Blu-ray Review: First Reformed (2017)

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There's something immediately lonely about Robert De Niro in that Taxi Driver hallway, something so Christ-like about Last Temptation's man on the cross – Willem Dafoe – that you know in this world he must be a Light Sleeper, and something potent enough about Ethan Hawke's voice and speech rhythms that make you think he could've been a priest.

And it's a role the actor has said he wanted to play in real life, had – fortunately for us – he not received an altogether different calling to perform. It's also a thing that he has in common with his First Reformed writer/director Paul Schrader, who grew up as a self-described "church kid" and even entered the seminary (like Martin Scorsese, who directed Schrader's most iconic scripts) before he too left for a life in film.

Schrader's first screenplay aside from his adaptation of Christ and an unproduced transcendental work he penned forty years ago that deals with the struggles faced by a man of faith, in First Reformed, Hawke's Reverend Toller carries on the legacy of a Schrader leading man.

A loner, a light sleeper, a man in his room – at the start of the film Toller begins keeping a diary he intends to destroy in a year. Evaluating what we come to recognize as a Christ-like existential crisis of faith after Mary, a beautiful young, pregnant parishioner (played by Amanda Seyfried) asks him to counsel her troubled husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), we learn fairly quickly that Toller is one man upon whom life has indeed taken a toll.

Much like Robert De Niro's bickering traveler Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Schrader has always loved using wordplay in his names. Film as a treasure hunt, sure enough in and beneath every frame, Reformed drips with enough symbolism that with only a mere two years of Catholic school more than twenty years ago, I was able to identify at least some of it.

From Seyfried's unexpectedly pregnant Mary to a reference to Joseph, a lustful Esther, and most crucially Michael – whose archangel-like fight to protect the environment from hypocritical corporations including the one that almost single-handedly keeps Toller's small historic church financially afloat raises revelatory, Revelations worthy reactions in Hawke's reverend – the excellent First must play even better on a second or third viewing.

In other words? It's Schrader's Stations of the Cross and a film about which the less you know going in the better.

With Hawke sharing a name with the German expressionist playwright Ernst Toller who met with tragedy (and whose life might help you see First Reformed's ambiguous ending in a different light), the unadorned, straightforward work is as old-fashioned as Toller's eponymous two-hundred and fifty year old, Dutch colonial First Reformed Church in Snowbridge, New York.

Using very little music and mostly static shots save for the glorious bookends of the film and one utterly thrilling, expressionistic sequence infused with transcendentalism (the kind the real Toller would've loved) which leads us perfectly into Reformed's third act, Reformed is a square framed Bergmanesque production. It's also that rare film where there is an actual reason for the wash of color and light visible in each shot.

Reminiscent of The White Ribbon in spirit and style, First Reformed is essentially a black and white film in color. Using all of the cinematic tools at Schrader's disposal to underscore First's questions of conscience and faith, the shades in Toller's formerly black and white but increasingly gray world are muted throughout, save for a few key moments when the ethereal Seyfried manages to throw back the shutters and let in the allegorical sunlight.

Anchored by Hawke, who like De Niro and Dafoe in Schrader's works before him at last gets a chance to turn up the dial in what was already inside of him, First Reformed makes the most of the brooding, wise beyond his years, pastoral philosopher that's been there since Reality Bites and Before Sunrise.

A quality that drives one of my best friends nuts but thrills his fans, while the thing I like to call Hawke's Hawkeness is on full display here, it's amazing to see – especially given the skills of the man penning the script – just how much isn't even spoken but instinctual, internalized, and evident in not Dafoe this time but Hawke's light sleeping eyes.

While the film itself might divide those looking for easy answers, it features not only one of the actor's most powerful performances but one on the opposite end of the spectrum from his delightful shaggy dog, laid back rocker turn in 2018's Juliet, Naked (which I also saw for the first time and reviewed this week).

Serving up an eye-opening commentary track with the helmer on the newly released Blu-ray (that's essentially film school in a box), Reformed is a daring American picture that you'll immediately want to discuss.

Schrader's strongest film as a writer/director since the underrated Affliction, while blessing his fans with another one of what Travis Bickle called God's lonely men (only this time literally), he's created a work that will be remembered as one of not just 2018's but Schrader's very best.

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DVD Review: Cadillac Records (2008)

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Although pop culture would tell you otherwise, rock 'n roll did not begin with Elvis Presley at Memphis, Tennessee’s Sun Records. Instead, rock had its origins in the blues and later rhythm and blues. And while arguably the first bona fide rock 'n roll star was none other than Chuck Berry—Berry’s story along with the other pioneers of rhythm and blues that led to rock 'n roll as we now know it today has basically been left in the dust.

While interviews with artists like Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and other musicians along with musical scholars will cite there early blues influences and a few years ago an entire PBS documentary was dedicated to the subject-- writer-director Darnell Martin said to change all that in a minor way with her stunning, underrated ensemble piece Cadillac Records.

Although admittedly, some of the facts have been blended together and some of the personalities have been left by the wayside to squeeze in what Martin explains was “the absolute truth” of the stories she wanted to tell “about how the blues became popular music, how it affected civil rights,” by whittling down her 150 page first draft to a feature-length movie running just 109 minutes, she achieves a wonderful success that works on two levels.

Firstly, she's made it one hell of a great film about the blues (which in reality is surely about the history of the American people) by calling attention to artists that have been long forgotten and secondly, like a cool walking musical encyclopedia, Martin earns in n honorary title as professor in making us want to not only seek out the recordings by these amazing artists but also learn more about them as human beings.

Purporting to tell the history, inception, and impact of Chicago's own Chess Records initially created by first-generation Polish immigrants Leonard and Phil Chess (although Phil is mostly absent from the film aside from a few scenes in which we infer he’s the “other white guy” next to Adrien Brody), Martin simultaneously weaves in the story of the artists who would join the label including Leonard Chess’s first great star, Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright).

In yet another phenomenal, chameleon-like performance by the great Jeffrey Wright -- the type of which we’re beginning to take for granted on—he tackles Muddy first as a sharecropper in Mississippi whose life was forever changed by a happy accident when his voice was recorded by two men from Fisk University who had initially set out see record the fault music of the late Robert Johnson. After they learned that Johnson had passed away, they were directed to Muddy’s porch and following an impromptu recording that gave the future “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Mannish Boy” the first opportunity to hear the way he sounded on vinyl, he memorably noted he felt as though, “I’m meeting myself for the first time.”

It was with those determined and confident words that Muddy packed his guitar and headed north without looking over his shoulder to Chicago where he formed two important relationships. The first was with Geneva (Gabrielle Union) who would become his longtime love and the second was none other than Leonard Chess, with whom Muddy began making records, taking part in payola schemes, getting him as well as the rest of the Chess lineup of artists unprecedented air-play and treating them to shiny new Cadillacs sometimes without informing them that it was being taken out of their royalties.

Admittedly in the 1950s, both the friendship and relationship -- especially when money was involved -- between both white and black individuals was charged with complexity over whether or not the musician was being exploited and the idea that a white man may have been needed to be the front for the organization in order to lead to the era of Motown but Martin never makes any concrete judgments about her characters.

This is especially evident as other artists join the roster and Martin manages to interlace some double-standards and new thoughts coming from all involved—mostly in the form of Muddy’s greatest harmonica player and the seventeen year old hot-headed prodigy Little Walter (Columbus Short) and the fiery and proud Howlin’ Wolf (Eamonn Walker) who has extremely firm ideas about what we sense he felt was an evolved version of “slave” and “master.” Rounding out Martin’s ensemble piece, we’re also introduced to the terrific writer and current owner of Chess Records who has turned it into a museum, Mr. Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), and two of the most legendary acts—Chuck Berry (Mos Def) and Etta James (Beyonce Knowles).

Although it was Muddy that paved the way, eventually it was Berry’s blend of country and rockabilly helped destroy racial barriers playing sold out gigs to white and black listeners alike along with appearing on television. Yet, unfortunately while his song “Sweet Little Sixteen” was blatantly stolen by The Beach Boys for the background of “Surfin’ USA,” and his career was cut short when he was imprisoned for driving a white female minor across state lines (making his dalliances with young women not that much different than Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley), soon a savior managed to enter the recording studio at precisely the right moment in the form of the exquisite yet contradictorily volcanic Ms. Etta James (Knowles).

Despite her deceptively sweet appearance, James was a woman who as Leonard described “lived the blues” instead of just singing about them. With a horrific addiction to heroin and countless family problems including a failure to get her rumored father Minnesota Fats to acknowledge his paternity, James as played by Knowles is walking heartbreak. Anyone who thought that the singer’s vast improvement as an actress in Dreamgirls was a fluke will be immediately taken aback by her dynamic portrayal in this film.

In the part written exclusively for the musician by Ms. Martin and amazingly shooting all of her scenes in just six days, Knowles is able to effortlessly capture James’ tough-talking demeanor, her more vulnerable side opposite Oscar winner Adrien Brody (in a few scenes that really send sparks flying), and most importantly bring the house down in recording session performances that will send shivers down your spine as she sings not just “At Last,” but also “Once in a Lifetime,” and “I’d Rather Go Blind.”

While indeed there is some accurate criticisms about liberty being taken with the facts, Martin surpasses expectations by avoiding the trappings of strict biopic and moving into a far more daunting challenge of bringing to life several figures at the same time. To tell you just the Leonard Chess story, or just the Muddy Waters story, or just the Chuck Berry story, or just the Etta James story wouldn't have captured the real story namely that of the blues which is what provided the soundtrack of the American experience.

Over the past few years, we've been inundated with biopics and while some of them have been exceptional such as James Mangold’s Walk the Line-- the decision to move away from that tried and true paradigm and instead embrace the idea of presenting us with an authentic sense of time and place is what sets Cadillac Records apart.

In the incredibly worthwhile roughly twenty-seven minute making-of-featurette “Playing Chess,” the filmmaker accurately describes the approach in the work of the cast as “everybody’s playing a different instrument.” Effectively managing to make the most of their limited budget by ensuring the production and costumer designers always knew what was going to be seen by the camera at any given moment to avoid unnecessary expenses, the largely female production team discuss the methods they used in augmenting the story from using both color and texture to truly “sell the period.”

Employing a large amount of blues, greens, purples and browns near the opening—Martin reveals in the design featurette “Once Upon a Blues,” that she was extremely careful about avoiding the color red until the moment Chuck Berry and rock ‘n roll are officially introduced. In addition to providing deleted scenes, the filmmaker also takes part in a feature-length commentary track that would be of extreme interest to music buffs as Martin’s knowledge of the characters, Chess records, music, and the time period is extraordinarily detailed, which is evident from the start as she helps clear the air on factual items that didn’t make it into the movie.

Unfortunately overlooked in a crowded December filled with a large amount of Oscar bait pictures making their way daily into theatres across the states, luckily Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s underrated gem is now available in both DVD and Blu-ray high definition where the sound on even the DVD alone manage to heighten the sound of James’ “At Last” or Waters’ “Mannish Boy” to concert level quality despite your sound system setup.

Download the Standard or Deluxe
Soundtrack From iTunes
(Click the Icons Below)

Download "The Best of Chess"
(The Original Recordings of the Songs
Heard in the Film Via the iTunes Album Icon Below)

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)

In 2005, DreamWorks introduced us to a memorable quartet of feisty New York zoo animals comprised of Ben Stiller's beloved, fame hungry Alex the lion who never met a visitor he couldn't charm with his photogenic charisma, David Schwimmer's hypochondrical neurotic giraffe Melman whose greatest fear is being relegated to an HMO, Jada Pinkett Smith's maternal hippo Gloria, and Chris Rock's zebra Marty. And in the first film, Marty's identity crisis of not knowing whether or not he was black with white stripes or white with black stripes found him longing to seek greener pastures outside the zoo which led to a hilariously chaotic chain of events which found the foursome in Madagascar.

The sequel picks up where we left our characters, still stuck in a strange land but when the conspiratorial and ambitiously militaristic penguins repair an old crashed war plane, the group decides to slingshot their way into the sky and make it back to the NYC Zoo. Unfortunately, while first class section of Air Penguin still consists of Vivaldi and better entertainment than the cargo like coach section, their safety track record is less than stellar.

And in a scene right out of Almost Famous as they plummet towards a crash landing, the group all confesses something to one another, culminating in an uncharacteristically brave move by Melman who pledges his love for Gloria. However, par for the course of the unlucky Melman, we quickly realize that Gloria has fallen into a deep sleep. Needless to say when they land in the beautiful yet wild terrain of Africa, he clams up once again as-- much to his horror-- Gloria finds herself being wooed by a Barry White styled hippo, named Moto Moto (Swahili for "hot hot" according to the press notes) who has a thing for "big" and "chunky" women.

While the penguins pledge they will repair the plane in an estimable six to nine months with "grit, spit, and a whole lot of duct tape"-- not to mention an alliance with the "higher mammals" a.k.a. monkeys whom they intend to exploit for their brain power and opposable thumbs-- the rest of the group begins to venture out into the unknown. Following a terrifically exciting and touching opening that introduces us to the origins of Alex the lion who was abducted when he was a cub by profit seeking hunters, Alex is startled to reunite with his birth parents, including his father (voiced by the late Bernie Mac).

While Alex lives to "move it, move it," dancing with gusto to the cheering crowds of Manhattan and posing like Ben Stiller's alter-ego Derek Zoolander (from his model comedy Zoolander), he finds that there's not a lot of call for "razzle dazzle" in Africa where his father, the alpha-lion is trying to be overthrown by his arch-nemesis (30 Rock's Alec Baldwin). Since the arc of the Madagascar 2 mostly surrounds Alex, the film which juggles the plot-lines of more than a dozen returning and new characters does get a little crowded. Specifically Chris Rock is shortchanged with his subplot focused on dealing with the idea that he may not be "one in a million" when he meets an entire herd of zebras identical to himself, but the rest of Madagascar 2 is fast-paced, funny and as creatively inspired as the first film.

Due to the success of the penguins from not just the first movie but also the wonderful Christmas short film available on the Madagascar DVD, they're given a lot of excellent material in the follow-up as they embark on "Operation Tourist Trap," where one penguin takes one for the team, getting hit by a jeep so they can carjack a group of tourists and hot-wire the vehicle to use for spare parts. Additionally, I was thrilled to learn in the production notes that the penguins will soon be getting their own animated series.

Cleverly providing a few extra challenges for the characters as they must deal with the topical environmental issue of lack of water as well as the problems of "group think" and peer pressure, there's also a wonderful subplot surrounding human characters headed up by the vicious elderly woman from the first film who is unafraid of using her handbag as a weapon. The addition of humans adds some unpredictable action and surprising laughs to reinvigorate the film when it threatens to move into overly sentimental territory.

Still culling witty, intelligent humor from pop culture, much like the first film, Madagascar 2 is filled with jokes sure to play even better to adults than children as Alex describes himself as a Fosse protege, pays homage to West Side Story, and the penguins must endure union talks and the possibility of a labor strike when the Darwinian benefited monkeys realize they've been manipulated, along with Gloria lamenting about New York's shortage of men and parking spaces.

Thankfully, a family movie that-- similar to Pixar's brilliant Toy Story films-- adults will be all too eager to take their children to see, Madagascar 2 is further proof of the high quality animated fare being served up by the studio that gave us Over the Hedge, Kung Fu Panda, and Shrek, and one where the passion for the project shines through by the studio right from its tongue-in-cheek opener as the penguins knock out the familiar Huckleberry Finn character fishing on the DreamWorks moon. And while it's safe to say that the kids will want to "move it, move it," you'll be wishing you had a remote control to back up a line here or there to keep up with the joke-a-minute-pace.