson wrote the screenplay as well as directed this film. It was a visual extravaganza and this made it worth watching.

Overall:  The film’s visuals,  Delevingne and DeHann are what kept me watching this film with interest.

The Magnificent Seven

First Hit:  The original 1960’s film had heart, this one doesn’t.

As much as I like Denzel Washington (playing Chisolm) and Chris Pratt (playing Josh Faraday) in films, this one felt dead. No character was really given a story to care about until the end when Chisolm shares why he really took the job to kill and defeat Bartholomew Bogue’s (Peter Sarsgaard) group of men who controlled the small western town. But until this moment, there was only some “telling” as to why this small band of men decided to protect this small town versus engaging the audience in a story having heart.

It is a shame, because there's a slew of wonderful actors in this film but they cannot make up for a mediocre script by Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto and direction without vision. Yes, director Antoine Fuqua got the action of movement and shooting to kill reasonably well. He even got the small western town set well, but the heart of the film, the townsfolk’s fear as shared by Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), lacked depth as did most of the Seven hired men.

The strong points of the film were initial discovery of each of the characters. But after this, it fell flat. Besides Chisolm, the main characters were:  Faraday as a self-professed great lover and fast drawing gunslinger. Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee) as a team of two who bet on their skills of speed to take people's money. Goodnight, who was formerly a confederate sniper with legendary rifle abilities haunted him. The overall story about his connection with Chisolm is that Chisolm saved Goodnight from self-destruction.

As in kind, Rocks, a foreigner, was being help to interpret the West by Goodnight. Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) was the least defined character. Still not sure how or why he joined the group. Red Harvest (Martin Sensmier) was a Comanche Indian that was ousted from his tribe and seemed like he needed something to do.

The most amusing and fun character was Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio) who was a bear mountain man sort of a guy. He was fond of pontificating religious beliefs and sayings all the while being part of the team of seven. The basic story is that these seven men help a small town from a siege by Bogue and his army of killers that have taken over their gold mines.

Washington did what he could do to make this film work, but the lack of a good screenplay and an action only focused director, let him down. Pratt made the most of his character and, although he didn’t seem to care about the lack of story, he made it fun for himself and the audience. Sarsgaard’s role didn’t work for me. He didn’t seem to embody the role from the inside although his actions were rather ruthless. Bennett did what she could to create caring about the town and its hapless citizens. She was one of the stronger characters. Lee was OK and seemed to relish his role as fast with a knife. Garcia-Rulfo did what he could but I didn’t get his particular “role”. Hawke was OK but his fear of killing more people wasn’t developed very well. Sensmier had a strange role in that I never got why he would bother helping this band of white men in their quest. I did like his handling of the Indian character on Bogue’s team as it was inevitable that these two would tangle. D’Onofrio was very engaged in his role. He embraced the nuttiness of this man bear. Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto’s screen play from the famous Akira Kurosawa Seven Samurai screenplay was poorly conceived. It lacked heart and a way for the audience to care. Antoine Fuqua did the action part OK, but everything else was empty – no soul.

Overall:  Don’t bother seeing this version go back to the 1960 version – much better.

Maggie's Plan

First Hit:  Oddly interesting story about love, marriage and life through three very different personalities.

The three are Georgette (Julianne Moore), her husband John (Ethan Hawke) and Maggie (Greta Gerwig).

Georgette is a precise, egocentric professor that is focused on her career. She works at a prestigious university (Columbia) and her career path is to be well known and a department head. She has two children with John and abdicates most household care to him.

John works as a part time professor at a lesser college while also working on a novel. He’s famous for some of his anthropological work, but his heart is on writing a novel. On the campus he teaches, he meets fellow professor Maggie who believes she can only have relationships that last 6 months.

Because she wants children, she decides to get pregnant by asking a friend (mathematician) to give her his sperm that she can insert. However, she engages John in conversations and begins to give the attention he’s not getting at home. The relationship starts with John giving her sections of his book to review and ends in a marriage. However, things go array, the relationship changes and realizing that there needs to be a change she creates "Maggie’s Plan".

Moore is very solid as the precise, smart and career focused Georgette. Hawke is very good as the guy who continues to succumb to an illusion of what he wants and what love is. Gerwig is great as the main character who has a clear idea of what she wants and how to get it. Travis Fimmel and Maya Rudolph are very good as friends of Maggie. Rebecca Miller wrote and directed this quirky independent film in a sure handed way.

Overall:  I enjoyed the way this film played out.

Boyhood

First Hit:  An amazing film that boarders on being a documentary type film and yet it isn’t.

I was swept up into the story from the very beginning. Richard Linklater has written and directed some of the best films in the past decade.

The three Before and After series with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, are outstandingly written as is this film. The writing is precise, yet loose and modern. The way this story falls together is sublime.

Linklater follows a young boy Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from ages 6 through 18, shooting him with his acting family of Mom (Patricia Arquette), Dad (Ethan Hawke), and sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) over this period of time. This means everyone ages correctly, what they bring to the part has real life wisdom and experience while the storyline evolves in small jumps through these 12 years. How these actors interacted with each other was amazing, but more importantly, if felt so real because in many ways it was.

Coltrane was an amazing choice for Linklater and fulfilled his gamble amazingly well. The likelihood that that Coltrane would be so amazing when selected at age 6 was small. To have these results is sublime. Arquette was absolutely wonderful in all ways. Strong, vulnerable and really embodied the woman who does her best to fend for her family. Hawke is fantastic as the dad who learns how to become a dad over this time period. Lorelei Linklater was wonderful as Coltrane’s sister. She embodied a young girl that struggles and flourishes through puberty and added so much to the dynamic of this family. Richard Linklater has created yet another masterpiece.

Overall:  This is a must see, as it is truly different and groundbreaking.