"It's not just for profit. It's for revenge. It's a twofer."

Hollywood has been making a greater effort these days to add some diversity to their film casts. From minorities to women, this has been a year of unprecedented changes in the makeup of so many films. One of the new trends in this effort is to remake/re-imagine/reboot an already established franchise with a gender-switched cast. The results have been somewhat mixed. The female Ghostbusters film was a complete disappointment. And while it might be easy to blame the female cast, the issues go much deeper than that. Now the Ocean's franchise has decided to play in that territory with better results. Ocean's 8 delivers the familiar formula of the Steven Soderbergh remake trilogy of the original Rat-Pack film but with an all-girl heist crew. The film is still a bit of a disappointment in some ways, but it's a much better ride than Ghostbusters by a long mile, and again the flaws have little to do with the cast or the gender-swapped model.

There has been so much hype around Hereditary since its debut at Sundance that by the time I got to watch it, I didn’t believe it was possible to live up to this hype. For months I’ve followed this film, hearing it being compared to The Exorcist and being proclaimed the scariest film of all time. I read these things and all I can think is they are simply setting this film up for disaster at the box office, because it’s hard to believe a film could ever be this good.  Personally, The Exorcist is my favorite horror film. It’s stood the test of time, and while for audiences of today the film may not seem so scary, for me it was the notion of how it could all really happen that got under my skin.  As I came out of the screening of Hereditary and was scribbling some notes down about the film, I realized how desperately I wanted to rewatch this film to get a better grip on it. As more time as passed, I’ve found this movie has stuck with me for the past week for a variety of reasons, and while I’m not ready to call this film a masterpiece, I can say that it is a film that has made an impact on me that I haven’t experienced for some time.

While Hereditary is being embraced as a horror film, the strength of this film comes from the very real family dynamic we see at the start of the film as we watch them as they deal with the loss of Ellen, the family matriarch.  Ellen’s daughter Annie (Toni Collette) Graham is doing her best to keep her emotions in check as she goes through the motions from the funeral service to their return home where Ellen had stayed with them.  Steve (Gabriel Byrne) plays the part of the dutiful husband who does what he can to support his wife while also looking out for the kids. Then there is their eldest son, Peter (Alex Wolff), who is your typical teen who enjoys smoking pot, and then there is Charlie (Milly Shapiro), their daughter, who had a close relationship with Ellen, though it’s a bit difficult at times to see how she is struggling with the loss of her grandmother.  While there are other characters who come in and out over the course of the film, the focus is on the core family unit, which was a smart play.

“Plenty of people out there to patch up the good guys…”

We’ve definitely gotten more than our fair share of movies and TV shows focusing on the lives of heroic doctors who heal common folk. Heck, even superheroes have someone like Night Nurse to tend to their more serious nicks and bruises. But what about less savory fictional characters…aren’t big screen bad guys entitled to quality health care too?! Hotel Artemis, the star-studded directorial debut of screenwriter Drew Pearce, answers that question with flair and the appropriate playfulness.

When it comes to Paul Schrader, I feel the argument can be made that he is the greatest American screenwriter.  I know it’s a bold statement, but when you look over his credits that include Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Hardcore, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and so many others, I feel there just isn’t anyone out there who can compete.  Lately, though, he’s seemed to have had a difficult time recapturing that greatness. There has even been a part of me that has felt that perhaps I should give up on hoping he’ll crank out one more great film and simply appreciate the filmography he’s delivered us cinema fans over the years. Paul Schrader, despite having some classic titles to his name is still a writer and a director that isn’t for everyone.  His films typically are dark in tone and typically shine a light onto the underbelly of society that most would prefer not to know about.  It’s his fearlessness in tackling these subjects that has made me a fan of his for years, so when the opportunity to see First Reformed came along, I didn’t hesitate; this was a screening I couldn’t miss.

As the film opens, we get a long shot that pushes in to an old church; we quickly find out the church is named First Reformed.  Inside we meet Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) as he is delivering a sermon to a very sparse crowd of parishioners.  It doesn’t take long to realize that Toller is a damaged man, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  We get insight into the Reverend’s thoughts through his journal entries that he writes and are narrated for us.  Things get moving when Mary (Amanda Seyfried) approaches Toller after a service and requests he speak with her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), who she fears wants her to have an abortion.