Gloria
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Movie Reviews of Gloria
Movie Review: Gloria Saves the Day - not the Knight
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an Oscar-caliber performance by Gena Rowlands. This woman takes no stuff and takes on the mob when they are after a disk that a little boy is in possession of. Having already wiped out the kids family (Because his accountant father ripped them off), they don't just want the disk they want the kid, who was in the house during the massacre, silenced.
I think that perhaps the flick "The PRofessional," ripped off the plot of this movie, replacing the young boy with a little girl. At any rate, let's not digress: the young Puerto Rican child John Adames cannot act a lick. He's precocious and cute, but he has a head the size of Soldier Field.
Here are some tidbits to chew on: the accountant is a white man married to a gorgeous Latina. They have a beautiful teenaged daugther and a younger one, all who get wiped out. As the bad guys converge on the apartment they live in, this man singles out the little boy and gives him the disk. He tells the little boy to "always be a man" and then sends the kid off while he and the rest of the family get butchered. What was that all about? Why didn't they have a phone in the house? Why didn't they try to escape to the crowded streets below as a unit?
Not only that, but when Gloria and the kid are on the run, she is wondering why she doesn't just dump the kid. The young boy is falling in love with her because he's seen her shoot five or six guys defending HIM. They move from being two people who cannot stand one another to mother and son. Although the the kid has the acting skills of a giant mouse on crack, Gena Rowlands more than compensates with streetwise toughness, gentle compassion when need be, and an undying commitment to keeping this young kid alive. A must-see.
Movie Review: The redemption of Gena Rowlands ...
Summary: 4 Stars
The only reason to see this strange movie is Gena. She's a knockout! The annoying kid, the weird subplots, the meandering script and somewhat bad editing can all be forgotten as long as Gena is on-screen as the title character. The looks on her face ... !Movie Review: Behind-the-scenes for Cass buffs
Summary: 4 Stars
For a fascinating behind-the-scenes info about Gloria and a list of books about Cassavetes' work, go to Ray Carney's website dedicated to John Cassavetes (found through any search engine).
Movie Review: Gloria
Summary: 4 Stars
John Cassavetes is one of the great directors and this is one of my favorites with good gritty acting by Gena Rowlands and candid urban scenes.Movie Review: Why do I feel like I've seen this film before?
Summary: 2 Stars
Admission: although I grew up on old movies, and try very hard to see a constant variety of film from the earliest days to the present, I've never seen a lot of the great '70s classics. So recently, I've had to very consciously make myself see some of these pictures, in an attempt to finally recognize that period of cinema for what it was, as opposed to what I merely believe it to be. Having just read Peter Bogdanovich's book of portraits and conversations, "Who the Hell's In It," I figured it was time for a go at a film by his friend, John Cassavetes.
Bogdanovich went to some length to praise "Gloria," and it sounded a little unusual, so I went with that one. To be honest, I was left with a number of negative feelings: too long-winded, too dry, not visually interesting enough. This is a very typical, simple thriller, with a hook that's been done before, and it's presented in a very obvious manner. The only times I came away with the sense of something 'more' were in some of the longer conversations.
The setup isn't much: man rats on the mob, the mob decide to kill him and his family, the family manages to leave their youngest child with a next door neighbor, the next door neighbor happens to be a former mob girl. What follows is the somewhat expected string of scenes with the older, grouchy woman leading a six-year-old boy around New York, running from modern-day gangsters, and calling everyone "punk" or "stupid" or "wise guy," and generally acting like a taller James Cagney with boobs. The kid gets a few witty, precocious lines, and it might've been cute at 30 minutes. At just over two hours it drags endlessly along, and though you get the sense the kid really cares for the woman, the woman never seems to care for the kid until the final reel where they're inevitably reunited in an unrealistically (and unsatisfyingly) happy ending. That meant I really didn't care about the woman, either, and it's pretty hard to follow a movie where the protagonist is as hard and unbending as a rock.
They remade this film in 1999 with Sharon Stone, and I'm reliably informed it was pretty ridiculous. I might've liked that more; ridiculous can be a lot of fun, with the right mood and the right crowd. Boring and obvious are just that - a waste of my time.