Ghosts of Mars (John Carpenter, 2001)

Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge in Ghosts of Mars

Cast: Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Clea DuVall, Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Cetrone, Rosemary Forsyth, Liam Waite, Duane Davis, Lobo Sebastian, Rodney A. Grant. Screenplay: Larry Sulkis, John Carpenter. Cinematography: Gary B. Kibbe. Production design: William A. Elliott. Film editing: Paul C. Warshilka. Music: Anthrax, John Carpenter. 

It's a space zombie Western, how good could it be? There are those who are willing to overlook the bad acting, the lame dialogue, the lack of plausibility, and the overall cheesiness of design in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, and I understand them. There's a place for this kind of B-movie throwback to sci-fi tropes of the 1950s, and it's in the hearts of many cineastes, especially those who admire the chutzpah of its writer-director-composer. I don't belong to the Carpenter cult myself, but I respect their enthusiasm. Still, if you came across this movie on TV and didn't know anything about its auteur, how long would you keep watching before you looked for something better? 

Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985)

Hou Hsiao-hsien in Taipei Story

Cast: Tsai Chin, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wu Nien-jen, Lin Hsiu-ling, Ko I-chen, Ke Su-yun, Wu Ping-nan, Mei Fang, Chen Shu-fang, Yang Li-yin, Lai Te-nan. Screenplay: Chu T'ien-wen, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang. Cinematography: Yang Wei-han. Film editing: Sung Fan-chen, Wang Qi-yang. Music: Edward Yang. 

Edward Yang's Taipei Story thrusts us into the midst of the lives of two people in the city of Taipei in the mid-1980s, and then lets us sort out the personal, social, and economic tensions between them. Chin (Tsai Chin) and Lung (Hou Hsiao-hsien) grew up together in the city and at some point decided to live together, despite pressure from their parents to get married. Lung has a small fabric shop and Chin is the executive assistant to a manager of a large construction company. As the film opens, Chin is about to lose her job because the company is about to be taken over by a larger corporation, and the woman she works for has resigned. Lung has just returned from the States, where his sister is married to a man who runs an import business. The possibility of immigrating intrigues both of them, especially since Chin's future is uncertain. But their lives are complicated by their families, old and new lovers, and the city that's changing around them. It's a film with the flavor of a good novel, whose subtlety and the intricacy of its relationships suggest that it probably improves with more than one viewing. 

Kalpana (Uday Shankar, 1948)

Uday Shankar in Kalpana

Cast: Uday Shankar, Amala Shankar, Lakshmi Kanta, G.V. Subbarao, Birendri Banerji, Swaraj Mitter Gupta, Anil Kumar Chopra, Brijo Behari Banerji, Chiranjilal Shah, Devilal Samar, K. Mukerjee. Screenplay: Uday Shankar. Cinematography: K. Ranoth. Production design: A.K. Sekar. Film editing: N.K. Gopal. Music: Vishnudas Shirali.

Uday Shankar's phantasmagoric, angry, joyous, often baffling Kalpana is the ultimate dance musical, recalling everything from Busby Berkeley's pattern-making choreography to the expressionist visions of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). It was Shankar's only film, and it's easy to see why: It's exhaustive and exhausting. The flood of dance sequences occurs in a flashback within a frame story about Udayan, played by Shankar, trying to persuade a box office minded producer to make a film based on his life work. He's doomed to failure because the producer thinks only of money, which Udayan has learned to be an evil, though a necessary one. He has a vision of India as a cultural force, an independent leader of nations, emerging from its colonial past, though thwarted by capitalist greed. There's also a love story along with some intrigue and villainy in Kalpana, resulting in a narrative muddle, which may be why it was not a great success when it was initially released. However, its energy and imagination (which is one meaning of the Sanskrit word that gives the film its title) overcome its flaws.   
 

Two Girls on the Street (André De Toth, 1939)

Mária Tasnádi Fekete and Bella Bordy in Two Girls on the Street

Cast: Mária Tasnádi Fekete, Bella Bordy, Andor Ajtay, Piroska Vaszary, Gyula Csortos. Screenplay: André De Toth, based on a play by Tamás Emöd and Reszö Török. Cinematography: Károly Vass. Production design: Márton Vincze. Film editing: Zoltán Kerényi. Music: Szabolcs Fényes. 

In 1939, the Production Code was so rigidly enforced in Hollywood that David O. Seznick had to beg for an exemption that would allow Clark Gable to speak the word "damn" in Gone With the Wind. So for an example of what Hollywood movies might have been like if they hadn't been saddled with the Code's strictures, take a look at a film from Hungary that year, André De Toth's Two Girls on the Street. It begins with a young woman revealing, at a dinner party that celebrates an engagement, that the potential groom, who is marrying someone else, made her pregnant. Out of wedlock pregnancy would have been severely punished under the Code, but after the uproar, she moves to Budapest and gets an abortion -- one of the Code's severest taboos -- and goes to work in a night club as a violinist in an all-female orchestra. By the end of the film, she has become a celebrated concert violinist, hardly a punishment. Two Girls on the Street is a romantic melodrama whose plot feels familiar in many respects: The violinist befriends a waiflike young woman, and as they prosper they fall in love with the same man. But many of the details of the film feel like they come from another place and another time: The man they fall for was accused of sexually harassing the second woman, who also attempts suicide (another Code taboo) when she thinks she's lost him, but she's perfectly happy to wind up with him at the end of the movie. None of this is to suggest that Hungary was a better place to make movies at that time, of course. De Toth left it for Hollywood, where he became a second-tier director specializing in Westerns like The Gunfighter (1950) and films noir like Pitfall (1948) before moving into television; his best-known movie is House of Wax (1953), one of the first of the run of 3-D features in the 1950s. 

Muna Moto (Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa, 1975)

Arlette Din Bell in Muna Moto

Cast: Philippe Abia, Arlette Din Bell, Samuel Baongla, Catherine Biboum, David Endene, Gisèle Dikongué-Pipa. Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa. Cinematography: J.P. Delazay, J.L. Leon. Film editing: Andrée Davanture, Dominque Saint-Cyr, Jules Takam. Music: A.G.A.'Styl, Georges Anderson. 

Muna Moto, also known as The Child of Another, takes place in a village in Cameroon, where young Ngando (Philippe Abia) and Ndomé (Arlette Din Bell) have fallen in love. Ngando, however, can't afford the dowry Ndomé's father demands, so his rich uncle decides to take her as his fifth wife -- none of his other four wives have produced the child he wants. To forestall the uncle's plans, Ngando gets Ndomé pregnant, but the uncle is undeterred and takes her for his wife anyway and raises the child as his own. Ngando's struggle to claim his daughter and to reunite with Ndomé is the driving force of a film about the heavy hand of tradition, a universal theme in a setting unfamiliar to most of us. Director Jean-Pierre Dikongué makes the most of that setting, a place where nature and human beings tenuously co-exist. 

Chess on the Wind (Mohammad Reza Aslani, 1976)

Shohreh Aghdashloo, Fakhri Khorvash, and Aghajan Rafii in Chess of the Wind

Cast: Fakhri Khorvash, Mohama Ali Keshavarz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Akbar Zanjanpour, Shahram Golchin, Hamid Taati, Aghajan Rafii, Annik Shefrazian. Screenplay: Mohammad Reza Aslani. Cinematography: Houshang Baharlou. Art direction: Houri Etesam. Film editing: Abbas Ganjavi. Music: Sheyda Gharachedaghi. 

Made, released, and almost immediately suppressed in a country in the throes of revolutionary change, Mohammad Reza Aslani's Chess on the Wind is one of those films that are almost more interesting for the history of their survival than for their content. Which is not to say that the film isn't impressive in itself: It's visually and aurally exceptional, in the opulence of its setting, an old mansion in Tehran, and the score using antique instruments by Sheyda Gharachedaghi. It also makes some strong points about the oppression of women, even including some queer content that was one of the reasons for its suppression. After its initial showing, the film completely disappeared for 38 years -- even its director had no prints of it -- until a complete negative was discovered by the director's son in an old shop in a suburb of Tehran. Viewers may find it a little slowly paced and sometimes enigmatic in motives and relationships, but Aslani's mastery of filmmaking is evident. It's worth watching the documentary The Majnoun and the Wind (Gita Aslani Shahrestani, 2022), made by the director's daughter and available with it on the Criterion Channel, for the film's full story.

Prisioneros de la Tierra (Mario Soffici, 1939)

Elisa Galvé and Ángel Galvaña in Prisioneros de la Tierra

Cast: Francisco Petrone, Ángel Galvaña, Elisa Galvé, Raúl De Lange, Roberto Fugazot, Homero Cárpeno. Screenplay: Ulises Petit de Murat, Dario Quiroga, based on stories by Horacio Quiroga. Cinematography: Pablo Tabernero. Production design: Ralph Pappier. Film editing: Gerardo Rinaldi. Music: Lucio Demare. 

In Hollywood, 1939 is often cited as a peak year, but the Argentine film Prisioneros de la Tierra, released the same year, holds its own in comparison with the American studio output. It's a story of abused workers in the Argentine jungles, with a grim conclusion that contrasts with the timid, feel-good resolutions of Hollywood. Granted, it too is sometimes a little more glossy than the subject warrants, with the casting of a pretty but limited actress, Elisa Galvé, in the key role of Andrea. who accompanies her alcoholic father (Raúl De Lange), a physician, on the trip to a labor camp. She falls in love with one of the workers, the dashing Estéban Podeley (Ángel Galvaña), while being pursued by the villain, Köhner (Francisco Petrone), the ruthless boss of the camp. Director Mario Soffici manages to overcome the by-the-numbers romance with a genuine feeling for the exploitation of indentured workers, aided greatly by Pablo Tabernero's use of light and shadow to create an oppressive mood in key scenes. Prisioneros de la Tierra is regarded as one of Argentina's greatest films, and at its best it justifies the acclaim.   

Behind Convent Walls (Walerian Borowczyk, 1978

Marina Pierro in Behind Convent Walls

Cast: Ligia Branice, Howard Ross, Marina Pierro, Gabriela Giacobbe, Rodolfo Dal Pra, Loredana Martinez, Mario Maranzana, Alex Partexano. Screenplay: Walerian Borowczyk, based on a book by Stendhal. Cinematography: Luciano Tovoli. Film editing: Walerian Borowczyk. Music: Sergio Montori. 

Nuns just wanna have fun, or so Walerian Borwczyk's Behind Convent Walls tells us. What forbids them from doing so is a stern Mother Superior, so when her back is turned they're up to all manner of rebellious behavior, the most lurid of which is perhaps the employment of a hand-carved dildo with an image of Jesus on one end. Ostensibly based on an essay in Stendhal's Promenades de Rome, Borowczyk's film is thought by some to rise above its soft-core prurience by virtue of some creative cinematography and its criticism of clerical celibacy and hypocrisy, but it seems to me not much more than a male fantasy about the lives of inaccessible women.  

Superman (James Gunn, 2025)

David Corenswet in Superman

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Cathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Alan Tudyk (voice), Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan, Michael Rooker (voice), Pom Klementieff (voice), Maria Gabriela de Faría, Wendell Pierce, Neya Howell, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Zlatko Buric, Jake Tapper. Screenplay: James Gunn. Cinematography: Henry Braham. Production design: Beth Mickle. Film editing: Craig Alpert, William Hoy. Music: David Fleming, John Murphy. 

James Gunn's Superman begins in medias res, with only a minute or two of text on screen to summarize the well-known backstory of the title character. Gunn wastes no time establishing the hero's Kryptonian origins, his secret identity as Clark Kent (David Corenswet) and his relationships with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and his enemy Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). We begin simply with Superman getting the shit beat out of him, which is more than enough to get our attention. The problem with the film, however, is that Gunn takes the opportunity to dispense with the old background narrative and loads down the movie with new characters, off-beat relationships like Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), multiple threats, and head-spinning sci-fi tropes like "pocket universes." What could have been an exhilarating new take on an old story instead becomes exhausting. Fortunately, Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult are skillful enough players to rise above the frenzy and bring some order to the chaos of ideas that Gunn throws at them. 

Countdown (Robert Altman, 1967)

James Caan in Countdown

Cast: James Caan, Joanna Moore, Robert Duvall, Barbara Baxley, Charles Aidman, Steven Ihnat, Michael Murphy, Ted Knight, Stephen Coit, John Rayner, Charles Irving, Bobby Riha. Screenplay: Loring Mandel, based on a novel by Hank Searls. Cinematography: William W. Spencer. Art direction: Jack Poplin. Film editing: Gene Milford. Music: Leonard Rosenman. 

Reality intervened to make Countdown obsolete within a few months after it was released, so that the scenes of the astronaut played by James Caan plodding across the lunar surface -- instead of bouncing on it as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would soon be seen doing -- look ridiculous. Countdown is watchable today mainly for the people involved with it who went on to better things. Caan and Robert Duvall were just a few years away from stardom thanks to The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), and even Ted Knight, who plays a NASA press relations man, would find a better journalistic role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. But it was almost the undoing of its director, Robert Altman, who was fired by Warner Bros. for what became one of his signature techniques: overlapping dialogue. What energy and interest Countdown generates comes from Altman's ability to keep things moving, but he's saddled with a tired story about the space race with the usual cliches, including the astronaut's anxious wife, played woodenly by Joanna Moore.