Don Jon

First Hit:  What a delightful, funny and well-acted film which explores a form of sex addiction.

Porn is one of the most important things to Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The often repeated essential things in his life are: his family, friends, body, car, his girls, and porn.

He likes to masturbate to internet porn. He likes it better than being with a woman because he loses himself in porn. His friends call him “Don” (like an Italian family head) because when he goes out to bars he always takes home an 8 or above (8 out of 10 – aka “dime”) girl.

When they’re in a bar, they stand around and rate women on a 1 – 10 scale then dare each other to move in. One evening he sees a “dime”. Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) is a knockout and Jon is blown away. He tries to hustle her home that night, but she refuses and says, I’m not ready yet.

Jon decides to take his time; a first for him, and woo her. He takes her to chick flicks, buys her dinner, and starts to take college classes because she wants him to. He meets her family and she his, so everyone is on board for a long term romance. All the while every day, multiple times each day, he gets off on porn. On the evening she decides to give it up to him, he gets up while she sleeps and goes into another room to view to get off on porn.

Barbara catches him and he tries to lie himself out of this dilemma. He promises her he won’t do it again. As their relationship grows it gets harder for him to hide his addiction. When she discovers through his computer’s internet history (love that he didn’t know that browser history is automatically kept) she ends the relationship.

One of the best scenes in the film is when his sister Monica (Brie Larson) tells him he was simply being used by Barbara – it’s her only line in the film.

Gordon-Levitt as actor, writer and director was outstanding. Although the film felt a little lost in the end, it was extremely well done and some scenes are absolutely amazing – how many hail marys and our fathers does one need to say to get salvation. Johansson was absolutely amazing. Her actions, voice, attitude were spot on powerful. I was enraptured by her character. Tony Danza as Jon Sr. was great. He captured the intense and limited world of his life. Glenne Headly as his mom Angela was very good. I loved how her life was based on when she would get a grandchild. Larson, and her one line, was fantastic.

Overall:  This was a very entertaining film and Gordon-Levitt shows himself as someone with creativity and the ability to make it work both in front of and behind the camera.

Prisoners

First Hit:  Intense, beautifully shot, and engaged acting.

The opening scenes show a darkened winter climate, truck in the driveway, one family walking over to another family’s home for holiday cheer.

The Dover family’s patriarch Keller (Hugh Jackman) is somewhat of a survivalist, intense, appearing to have a quick angry trigger. However it is apparent he loves his family – deeply.

The Birch family’s patriarch Franklin (Terrence Howard) is mellow and somewhat thoughtful. Their wives are different as well. Grace Dover (Maria Bello) seems to be on the edge of falling apart while Nancy Birch (Viola Davis) appears to have more of hardened and strong background. Their daughters all of a sudden go missing.

Police Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is assigned to the case and he’s got a 100% crime solving record. He is methodical and follows his own path despite questioned interference from his boss Captain O’Mally (Wayne Duvall). The initial suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) is a grownup with a 6 year olds understanding of things. Loki doesn’t think Alex knows, or can articulate, enough about the missing girls to be really helpful. Keller thinks differently and imprisons Alex so that he can torture him to give up information about the missing daughters.

This film is hard to watch at times because the torture scenes are graphically displayed. The ending wasn’t suspected, but the pieces do come together and while walking out, I felt I’d been through a wringer.

Jackman was intensely focused and fully engaged his role. Howard was great as a man who was being led to do things he felt wrong. Bello showed a perfect weakness in her character, which isn’t her normal role. Davis was solid and showed a subtle rage against Dano’s character which was perfect. Gyllenhaal was sublime as the intense loner detective who prides himself on getting the answer right. Dano was beyond amazing. He embodied the character all the way and his eyes told the whole story. Melissa Leo was fantastic as Jones’ aunt and matriarch of a sick family life. Aaron Guzikowski wrote a powerful interesting script. Denis Villeneuve did an outstanding job of directing this deep dark script with both light and dark muted scenes.

Overall:  This was a very good and disturbing film.

Short Term 12

First Hit:  Wow, this film is powerful in its portrayal of disenchanted and hurt youth.

Disenchanted youth, mistreated kids, and the young workers who care for them is what this film gives the audience a window to. The kids at this state sponsored foster facility,  don't have anywhere to go.

The day to day managing of the kids depends on young 20 year olds who work with them assisting their transitions to either a real foster home or society. It is an amazing topic and in this film it is done in an extraordinary way.

Through the eyes of Grace (Brie Larson) and fellow worker Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), we enter their working world of working with a group of kids. The young workers Grace and Mason are old hands at working with these young teens and it is apparent that they’ve paid their own personal price.

Mason was lucky that he got a strong foster family that gave him roots, while Grace, had been abused and had put her father in jail after her mother’s death. Afraid of getting close and opening to another human is Grace’s Achilles heel, but the kids she works with teach her how.

The other actors were phenomenal in portraying the symptoms of the kids. Two of the most powerful storylines were Marcus (Keith Stanfield) and Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever). Their stories unfold before the audience and one cannot help but feel engaged and hopeful.

Larson was great and I fully believed her struggles and how he shared them in her role. Gallagher was immensely sweet and wonderful as Grace’s boyfriend and associate. Stanfield was sublime as the quiet loaner who is concerned about his going into the world and being whole. Dever was perfect as the girl, slowly hurting herself into silence and submission. Destin Cretton wrote and directed this amazing film that shows the power of family regardless of how it is constructed.

Overall:  A very strong film.

Adore

First Hit:  There was something not real, or lacking engagement about or between these characters that left me uninterested.

There was a bit of noise about this film in the press. The idea of two women, friends for life, having two sons with whom they each have intimate physical relations is thought provoking. How did these mothers allow intimacy with their best friend's son?

That's what the film attempts to address. For me I was anticipating the moment when the intimate line was crossed and by whom. However, this is exactly what didn’t work for me. I didn’t see the pre-moment buildup that would have been needed for any of the characters to move into this sort of intimacy.

The film did a good job of showing the connection between the two mothers Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) as they grew up together from young kids into adulthood. Their respective sons Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville) are also best friends and grew up together as well.

The idyllic beach life on the coast to Australia adds to the surreal adventure this film attempts to take the audience on, actually subtracts from the intensity of the situation when Ian decides to reach out to Roz for affection.

Watts is beautiful and effective as a mother, but as Tom’s lover it didn’t quite work. I didn’t see the spark and alluring fire. Wright was gorgeous and seemed distanced from her husband as well as her son although there was an emotional flicker as Ian approached her for affection. Samuel was the person who most pushed this film and subject the most. His aching over his father’s loss and movement to be loved emotionally and physically by Wright was the films strongest character. Frecheville seemed to have more of a laissez faire attitude towards his intimacy to his best friends wife, but interestingly enough, he was the one to cement them all in the end. Christopher Hampton wrote the screen play that came from Doris Lessing’s novel. I don’t think there were enough story creating scenes to develop what could have been a strong film of what some would call taboo behavior. Anne Fontaine did well with what she had.

Overall: An interesting attempt to broach a controversial subject but it ended up being very vanilla.

Afternoon Delight

First Hit:  At times, very insightful and interesting, other times the film was lost and some scenes needed cutting or a re-write.

The home life of Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Jeff (Josh Radnor) is one of a couple that is out of sync with each other. Rachel isn’t working, or attempts to write from time to time.

Jeff has made it big with developing “apps” and the results have put them in a nice home in Silver Lake California, a close community to downtown LA. They have a young son and hang out with friends, like themselves, mid-thirties, successful, and working a lot.

Their sex life is spoken about by whether they put the dog out or not. It’s code. Mostly they don’t have sex because as we learn Rachel would like it in the afternoon while Jeff is always working. To spice up their life they and another couple go to a strip club where Jeff buys Rachel a lap dance with McKenna (Juno Temple).

It unnerves her in two ways, she’s intrigued by her feelings and also confused by them. She doesn’t want to be curious but is. Rachel tracks down McKenna and begins to have coffee walks with her. One day McKenna is being thrown out of her car and Rachel offers her their nanny’s room.

Rachel discovers that McKenna makes no bones about being a sex worker but is also of a very sweet kind disposition and loves kids. But when Rachel has a real opportunity to let McKenna show this side of her, she fails and things blow-up.

Hahn is very effective as a troubled wife, who has some demons (the energy work scene points out this very powerfully) she needs to deal with. Radnor is good as the pre-occupied husband. Temple is sublime as the sex worker. She brings a real presence to the film and succeeds in being the driver of the story. Jane Lynch is both interesting and horrible as the therapist treating Rachel. She brought a strong presence, but as a comedy sequence where “she shares” her own story, it fails miserably. These scenes needed a full rewrite. Jessica St. Clair, Michaela Watkins, Annie Mumolo were all very good in their roles and Rachel’s closest friends. Jill Soloway both wrote and directed this film. From a writing aspect, some scenes were great while others were horrible. She did a good job of directing the film and giving strength to the characters, however some scenes were just not required or needed re-writing.

Overall:  This film has some very good things to say and could have been better.