JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

jarrodmcdonald-1 I just finished watching C.O.G. I am giving it an 8 on the IMDb. Pluses: the editing is perfect-- it knows when to cut to the next scene and when to slow down and let us linger a bit on the characters; and I'd say the performances are a plus-- even the child actors stay in character and seem genuine. Minus: the scriptwriter keeps reminding us how smart the main character is to set him apart from the others, meaning the others are stereotyped as hicks.Plus or minus: There's no sex in it. A near rape scene but nothing is shown and it's over quickly.The relationships he has with the people he meets are very interesting. Quirky. Often sincere. Sometimes filled with anger. There's definitely a touch of Steinbeck felt throughout the narrative. The Grapes of Wrath (the novel) is mentioned as the reason he went out west; and the first third of the movie which takes place on an apple farm is a bit like Of Mice and Men, with the men in the bunkhouse. The movie has no real ending; it's brilliant in that regard; since he's left to journey on to the next place with the next set of situations. There should be a sequel, with more stories from the original source material. Jonathan Groff, the guy who plays David/Samuel the lead character is quite good.The scene in the church where he becomes a Christian is beautifully and poignantly played. I like how the film shows the contradictions in Christianity and the contradictions in the gay subculture. On that level it's remarkably authentic and bold.

vchimpanzee David, who calls himself Samuel, is in graduate school at Yale but needs to take some time off and discover new things while getting away from normal life. He takes a bus to Oregon, informs his mother by phone that he doesn't want to stay in touch, and goes to work picking apples. His girlfriend was going to join him but she got a ride with another guy who she now likes. Most of David's co-workers are Mexican because local people seem to be "too good" for this sort of work. David speaks almost no Spanish and the others speak little English, but he tries to make friends with Pedro. It's not really clear if he has. Hobbs, his boss, isn't particularly nice, but when his nephew dies, he lets David have the nephew's trailer and tells him the nephew's job at an apple processing plant is open.The workers are miserable and don't seem to care to socialize with David. With one exception: Curly is really nice. But he has a secret, so he won't be David's best friend after all.We know what's coming. Earlier in town, David met Jon, a man passing out literature about C.O.G., which wants people to follow Christ. David already told us on the bus that religion is for people who want to feel special, and he's not interested in the "ghosts" that those people follow.So David and Jon will meet again. Jon is an artist living in the basement of some church members, making Oregon-shaped jade clocks. He has a past and religion has been good for him.So will David find Jesus? Will his friendship with Jon work out? Will David return to his normal life?This is a disturbing movie with some positive messages about Christianity. But not all Christians in this movie act the way Christians should. And maybe that's all right. There are plenty of moral dilemmas.We are also reminded of all the difficulty that goes into bringing us those items we need to live our lives, which seem to come to us so easily.Jonathan Groff is supposedly based on David Sedaris. I found this out later. He does a good job and puts us through lots of misery and important lessons. Happiness? I'm not sure.Jon is a complicated character, not quite what one would expect. He's certainly not goody-goody. Denis O'Hare gives an interesting performance.Curly is also a good character, but not quite what one might be expecting. Corey Stoll also does a good job.I know Dean Stockwell best as the companion to time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett who appears as a holograph. He's cynical rather than funny here for the most part, but just as talented as he was back then.It's not a family film. So many words were bleeped I occasionally had trouble following the story.It's not my idea of entertainment, but it's a worthwhile challenge and something that makes it worth getting out of my comfort zone.

napierslogs "C.O.G." is the journey of one man based on the real life journey of writer David Sedaris. David (Jonathan Groff) is an academically-minded man in his twenties who has destroyed every relationship with his own arrogance. He's not entirely aware of it, as he thinks he's on a journey with his girlfriend after they read The Grapes of Wrath and decided to get back to nature. But really his ex-girlfriend had no such journey in mind.Now on his own, he's determined to be true to himself. This involves sharing his nihilistic, anti-religious views with anyone who dares to have a conversation with him, but not being totally open with his homosexuality.He finds himself working in an orchard which, as you can guess, involves people who have a relationship with God, people on the conservative side who don't get the gay culture, and people who don't like pedantic intellectuals teaching them about real literature. David doesn't fit in very well.I loved the first half of the film. The more he mocked religion, the more I loved it. But as David finds himself in trouble (due to not fitting in very well and due to his ability to destroy any relationship he has with his arrogance), the film starts taking on a different tune. One which seems to be the exact opposite of what drew people in in the first place. While it could just be that I didn't get whatever they were trying to say, the second half of the film seems to go against what people would have liked in the first half. Those that would like the messages in the ending probably would have been turned off by David's first anti- religious rant (which comes in the opening scene). And, to me, that would lead to a film with no audience remaining."C.O.G." stands for Child of God and you are going to have to have an extremely open mind to all points of view, both pro and anti organized religion and to sexual orientation, to enjoy this film. I appreciate Jonathan Groff taking on a character like this, but I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to have enjoyed his character as much as I did at the beginning as he moves too far away from that in the remainder of the film.

gradyharp For those who admire the writings of David Sedaris (essays and short stories - Barrel Fever, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013) and thus know that much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, Greek heritage, being out as a gay man, jobs, education, drug use, obsessive behaviors and his life in France, London, and the English South Downs) will be pleased to see his humor translated to the screen by writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez. The other aspect of this at times controversial film that makes it important is the choice of casting Jonathan Groff, the gay actor who begins the television series 'Looking' this spring. The choices make the film even more enjoyable because the emphasis is not on the gay aspect but instead on the trials of coming of age and struggling with all the bulwarks society places in our way.David (meant to be David Sedaris) is a cocky young man who graduates from Yale, yet to escape his dysfunctional family and see the world as it really is, travels to Oregon to work on an apple farm run by Hobbs (Dean Stockwell). Struggling as a non-Hispanic worker he is befriended by a driver named Curly (Corey Stoll) who picks up on David's sexual ambiguity and attempts to seal his fate. David escapes, falls under the wing Jon (Denis O'Hare), a evangelistic Christian who has a history of alcohol addition and anger management all of which he hides under the cloak of being a C.O.G. (Child of God). David joins Jon in making jade clocks in the shape of Oregon to sell at the fair. He 'sees the light' and decides to become a C.O.G. and from there the story plays out in very strange ways. Out of his element, he finds his lifestyle and notions being picked apart by everyone who crosses his path. And his final coming out realization is gently subtle.The cast is uniformly excellent, but the major kudos go to Jonathan Groff who demonstrates his fine acting skills and magnetic screen presence. The film is after all just a story about a boy of our times. It resonates well. Grady Harp