Blu-ray Review: Gloria Bell (2018)

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Related Review:
Gloria (2013)

Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) is a woman who doesn't wait to be asked to dance. Looking out at the world with a hunger for life as big as her glasses, she joins in, as happy to move to her own beat as she is to follow someone else's lead.

Literally blending into the scenery during dull days at her nine to five office job and bad nights, the divorced fifty-something comes alive on the dance floors of the L.A. clubs she frequents.

Often dressed in something shimmery, she sways to the music with an energy so infectious that others feel pulled to her side, including a train wreck future beau (played with warmth and pathos by John Turturro) who seems to hope that a relationship with Gloria will set him back on the right track.

A remake of the 2013 Chilean film Gloria, which was also directed by Sebastián Lelio, Gloria Bell finds the filmmaker translating the film for an American audience in a surprisingly seamless way.

And while much of it feels like a scene-by-scene remake, the film's cool, slightly blown out, '70s album cover meets Punch Drunk Love reminiscent cinematography (from Argentinian lensman and Neon Demon veteran Natasha Braier) draws us into the new world of Gloria by giving it an everyday yet ethereal classic California look.

Featuring another luminously revealing turn by Julianne Moore, the actress honors Paulina García's original performance while still managing to make the role her own. Losing herself completely in the part, one of the reasons Bell works as well as it does for those already familiar with Gloria is because Moore's selfless, understated turn makes us acutely aware of the film's outstanding ensemble cast.

Although still every bit a one woman show in English as it was in Spanish, by chronicling not only her new relationship with Turturro but her dynamic with friends and family as well, Bell makes the ordinary extraordinary and highlights the film's supporting roles.

From talented chameleon Turturro reading Chilean poetry to Gloria to scene-stealing moments by Brad Garrett as her ex at an awkward event to Rita Wilson's turn as her opinionated best friend, the characters on the screen and the world they inhabit feels consistently grounded, lived in, and real throughout.

A humanistic tale about a single senior woman's quest to live life on her own terms with or without a partner and on or off the dance floor, it goes without saying that Gloria Bell's plot arc won't surprise anyone who's seen the recently released original. However, it's hard not to get caught up by the music made by Moore and Lelio in the type of American film — centered on real, actual adults we feel we know — that we rarely see on the screen anymore.

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Soundtrack: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist-- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Yes, the playlist is here... but is it infinite?

Based on the hip, wildly popular young adult novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist follows the young, romantically burned bass player Nick (Juno and Superbad’s Michael Cera) over the course of an adventurous, sleepless night lived after hours in the underground indie rock scene of New York. Joining him in his musical scavenger hunt to discover the location of a secret show featuring a legendary band is the far worldlier Norah (Charlie Bartlett’s Kat Dennings). And the two opposites attract over their taste in killer tunes in director Peter Sollett’s cinematic adaptation of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Arguably the Fall release that’s been receiving the most buzz in the film world with infectious trailers and interactive opportunities for fans to build their own streaming musical playlist, video, or photo filled widgets from Sprout Builder and Sony Pictures, while the film itself doesn’t open until October 3, the soundtrack has been garnering pre-orders since August.

Set to hit the street on September 23, the jam-packed, eclectic and catchy fifteen track album (which will also be released in limited edition in vinyl directly from Atlantic Records), offers listeners the chance to play musical detectives right along with Nick and Norah as we groove to the alternately snappy and splendorous offerings by some of indie rock’s finest bands who have yet to catch on to the general public.

After only a few listens, with refreshingly a different artist for each and every tune, I was hooked. Ready to track down more from nearly every act included and thankfully via MySpace and band websites, you’ll be able to locate them far quicker than Nick and Norah do in the film. Of course, had they just grabbed a laptop, there would’ve been no need for a book, let alone a movie.

The disc opens with the melancholic yet pretty “Speed Of Sound,” by the late Chris Bell which helps evoke Nick’s heartache audibly as it laments tragedy throughout the endlessly depressing lyrics making the beauty of the track seem like an ingeniously ironic counterpoint. However, Devendra Banhart’s “Lover,” a toe-tapping and peppy propositional come-hither tune with a great hook about ninety seconds in, establishes the sheer joy and optimism of whimsical and surprisingly funny new young love.

Ratcheting it up several decibels, Bishop Allen’s “Middle Management,” a ska-punk lite track is a highpoint and used throughout promos for the film and can be heard as one of many soundtrack tunes in the veritable musical scrapbook that is the film’s official trailer.

Theatrical Trailer

The quirky electronic keyboard sounding “Ottoman,” seems oh so much sweeter than one would assume given the band’s far scarier sounding name of Vampire Weekend. Additionally, it’s one of several tracks that I felt a kinship with as a fan of other experimentally prone bands like Belle and Sebastian and The Magnetic Fields as strings and other instruments join in while it continues. The retro sounding “Riot Radio” by The Dead 60s is exactly the type of bar band jump up and down song one would associate with the underground scene the characters navigate, not to mention it makes killer use of the guitarist. And wearing its punk roots proudly, it manages to work in a police siren as well, causing me to check my rearview mirror each and every time it played in my car.

The innocuous, lighter and gentle “Fever” by Takka Takka backs off from the loudness of the previous number and serves as a great intro to one of my absolute favorites on the disc, “Xavia” by The Submarines. An epic track that actually ends and restarts, it invites a sing-along more than any other offering in a truly great collection and the musicality augments the female singer’s voice to breathtaking effect. Picking up the pace and fitting to the film and plotline is the addictive “After Hours” by We Are Scientists, followed by the groovy yet minimalist Band of Horses offering “Our Swords” which uses the lyrics and singer’s delivery as a sort of a call and answer with the rest of the band who accepts the challenge and strengthens the piece.

Army Navy’s affable “Silvery Sleds,” is radio-friendly and has “now heard on the CW channel” written all over it. It builds with angst filled lyrics, sure to strike a chord with numerous characters on the teen friendly network and rocks harder as it builds. “Baby You’re My Light,” by Richard Hawley slows the album down with a romantic ballad, but just to make sure that we haven’t nodded off, Shout Out Louds serve up “Very Loud,” that deceptively begins slowly until it does grow very loud “little by little” as the lyrics promise, with a great hook again heard in the official trailer.

Paul Tiernan’s “How To Say Goodbye,” is unabashedly romantic and makes due with an appropriately minimal amount of instrumentation. Tiernan wistfully sings about love gone wrong with only keyboard accompaniment and his voice decreases into a little above a whisper as he bids the song farewell and strings come in at the last moment, possibly to bid him a mutual adieu. The Real Tuesday Weld’s aptly titled “Last Words” is the last vocal track on the album and again reminded this listener of Belle and Sebastian with its majestic, quiet beauty until the album wraps up with “Nick & Norah’s Theme.” The sole composition from the original score is by the ridiculously talented Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, and Rushmore composer Mark Mothersbaugh.

As quirky and inventive as Mothersbaugh’s more famous works, it provides a terrific capper to a stellar album of mostly obscure artists. And no doubt that’s part of the reason they’re so damn cool and warrant including in a film about knowledgeable and hip music fans that you probably wouldn’t see caught dead listening to adult contemporary radio or Hannah Montana.

While initially, I worried that the eclectic mix may seem a bit too far flung to go together well or as a friend bluntly phrased it, fearing that it appeared as though “a hipster party threw up.” Instead it is just the opposite and will no doubt serve as a gateway album to get listeners more acquainted with the other work from the bands and no doubt making other legendary soundtrack compilers jealous such as the king of cool movie music himself, Mr. Cameron Crowe.

Complete Track-Listing

1. Chris Bell – “Speed Of Sound”
2. Devendra Banhart – “Lover”
3. Bishop Allen – “Middle Management”
4. Vampire Weekend - Ottoman”
5. The Dead 60s – “Riot Radio”
6. Takka Takka – “Fever”
7. The Submarines – “Xavia”
8. We Are Scientists – “After Hours”
9. Band Of Horses – “Our Swords”
10. Army Navy – “Silvery Sleds”
11. Richard Hawley – “Baby You're My Light”
12. Shout Out Louds – “Very Loud”
13. Paul Tiernan – “How To Say Goodbye”
14. The Real Tuesday Weld – “Last Words”
15. Mark Mothersbaugh – “Nick & Norah’s Theme”

TV on DVD: Wayside School: Season 1

You don't need to climb thirty flights of stairs
to join Mrs. Jewls' class in this
lively animated series, now available on DVD.

In the introduction to Sideways Stories from Wayside School, the first children’s book from National Book Award and Newbery Medal-winning author Louis Sachar (Holes), the author wrote the following words: “It has been said these stories are strange and silly. That is probably true. However, when I told stories about you to the children at Wayside, they thought you were strange and silly. That is probably also true.”

Although, as Sachar admits, it took quite awhile for the book to catch on, it soon built a steady following of devoted readers who sent the author “lots of fan letters that greatly encouraged me” to keep writing more adventures about Wayside and other beloved novels like There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom and Holes.

Yet, for a child such as myself growing up in the early '80s, Sideways Stories from Wayside School has a special place in my heart as one of my very favorite novels that I remember reading and re-reading along with my brother and parents until we’d darn near worn out our old, beat-up, original blue-covered copy. Obviously we weren’t alone as — exactly thirty years after its original publication in 1978 — the latest edition of Sideways proclaims that, “more than 6 million kids have laughed at the wacky stories.” And fittingly, marking its thirtieth anniversary, the first season of the Nickelodeon and Teletoon coproduction, an animated television spin-off Wayside School, has been released on DVD complete with the original book that started it all. Having the unique distinction, as Wikipedia reports, of being the “only series to be both a Teletoon Original [Canada] and Nicktoon [America],” the book was developed into a series by its director Riccardo Durante and its story editor and writer John Derevlany.

Just in time for back-to-school, this two disc set from Paramount Home Entertainment serves up all thirteen episodes [roughly 293 minutes worth] to an adoring public of Sachar fans young and old, which seems quite fitting for an author who always stated that, “I write the books and let the market find who reads it.” Beautifully transferred to DVD with its original full frame ratio intact and close captioned on capable televisions for the hearing impaired, the series follows the original one hour animated television film released on DVD one year ago under the title Wayside: The Movie, which featured the voice of Juno and Arrested Development star Michael Cera as Todd, a new student at Wayside who quickly realizes that all is not what it seems at the school. For starters, instead of a thirty room building, Sachar’s fictitious Leaning Tower of Pisa-like setting was built thirty stories tall instead, as you can see in this clip below as Todd meets Louis the Yard Teacher (Sachar’s semi-autobiographical version of himself).

Welcome to Wayside

Although he states the he “draws very little from personal experience,” admittedly some the students in the book “were named after children” Sachar had worked with when he worked at an elementary school in exchange for college credits at UC Berkeley. Yet, the most important development of this work for economics and law school graduate Sachar was that he found his calling in life, stating that while he “became the Noontime Supervisor, or ‘Louis the Yard Teacher’ as I was known to the kids," it became his "favorite college class, and a life changing experience." Not only was the character of Louis the Yard Teacher born but following his first graduation in 1976, it helped pave the way for his own brand of writing for children which he considers no different than writing for adults as he says he puts “the same care and effort into them as I would if I were writing for adults."

And while admittedly for those unfamiliar with the book, the original movie would be beneficial as a valuable companion piece to establish the characters and wacky world of Wayside, the series quickly brings us up to speed with not only Todd and Louis the Yard Teacher, but also the rest of the occupants of Wayside School, especially in Todd’s classroom in the very highest level, on the thirtieth floor.

TV Show Intro & Theme Song

Questionably in charge of molding young minds with, as we later discover, a circus background and no verifiable credentials, Todd’s well-intentioned but dim-witted teacher Mrs. Jewls offers the students she sometimes calls “monkeys” her own brand of wisdom including her belief that Wolfman and T-Rex formed Ancient Greece. And with strange rules such as deciding that all oral reports should be delivered to the class silently via charades, it’s no wonder that Todd is ridiculously placed on her discipline list each and every day, frequently forced to suffer the humiliation of leaving early to ride home on the kindergarten bus.

While Todd struggles to navigate through Wayside’s bizarre rules, his classmate Dana has dubbed herself the “Honorary Wayside Rules Sheriff.” The type of girl who, as Nora and Delia Ephron once wrote, would make “coffee nervous,” the ultra-organized, premature heart attack waiting to happen Dana is a compulsive list-maker complete with a Rolodex she refers to as her “flippy file of feelings.” The unofficial leader of the class, Dana is so determined to follow rules that in one episode she actually persuades the rest of her classmates that a cow is their substitute teacher. And when Dana catches herself having a moment of childhood spontaneity she is quick to put it to an abrupt end, by shouting, “Enough with the fun!”

As is often the case, two Type A students do not mesh well together so it’s unsurprising that Dana’s best friend is the clueless, self-absorbed, crying-fit prone Myron. While Dana constantly wants to put an end to fun, Myron’s slogan in life is “Vote for Me!” whether an election for class president is going on or not, erroneously believing he is Mrs. Jewls' most popular student. Although when he finally gets his chance to rule the roost, his ego shines through, and later Todd is quick to remind him that class president isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as it would prompt him to face his irrational fear of turning on and off the light switch which is the job’s only assigned duty.

Rounding out the rest of the cast is the unforgettable, aggressively flirtatious, stalker-on-skates Maurecia. Having proclaimed an undying love for Todd, it’s become Maurecia’s mission to punch him at every chance that presents itself to show him (in her own adolescent way) just how much she cares. And while some of the other characters from the book series do make appearances like The Three Erics, the compulsively Halloween costume clad Stephen, the nearly narcoleptic Shari, John who is always upside down, and others, it’s some of the adults like Louis who never fail to entertain.

This is especially apparent with Wayside’s paranoid principal Mr. Kidswatter, who spends his workdays filled with fear that behind the smiles of the students is a secret plan to bring him down. After one such event that found him in a fetal position beneath his desk, he orders Todd to aid him as a spy in “Oh, Great Leader,” although, still unable to remember the new kid’s name, he instead calls him by his mailing address throughout the series, specifically “344 South Fairview.”

Equally eccentric is the school’s mysterious cook Miss Mush who runs not only the cafeteria but also the honors class along with her sidekick Sammy, a dead rat who at one point is stuck in her ear for a majority of the show. Preferring to whip up items like a “crunchy couch smoothie,” “basketball juice,” and “doorknob juice” as opposed to most schools' overreliance on hot ham and cheese, corndogs and tator tots, her recipe du jour is the insanely potent Mushroom Surprise (which you can witness below).

Miss Mush's Mushroom Surprise

Although as you can see in the clip, while he endlessly worries that he doesn’t fit into his new surroundings, the gap-toothed Todd anachronistically called a “fun pooper” (by his decidedly un-fun classmate Dana), gets in his share of hysterical adventures including discovering a secret elevator when the stairs are out of order in one of season one’s best episodes, “The Elevator.”

And while I must admit, I was a tad jealous when I first began viewing that I didn’t have the series when I was a child discovering Sachar’s work, at the same time I’m glad I only had the books and my imagination to get lost in. Yet, as a series, Wayside is of such remarkable quality that it also does the impossible in making us want to pick up the books when the credits roll, which made me tremendously glad the set included the original book as my old battered copy had been done in two decades ago.

Additionally, it’s different enough that it leaves enough surprises for the reader to appreciate in the text as well as made the film critic in me wonder if — like Sachar’s award winning Holes — Wayside will be developed into a live action feature film someday a la Danny DeVito’s Roald Dahl adaptation Matilda, the Harry Potter series, or Tim Burton’s take on Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The episodes of Wayside School (now in its second season) are divided into two parts so that technically the DVD set’s thirteen episodes tell twenty-six memorably zany tales. And even though a few are less than effective, Durante’s vision and determination to engage young audiences (especially those with short attention spans) to Sachar’s world shines through in this upbeat, worthwhile series that succeeds where most fail.

And that is, via strange supernatural plots and overly broad situations and characters, Wayside makes kids infinitely glad that — while they get to mentally attend for just thirty entertaining minutes — their own school seems far less intimidating than they’d initially believed. Therefore, although it’s delivered as sugar, the medicine that goes down in every episode is that, with the right attitude and imagination, school can be amazingly cool and doubly so when you can run home from the kindergarten bus to watch Todd's Wayside gang for thirty minutes.