Queer (Luca Guadagnino, 2024)

Daniel Craig in Queer

Cast: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Drew Droege, Andra Ursuta. Screenplay: Justin Kuritzkes, based on a novella by William S. Burroughs. Cinematography: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. Production design: Stefano Baisi. Film editing: Marco Sosta. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross. 

Daniel Craig's terrific performance as the junkie exile William Lee in Luca Guadagnino's Queer makes me wish that Craig had been freed from Bondage much earlier. Whether it's enough for me to recommend the movie as anything more than an acting showcase for Craig (and for Lesley Manville in a wonderful supporting turn) is another question. It feels a little slackly paced to me, and the character of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), who becomes a partner in Lee's sexual and pharmacological obsessions, remains something of a blur. Director Luca Guadagnino also persists in the "pan to the window" discretion in filming same-sex coupling that for me marred his Call Me by Your Name (2017), although he's a bit bolder about it this time. On the whole, though, Queer seems to me a solid attempt at capturing William S. Burroughs's dark tragicomic tone and vision. 

You're a Big Boy Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1966)

Peter Kastner and Tony Bill in You're a Big Boy Now

Cast: Peter Kastner, Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn, Tony Bill, Julie Harris, Karen Black, Dolph Sweet, Michael Dunn. Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola, based on a novel by David Ignatius. Cinematography: Andrew Laszlo. Art direction: Vasilis Fotopoulos. Film editing: Aram Avakian. Music: Robert Prince. 

Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now, his master's thesis project at UCLA, is a coming-of-age comedy in the larky mid-1960s manner of Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964) and The Knack ... and How to Get It (1965). It's a manner that's now a little dated, a sometimes too-frantic piling on of editing tricks and goofball antics, but Coppola handled it well with the help of a willing cast. Geraldine Page even earned an Oscar nomination as the smothering mother of Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner), trying to make it on his own in the big city. 

Three Seasons (Tony Bui, 1999)

Cast: Nguyen Ngoc Hiep, Don Duong, Zoe Bui, Nguyen Huu Doc, Harvey Keitel, Huong Phat Trieu, Tran Manh Cuong. Screenplay: Tony Bui, Timothy Linh Bui. Cinematography: Lisa Rinzler. Production design: Wing Lee. Film editing: Keith Reamer. Music: Richard Horowitz. 

Although somewhat soft around the edges, Tony Bui's Three Seasons is an affecting and often quite beautiful look at the lives of people on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City: a flower vendor, a pedicab driver, a prostitute, a small boy who peddles chewing gum and cigarettes, and a visiting ex-GI. 

If I Should Die Before I Wake (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)

Néstor Zavarce and Maria A. Troncoso in If I Should Die Before I Wake

Cast: Néstor Zavarce, Bianca del Prado, Floren Delbene, Homero Carpena, Enrique de Pedro, Virginia Romay, Marisa Nuñez, Maria A. Troncoso, Marta Quintela. Screenplay: Alejandro Casona, based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. Cinematography: Pablo Tabernero. Production design: Gori Muñoz. Film editing: José Gallego. Music: Julián Bautista. 

This handsomely filmed adaptation of a story by Cornell Woolrich about a boy who attempts to catch a serial killer preying on little girls at his school somewhat gratuitously casts the story as a fable. It generates suspense but sometimes stretches plausibility. 

Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992)

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Jamón, Jamón

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Jodi Mollà, Stefania Sandrelli, Anna Galiena, Juan Diego, Tomás Penco. Screenplay: Cuca Canals, Bigas Luna. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Production design: Gloria Martí-Palanqués, Pep Oliver. Film editing: Teresa Font. Music: Nicola Piovani. 

With its copulative roundelay, nude bullfighting, and death by ham, Bigas Luna's satiric black comedy Jamón, Jamón confused and offended some of its early viewers, who may have forgotten that Spain is the country that produced Goya and Dalí. 

Raising Victor Vargas (Peter Sollett, 2002)

Krystal Rodriguez, Silvestre Rasuk, and Victor Rasuk in Raising Victor Vargas

Cast: Victor Rasuk, Judy Marte, Altagracia Guzman, Silvestre Rasuk, Krystal Rodriguez, Donna Maldonado, Kevin Rivera, Melonie Diaz, Matthew Roberts, Alexander Garcia, John Ramos, Theresa Martinez, Wilfree Vasquez. Screenplay: Peter Sollett, Eva Vives. Cinematography: Tim Orr. Production design: Judy Becker. Film editing: Myron Kerstein. Music: Roy Nathanson. 

Teenage Victor (Victor Rasuk) is being raised by his Dominican grandmother (Altagracia Guzman) in a New York City apartment with his half-siblings, Vicki (Krystal Rodriguez) and Nino (Silvestre Rasuk). The sins of Victor's absent father are visited on him frequently by his grandmother, who blames him for corrupting his brother and sister. For example, when Nino is caught masturbating, her immediate response is to scapegoat Victor, and she hauls him down to social services, demanding that they take him off her hands. She's stymied in the effort, of course, but from then on his task is to try to get back in her good graces. That's complicated, however, by his pursuit of the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, Judy (Judy Marte), and his awkward attempts to figure out what it means to be a man. Though it maybe lacks some of the neo-realistic grit its setting needs, Raising Victor Vargas is a likable coming-of-age story with a capable cast of unknown performers.  

Demon Pond (Masahiro Shinoda, 1979)

Tamasaburo Bando in Demon Pond

Cast: Tamasaburo Bando, Go Kato, Tsutomo Yamazaki, Hisashi Igawa, Fujio Tokita, Hatsuo Yamaya, Dai Kanai, Koji Nanbara, Toru Abe, Yatsuko Tan'ami, Shigeru Yazaki, Jun Hanamura. Screenplay: Tsutomu Tamara, Haruhiko Mimura, based on a play by Kyoka Izumi. Cinematography: Masao Kosugi, Noritaka Sakamotu. Art direction: Setsu Asakura, Kiyoshi Awazu, Yutaka Yokoyama. Music: Isao Tomita. 

Masahiro Shinoda's fusion of cinema and kabuki, Demon Pond, affords us the opportunity to witness the art of Tamasaburo Bando, the famous onnagata, a male actor specializing in female roles, who appeared primarily on stage. He takes two roles: Yuri, the wife of Akira Hagiwara (Go Kato), and the dragon princess Shirayuki, who dwells under enchantment in the pond of the film's title. If she's ever released from the spell, the pond will inundate the village below. Akira and Yuki have taken it on themselves to remind the princess of the spell that binds her by ringing a bell three times a day. Unfortunately, the arrival of a traveler (Tsutomo Yamazaki) from the outside world who is an old friend of Akira sets in motion a series of events that end in calamity. It's a splendidly acted, well-told fable, enhanced by an eerie electronic score by Isao Tomita that includes themes from Debussy and Mussorgsky, and concluding with a cataclysm of special effects.   

All Shall Be Well (Ray Yeung, 2024)

Lin-Lin Li and Petra Au in All Shall Be Well

Cast: Petra Au, Lin-Lin Li, Tai-Bo, Siu Yin Hui, Chung-Hang Leung, Fish Liew, Yung Ting Rachel Leung, Chai-Ming Lai, Cheng Cheuck Lam, Kiana Ng Ki Yan, Lai-Ha Li, Gia Yuk-Wah Yu, Luna Shaw. Screenplay: Ray Yeung. Cinematography: Ming-Kai Leung. Production design: Albert Poon. Film editing: Lai Kwun Tung. Music: Veronica Lee. 

Love doesn't really conquer all. Angie Wan (Petra Au) learns of its impotence in the face of the law when her wife, Pat Wu (Lin-Lin Li), dies. That's because the law doesn't recognize Pat as her wife, even though Pat's family accepted their relationship and referred to them as Aunty Pat and Aunty Angie. Still grief-stricken, Angie very reluctantly gives in to the family's decision concerning Pat's remains: Pressured by a religious adviser, the family wants them placed in a columbarium, even though Angie knows of Pat's wish to have her ashes scattered at sea. But the family's wishes concerning the apartment she shared with Pat for many years become far more crucial. Because Angie's name is not on the contract, she has no legal right to stay there. Angie and Pat became wealthy in business, whereas Pat's brother, Shing Wu (Tai-Bo), has failed to prosper. In overcrowded Hong Kong, the apartment is highly valuable. Writer-director Ray Yeung makes Angie's plight especially poignant by choosing not to turn it into a melodrama. The Wu family aren't portrayed as heartless monsters or villainous bigots, and the only real lesson to be drawn from the film is that Pat lacked foresight in failing to make a will that established Angie's right to the property. Yeung's low-key approach to the material is admirable, as is Petra Au's quietly revealing performance as Angie. 

A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, 2024)

Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Dan Vogler, Eriko Hatsune, Scoot McNairy, Boyd Holbrook, Will Harrison, Norbert Leo Butz, David Alan Basche. Screenplay: James Mangold, Jay Cocks, based on a book by Elijah Wald. Cinematography: Phedon Papamichael. Production design: François Audouy. Film editing: Andrew Buckland, Scott Morris. 

Timothée Chalamet's fine, inward portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown put me in mind of T.S. Eliot's proclamation that poetry "is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." Eliot went on to add, "only those who have personality and emotions know what it is to want to escape from those things." Chalamet's Dylan is so elusive that others who encounter him are able to find what they want in him. The dying Woody Guthrie (Scott McNairy) finds in him a kind of afterlife or reincarnation. Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) sees Dylan as the future of his kind of modern folk music. Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) learns from him that her music needs more bite and bitterness. Elle Fanning's Sylvie Russo (based on Suze Rotolo) discovers an opportunity to nurture, to find a direction in life for a lost lamb. Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) embraces him as a fellow outlaw, someone to "track mud on the carpet." The music business types, of course, see a halo of dollar bills around him. And the film ends with the folkies at Newport denouncing him as Judas. It's to Chalamet's credit that he can play the role so that Dylan looks like a mirror image, a mentor, a companion, a project, or a traitor at any turn. Still, A Complete Unknown is such a conventional biopic that it has to be compared unfavorably to Todd Haynes's more unconventional approach to Dylan, I'm Not There (2007), which employed six very different actors to suggest his multifaceted nature. For in the end, it's the music that matters, not the man. 

Four Frightened People (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934)

Cast: Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, Mary Boland, William Gargan, Leo Carillo, Nella Walker, Ethel Griffies, Tetsu Komai, Chris-Pin Martin, Joe De La Cruz. Screenplay: Bartlett Cormack, Lenore J. Coffee, based on a novel by E. Arnot Robertson. Cinematography: Karl Struss. Art direction: Roland Anderson. Film editing: Anne Bauchens. Music: Karl Hajos, John Leipold, Milan Roder, Heinz Roemheld. 

Four Frightened People is a film that keeps running off in various directions: Sometimes it's an adventure thriller, sometimes a romantic drama, and sometimes it's a comedy of manners. It's as if Gilligan's Island suddenly turned in mid-season into a grim struggle for survival, and then went goofy all over again. A movie so muddled needs the help of strong casting, but instead it has four actors who look like they needed the work and this was the best they could find. As the nominal romantic leads, Claudette Colbert and Herbert Marshall have no chemistry, even after she stops being a mousy schoolteacher and starts slinking around in leopard-skin outfits, Mary Ann metamorphosed into Ginger. Marshall's chief rival for her attention, a macho adventurer played by William Gargan, is just a bullying grouch. And Mary Boland is there for comic relief as a feather-brained dowager clutching her lapdog to her breast, a shtick that gets so tiresome we need relief from the relief. It's the kind of movie that raises only one question: What the hell were they thinking when they made it?