Love Is in the Air.
Writer-director Sebastián Lelio's (A Fantastic Woman) 2013 Chilean film Gloria has been remade beat by beat with American pop songs and popular American actress Julianne Moore. The new and old films are as similar as the title change.
Gloria Bell is a simple comedy drama about a woman's resilience, smartly set over just a few days. The Gloria character is a Californian, middle-aged divorcée cliché, but not when played by Moore. She is one of the few, restrained yet fascinating actresses who can earn your full attention even when her character is just doing laundry while singing to Paul McCartney's silly love song No More Lonely Nights.
John Turturro plays Arnold, a similar cliché who meets Gloria at a club where fiftysomethings meet and shake their groove thing to songs such as Boogie Wonderland. I enjoyed the romance, everything about Julianne Moore's character and I'd recommend it just so you can see Moore sing along to Olivia Newton John's hit A Little More Love. You might sing along as well.
In a nutshell: If you've seen the original, skip it. If not it's a March must see.
Award potential: If this were fall, we'd be talking about Moore as best actress, but it's not over the top enough to keep top of mind for 2020.
The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.
What's the word?
Movie studios notoriously dump films not fun enough for summer and not good enough for award season in March and April, so finding a quality drama this time of year can be as difficult as say...running a completely straight, fiber-optic cable from Kansas to New Jersey, securing a millisecond Wall Street advantage over other algorithmic traders.
That's the ambitious goal of our onscreen team — and it's an ambitious concept to turn into a riveting thriller.
For the most part, writer-director Kim Nguyen (War Witch) succeeds. He expertly simplifies this complicated scheme enough for audiences to stay involved,understand what's at stake and sweat along with the characters in this uphill, over and under the hill, across the U.S.A. challenge.
Credit Jesse Eisenberg (in Social Network mode) and Alexander Skarsgard (acting against type) for elevating this film. The Hummingbird Project is an average thriller, but delivers the goods as a character drama. Ultimately it provides a cautionary tale about the desire to speed up life.
In a nutshell: It's worth a few milliseconds of your time.
Award potential: None. Salma Hayek should have a few previous awards revoked for acting as if she landed the "evil boss" role in a soap opera.
The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.
A blast in the past.
Confession: I never cared for the superhuman Captain Marvel comic book character. If you're my age, Captain Marvel was more commonly the name for Shazam! — and if you really knew comics there was a male Captain Marvel and a Ms. Marvel too.
I didn't care for the trailer for this new movie either, with scenes of Brie Larson (Room) flying and shooting fire mashed up with images of her flying and shooting fire. But when Avengers: Infinity War ended on a cliffhanger with a pager message to Captain Marvel as the solitary beam of hope, suddenly everyone cared about Captain Marvel, including me.
Captain Marvel the character cleverly lands on earth in a '90s Blockbuster store. Captain Marvel the movie lands in a point in 21st Century history where no one watches a stand alone superhero movie, we're all watching serials. Nothing about the trailer or the comic brought me to the theater, but my investment in the Marvel Universe story line did.
As a contribution to the series, the film works well. Oscar-winner Brie Larson is a wonderful woman addition to the Marvel Universe and it's a blast to see her interact with a young Nick Fury. When you see a 1995 Samuel Jackson in a boxy car, it sparks Pulp Fiction vibes. It's all digital manipulation of course, but seamlessly done. I had a blast seeing the "world's first superhero" set the stage for everything we know about the Avengers now.
As a stand alone movie, there's not much that will warrant a repeat watching. Oscar nominees Annette Bening (American Beauty) and Jude Law (Cold Mountain, Grand Budapest Hotel) have thankless roles and everyone seems to think if they deliver their lines deadpan it might add more depth to the story. Ben Mendelsohn, however, finds the sweet spot of dramatic interest and humor for most of the film, until some questionable choices steer the movie to a 1990's Star Trek: Next Generation corny TV vibe. Perhaps it was appropriate for a movie set in the 1990's.
I did enjoy the retro touch overall, including a string of girl rocker nineties music, but ultimately it's difficult to recommend this as a film that stands on its own. Who am I kidding though, you're going anyway and you'll be as happy as I was to discover the mid-credit scene that sets up the next one, Avengers: End Game. Thank you, next.
In a nutshell: A fairly entertaining distraction until the the Avengers return in seven weeks.
Award potential: None.
The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks for fans of the Marvel Universe serial. Not worth ten bucks on its own.
