Shia LaBeouf's Past Makes For Outstanding Cinema In Honey Boy

Honey Boy is inseparable from actor Shia LaBeouf. Not only did he write and play one of the lead roles in this project, but it's also based upon his life, specifically his childhood as a child actor while living with his abusive father, the figure LaBeouf plays in Honey Boy. Those expecting a glossy clean-cut biopic from LaBeouf and director Alma Har'el's approach to this deeply personal story will be left unsatisfied. Honey Boy is constantly raw in examining Shia's youth and how it impacted him as an adult and will leave viewers (appropriately) uncomfortable in numerous instances. It's not an easy watch in the slightest, but that's incredibly fitting for this story and taking such an uncompromising gaze with this story helps to make Honey Boy as outstanding as it is.

Julianne Moore Shines In The Delightfully Low-Key Gloria Bell

Though she has an upbeat attitude, Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore), the titular lead character of Gloria Bell, is not a person whose life is devoid of turmoil. Both her life and the movie she stars in have darkness hiding in the margins, whether it's the deeply troubled upstairs neighbor that keeps Gloria up at night, her struggles to keep herself fully immersed in the lives of her now grown-up kids or all kinds of angst at her job. But Gloria still keeps on facing each new day with a touch of optimism and a car radio blaring upbeat disco-era tunes and both of those attributes help her out immensely. After all, there are plenty of things to be cheerful about, like a new man, Arnold (John Turturro), Gloria has started seeing.