Paul Schrader’s first Oscar? Ethan Hawke is also a serious contender.

***This Review of First Reformed Has a Spoiler Section***

Spoiler Warning dance music lets you know when we’ll go into a full plot breakdown.

First Reformed: The Non-Spoiler Review

Cast & Crew: Feat. Schrader & Hawke Filmographies - 1:50

Production Notes: ++ A Shout Out to Sean Fennessy at the Ringer - 10:24

Movie Specs - 12:40

Premise / Expectations / Theater Going Experiences - 16:37

Oscar Lens: It’s all about Schrader’s Script & the Lead Actor, Ethan Hawke - 18:17

Including Shout Outs to Goldderby, Awards Circuit, & Next Best Picture

Production Values - 28:11

Performances - 29:38

Non-Spoiler Script Analysis & Final Thoughts - 30:30

Featuring a quote from Gandalf the Grey (God, we’re such nerds.)

Spoiler Music for our Spoiler Filled Review - 32:55

The Spoiler-Filled Review:

The Plot Breakdown - 34:05

THAT Ending - 43:14

And What We Think It Means - 50:13

Religious Dichotomies - 56:46

Final Final Thoughts & Grades - 1:00:28

Outro / Some Serious Words of Wisdom - 1:02:18

This turned out to be one of our more thoughtful and substantive discussions. We had to be dragged kicking & screaming to finally review this film. It’s not an easy watch. We warn you of the particulars of this. But it’s worthwhile with the correct perspective, something we’ve worked terribly hard to finally attain (in our opinion). So we did our very best to shine some light on one of the more controversial films of the year, First Reformed. Critics love it, Oscar pundits refuse to take it off of their top 5 and top 10 Oscar Contender lists, and we felt compelled to attack this review with all the tools in our critical tool kit.

The format is tried & true. It’s hopefully familiar to you all by now. We give you your money’s worth with our non-spoiler review, knowing most of you may not have seen this. So do listen irregardless and if the premise moves you as it did us, then perhaps give this a watch and tune back in for our spoiler section where we give it a full plot breakdown and exegesis on THAT ending. (Yes, I just busted out a term from Philosophy class, but it’s warranted here.)

This was our 16th movie event or Oscar Sprint Profile in 2018. We’re keeping you updated and thoroughly reviewed & previewed on all these Awards Season contenders, and we vow to continue to do so. Stay tuned for our upcoming reviews on The Wife, RBG, and the upcoming mega-contenders A Star Is Born, First Man, and the movie event of the year (for Mike 1 at least), Halloween. All that is coming your way in October.

Do chat us up on social media and send us your responses for our latest Round 3 of Six Degrees Of MMO featuring George C. Scott to Michelle Yeoh. We love to read those, and we’ll shout out our winners on the air in one of the next few episodes. We’re Mike, Mike, and Oscar on Reddit, Gmail, Instagram, and Facebook. We’re at MMandOscar on Twitter, where we’re most active. Then if you can, please leave us a review or a 5 star on iTunes or a like / share / subscribe / follow, etc… on Google Play, Tune In, Soundcloud, Stitcher or wherever you may listen.

Finally, remember our slogan, especially after a tough watch like this one. When reality sucks, keep watching movies with us. This film was particularly rewarding for you hardcore film fans. We’re Mike, Mike, and Oscar!