Thailand

The Blue Hour is a beautiful, dark and mysterious ghost story from Thai filmmaker Anucha Boonyawatana. Tam (Atthaphan Poonsawas) is a gay teen who doesn’t fit in at school or within his family. He arranges a meeting with the dashing Phum (Oabnithi Wiwattanawarang) at an abandoned swimming pool. Their hook-up quickly develops into something more serious as they find comfort and safety in each other’s friendship. As their relationship progresses, Tam’s life becomes increasingly confused as he struggles to differentiate dream from reality.

While it has some interesting things to say about Thai culture, ‘How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)’ lacks the narrative focus to make much of an impact.

Style oozes from every frame of Only God Forgives, tinged in red, like the blood that so frequently sprays across the screen and lands in artfully designed splatters. Writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn and star Ryan Gosling, reuniting after the cult success of 2011’s Drive, have collaborated on a truly baffling, bizarre, and gory crime drama that’s wall-to-wall striking, pretty images. Unlike Drive, however, Only God Forgives is hollow underneath all the model-like posturing and the flashes of excessive, gratuitous violence.

Dir. Robbie Hart, Luc Côté (2010, Canada, 104 min.) Turning 32 asks an impossible but fascinating question: what parts of growing up are universal? A sequel to the 1992 television series Turing 16, this film reconnects with the principal characters of that series and traces the direction of their lives. It jumps back and forth …