The Pressure of Being Legendary in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis
Luhrmann’s obsession with the image of Elvis creates an issue of authenticity. He makes people love the icon without believing in the man.
Biopic
Sin (Il Peccato) – Holy Unhappiness
Sin is a portrait of an artist in pain, with god-defying amounts of melancholy. Lovers of classic art cinema will enjoy this more than he enjoyed himself.
Locating Realism in The Revenant
The Revenant is a powerful statement on cinematic realism affected but not marred by its real toil. It’s old cinema made epic again.
First Man: Cultural Breakthrough
With First Man, Damien Chazelle takes us to space and still thinks the most important things are the ones we left behind. The best film of 2018.
Rocco
In Rocco, thematic duplicity is even more apparent in the disjunction between the film and its subject, the international porn “giant,” Rocco Siffredi.