3/5 stars

American author William Burroughs’ lurid, experimental novels are notoriously difficult to adapt and not exactly conducive to great cinema. David Cronenberg managed it with 1991’s Naked Lunch. Now, Luca Guadagnino takes on Queer, which was written in the early 1950s but was not published until 1985.

Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Queer is a faithful, authentic dive into Burroughs’ universe, albeit one that struggles to maintain interest over a protracted 135-minute runtime.

Daniel Craig successfully demolishes his James Bond image as William Lee, a middle-aged homosexual drug addict living in Mexico City, drinking himself into oblivion. That is before he starts injecting drugs and going in search of yage, the plant better known now as ayahuasca, which he believes has telepathic properties.

Early on, Lee has an air of bonhomie about him as he seeks out casual sex with men, but his slide towards addiction becomes Guadagnino’s focus.

There are few droll joys in cinema more satisfying than watching and hearing George Clooney and Brad Pitt exchange knowing looks and wry, occasionally pointed banter. They’ve appeared in several films together, but the camaraderie stuff mainly happens in the “Ocean’s” caper films directed by Steven Soderbergh. (In the Coen Brothers’ 2008 “Burn After Reading,” to name one of their other on-screen collaborations, the relationship between their characters does not, spoiler alert, survive their non-introduction.) There are no more such films on anyone’s docket, but “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, does, despite its nameless main characters having a largely antagonistic kind of kinship, work hard to give its stars some of that old Danny and Rusty feeling.

Watts deliberately, and almost ceaselessly, plays on these performers’ status as the Last White Male Movie Stars, and even more so as the Last White Aging Male Movie Stars. (Their characters don’t move as quickly as they did when they wore younger men’s clothes, and late in the film they take to sharing an Advil bottle.) Pitt and Clooney play cleaners for hire—not the dry kind but the criminal kind. When an ambitious politico played by Amy Ryan has a luxury hotel assignation that ends with a probable corpse in her hotel room, she phones a contact listed on her device only as a pair of brackets. And then along comes George, black turtleneck sweatered, with a nice leather coat, some latex gloves, and other tools of his trade. But he is followed in short order by a similarly dressed Brad, summoned by the owners of the hotel. And the two soon start low-key bickering about who’s going to do the lion’s share of the cleaning while poor Ryan has to blubber with a bloody blouse for a while.

Despite a spectacular supporting cast that also includes the great Richard Kind, and some voice work by Frances McDormand, “Wolfs” is a duet in cool for its two principals, at least up until the problem they were arguing over the cleaning of proves more animated than had been previously believed. Austin Abrams plays a character known only as “Kid,” and he’s simultaneously terrified and awed by the men who are in charge of his fate. The proceedings are further enlivened by four bricks of heroin-or-something-like-it (some of the more amusing banter has the Wolfs arguing about the possibility of a “magic drug”) and some murderous Albanians who are looking for those bricks. The various plot twists and attempted escapes yield a bravura multi-borough New York chase scene that could have been trimmed by a couple of minutes but definitely represents a coup for the picture’s location coordinator David Fox and his crew, and kudos to them. And while there’s a fair amount of grisly violence here (something Watts is no stranger to; the fact that he directed the trashy, amoral horror film “Clown” gave me some misgivings about this enterprise), it’s more cartoonish than anything else.

This is neither a trifle nor a truly Major Motion Picture; it’s an entertainment maybe in the sense that Graham Greene used the term. But one needn’t be so hifalutin about the matter. Fact is, it’s a smile to hear Clooney utter again the familiar line “What’s the play here?” and Pitt protest, a little later on, “I don’t work that way.” And deep-cut appreciators will appreciate the mini-homage to “Ocean’s” producer Jerry Weintraub in the form of a late-introduced character who’s a Sinatra super fan.

This review was filed from the premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It opens on September 20th.

Adele says she’s making good on a promise to take a break from music after she completes her residency in Las Vegas.

The “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep” singer confirmed during her Saturday show in Germany — her last in a 10-show run abroad — that she plans to “rest” when she wraps her three-year gig in Sin City this November.

“I’m not the most comfortable performer, I know that, but I am very f— good at it. And I have really enjoyed performing for nearly three years now, which is the longest I’ve ever done and probably the longest I will ever do,” the 15-time Grammy Award winner said onstage in Munich, according to fan footage posted on TikTok.

Adele has 10 shows left in her “Weekends With Adele” residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The shows will span five weekends this fall after she had to postpone them in February due to illness.

“After that, I will not see you for an incredibly long time and I will hold you dear in my heart for that whole length of my break,” she said, adding that she will “fantasize” about her time onstage. “It has been amazing. I just need a rest.”

“I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now,” the 36-year-old said through tears. “I want to live my life that I’ve been building and I will miss you terribly.”

On Tuesday, Adele took Instagram to reflect on her “bespoke” gig in Munich, which launched Aug. 2.

“Wow! Wow! Wow! Munich you were incredible! What a phenomenal experience. I am truly touched by the genuine outpouring of love and good will I felt from every single person who came to every single show,” she wrote, captioning a highlight reel from the shows. She also thanked the fans who attended and her team for making it happen.

“There truly is no feeling like standing in front of people you’ve never met, belting out a bunch of songs that changed your life that in ways somehow changed theirs too. It’s truly remarkable and an extraordinary story to be able to tell. I’ve been sobbing watching this beautiful video! Danke Munchen!,” she wrote.

In July, the superstar told German broadcaster ZDF that her “tank is quite empty” and that she doesn’t have plans for new music “at all.”

“I want a big break after all this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while,” the hitmaker said. “You know, I don’t even sing at home at all. How strange is that?”

Likewise, before her Las Vegas residency began, the Oscar-winning “Skyfall” singer said she planned to take a break from music and perhaps pursue a degree in English literature or an acting career. However, during a January show, she said she might be open to touring again after completing a follow-up to her award-winning 2021 album “30.” But, as she told a fan in the audience, she wasn’t in any rush to do either of those things yet.

Instead of touring to promote “30,” she took up residence at the Colosseum. She was initially set to launch her residency in January 2022, but unexpectedly shut it down a day before it was meant to open. She blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with the supply chain at the time, then explained later that the postponement was because her “artistic needs” were not being met. She said the show had “no soul in it” and that it “lacked intimacy” inside the 4,000-person theater.

The “Easy on Me” singer ultimately launched “Weekends With Adele” in November 2022 and extended the run twice.

Earlier this month, the British balladeer confirmed during another Munich show that she and sports agent Rich Paul were engaged after repeatedly referring to Paul as her fiancé — and sometimes her “husband” — for months. (The two went public with their romance in 2021.) The singer, who shares 11-year-old son Angelo with ex-husband Simon Konecki, has also been vocal about wanting to expand their blended family.