Out at the Movies: "Quantum of Solace", "Slumdog Millionaire", "A Christmas Tale"

Daniel Craig and friend in Quantum of Solace

Three terrific new movies open in US theaters this weekend, and while none of them is gay per se, they're all queer-adjacent enough (not to mention that each is just flat-out awesome in its own way) for AfterElton.com readers to check out. Find out more after the break!

James Bond 007 returns in Quantum of Solace, a movie that takes the grim, hard-bitten paradigm shift of Casino Royale and ups it, making it the most brutal of the venerable series. Still, director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Stranger than Fiction) keeps the action terse, resulting in some car chases and construction-site fisticuffs that rank with the best from this venerable franchise. Judi Dench keeps things hilariously dry as M, but it's Daniel Craig's show all the way.

Craig (above left, with Gemma Arterton), in addition to crafting a very new millenial Bond, has shown great openness when it comes to queer subject matter. He dazzled arthouse audiences in 1998's Love is the Devil, where he played the lover of legendary painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi), and he smooched Toby Jones on the lips in Infamous (aka "the other movie about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood").

Slumdog Millionaire

While 007 will own the weekend, there are two films opening in limited release that also merit a look. The less you know about Slumdog Millionaire going in, the better, so I'm just going to say that it left me with a bigger grin than any other movie in recent memory. It's directed by the always-stylish Danny Boyle, who uses the film's Indian milieu as an excuse to stage an elaborate Bollywood-style musical number, and who doesn't love that?

A Christmas Tale's Chiara Mastroianni and Melville Poupaud

A Christmas Tale tells the story of a howlingly dysfunctional family getting together for the holidays, but don't expect hugs and reconciliation. Catherine Deneuve stars as the cool-as-the-falling-snow mom of the clan who hopes that one of her children will give her a bone-marrow transplant as part of her cancer treatment, which means that her sparring kids will once again be under the same roof.

The cast — which includes Mathieu Amalric, also playing the Quantum of Solace baddy, and Deneuve's talented daughter Chiara Mastroianni — features the handsome young actor Melvil Poupaud (above right, with Mastroianni), who you may have seen playing a dying gay man in queer director François Ozon's moving Time to Leave.

So yay, a weekend with more than one good movie opening! If you can't get Quantum tickets, do give one of these other titles a shot if they're opening in a theater near you.