tobydale

Just read some of the low scoring reviews on here. Those reviews are jarring, grate and are just plain wrong. Baz Luhrmann doesn't make "standard-issue" movies - he makes stylish interpretive art-pieces, and "Elvis" is just that. I thought it was excellent.

The form of the story telling is pleasingly non-standard. It's told/narrated from the point of view of Elvis' manager Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks), who is very definitely a wheedling manipulative cynical bad guy on the make. Hanks is always first class, and his presence here is an unusual but powerful casting for him. He's excellent. The story is seen through his lens - an attempted valedictory. But like the man himself - it's empty, cynical and it fails. Nevertheless - an affecting and unusual route for a movie to take.

But even Hanks is upstaged by a superb Austin Butler as Elvis Aaron Presley. Oscar nominated for Best Actor and rightly so. He has the presence, vulnerability, innocence and raw power of the man himself. "Elvis" is worth watching just for this portrayal.

Elsewhere, we have typical Baz Luhrmann flair and dazzle. The movie looks great and is a tribute to Elvis' style and cultural impact. Numerous Oscar nominations. The film is also honest to Elvis' musical lineage in black gospel and rhythm & blues and it's really good for that balance.

The music and set pieces are brilliant.

"Elvis" comes off a 10/10 rating for me because the women's parts are few and the two that are there, his mother and Priscilla do not present that well. So, a little imbalance here.

Really good movies go beyond the story-telling and acting into making us look at ourselves and the human condition. "Elvis" is fundamentally a very sad and moving story of an inspirational genius with real gifts who gets manipulated and brought low by a bloodsucking scoundrel. The portrayal of Elvis Aaron Presley here shows us his vulnerability and tendency to trust. The film leaves us to decide whether Elvis would have been what he became IF the Colonel had not latched onto him.

A thought provoking watch and highly recommended.

I'm not a reviewer who fawns over particular directors or actors. I'll judge a film or performance on it's merits: the impression it leaves on me. So I'll say straight away that I wasn't especially impressed by Mirror.

Mirror is non-linear. That's the best description. Usually, I can deal with non-linear narrative. But Mirror leaves us floundering for context from the get-go. After 30 minutes I was getting frustrated. It was only once I let go of trying to figure out what was going on and let it wash over me, that I began to feel more comfortable.

Mirror is a mood piece: a collection of fragments as if from a broken mirror. Shards of memory collected together. Impressions.

The confusions that arise in the viewer are caused by several pieces near the beginning that appear to be familiar identifiable linear narrative elements. After that, we await confirmation, but they don't arrive because these pieces are just shards.

Overall, Mirror is a thoughtful and moody film, well photographed, reflecting impressions that will mean different things to different people.

I've given it 7/10 - which is my average mark for a steady, watchable film.

The irritations of this film begin almost immediately, when we are not given a lead in to either the time or place of the start of the film. It took me - with some level of historical background knowledge, about 15 minutes to work out that this is Munich in 1919. From there, further scene setting might have helped, but "Max" does not give us that. Instead, the film launches into a completely fictional relationship between fictional art dealer Max Rothman (Cusack) and wannabe painter Adolf Hitler (Taylor), here aged 30.

This movie tries to explore a range of themes, chiefly "what ifs", as Rothman attempts to have Hitler elevate his art beyond mundane flat draughtsmanship. The relationship between the characters, such as it is, revolves around that.

The central problem with this film are the significant conceits: There is no Rothman, and there was no such relationship. And in fact, Hitler dabbled in painting before the war in Vienna, not afterwards.

The "negative" power of the piece rests on the fact that most people know what Hitler ultimately became. "Max" trades on this knowledge we have as we sit watching, but it's not in the film. That absence is cynically and grotesquely alluded to in the sequence running into the conclusion. Here, there is a deeply offensive overlay. No spoilers.

The female characters are totally superfluous and do nothing in the story.

Neither did I like the use of surrealist/expressionist paintings that, in fact, were painted much later. A theme which the film tries to set up and explain, is a connection between art & politics. Here, I'm afraid, it completely fails!

Why an average "7/10" from this reviewer then? Well - Cusack is very good, as usual, and Noah Taylor is also good as the ignorant and dismissive Hitler. There is a believable cloying edge to Taylor's Hitler, who in real-life had an arrogance and entitlement based on nothing; an uneducated man detached from reality at an early age. The film looks pretty good. These redeeming elements bring "Max" up from a much lower rating.

A better film could have been made using historically correct figures. Hitler's life has been deeply researched for decades by people trying to understand how and why he turned out the way he did. There is no shortage of material. "Max" doesn't do that, and as a result it's ultimately superficial.