Reviews
Gloria Bell (2018)
Wonderful portrait of a 50-something woman
Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) is a 50-something woman going through life, working at an insurance company, worrying about her adult children, and going to discos. There is a plot involving her relationship with Arnold (John Turturro), whom she meets at a disco. But Gloria and Arnold's relationship is not her whole life, and it's not the whole movie. Some of the best parts of this movie are the slice-of-life moments when Gloria does things like visit friends or sing off-key to her car radio. It's a fully rounded portrait of a 50-something woman, the kind of person not seen often enough in movies. Julianne Moore's wonderful acting brings the character alive.
(Note: Reviewer cdcrb is incorrect. The movie is not set in the '70s, even if much of the music is. The movie is set in the present day. Notice the cell phones.)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Hated it
I like art films. I like Pete Postlethwaite in other movies he's been in. I don't have a problem with violence per se; "Once Were Warriors" is one of my favorite movies.
This movie, however, was terrible. I only sat through it because I was with someone who wanted to see it; otherwise I would have walked out. The scenes seemed to alternate between the family singing together on the one hand, and the Dad beating everybody on the other. That's the whole movie as far as I could tell.
Apparently some of you saw more to it than that, and more power to you, but this movie certainly isn't for everybody.