First Reformed (2017)

I’ve been wanting to see First Reformed since it premiered last year in Venice but, no matter how much I love Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, Hawke plays a priest, I can’t stand priests, and I’ve been putting this off since its release. I read some positive reviews recently so I finally decided to give it a shot.

The story follows Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke), the 46-year-old lonely and depressed pastor of a small historical church —the First Reformed Church in Snowbridge, New York— who decides to keep a diary for a year, after which he intends to destroy it. One day, a young woman, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks him to counsel her husband, Michael (Philip Ettinger), who is dealing with anger and environmental activist issues. Toller agrees to help him but Michael soon takes his own life.

Juliet, Naked (2018)

I love Ethan Hawke —I'm pissed at him for what he said about comic book movies though— and because of it, I added Juliet, Naked on my watchlist without even knowing what it was about. And if it wasn't for Big Screen Small Words who picked it for a Thursday Movie Picks a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have never watch it.

Anyways, the film is set in England and follows Annie (Rose Byrne), a going on 40 woman who is stuck in a long-term relationship with Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), a college teacher who is obsessed with American rocker Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke). One day, someone mails Duncan an album of acoustic demos of Tucker's hit album, he and Annie listen to it separately, they have an argument over its quality, Annie writes a negative review on Duncan's website and she gets an email reply from Crowe himself. He agrees with her, and they hit off real quick.