Reviews

Sad but true, the connotation of Elvis Presley has always been defined by clichés since his demise 45 years ago. The best-selling singer and the pop icon Elvis changed the pop music direction but ended up with drug addiction and eating disorder! This is what we have been told. The spirit of the recent Baz Luhrmann movie states well the very political, social, and cultural motives that led to the emotional fall of Elvis. At a time when segregation was part of the official system Elvis refused to follow the ordinary path. His unique style blended black tunes, gospels, blues along with rock and roll. Elvis Presley's musicality embraced everyone and his spirit rejected racial discrimination, the very reason which made him a world-wide popular icon. This attitude was seen as an imminent threat by the system. Fascism unleashed itself in every form against him. He faced imminent hostility, political and social, from his dancing style to his musicality which was said to be "insulting" toward white culture. Luhrmann's Elvis is already on its way to becoming a modern classic, and it will definitely be featured at the Oscars. Austin Butler's performance as Elvis --both acting and singing- is out-of-this-world. Tom Hanks as manager-evil Colonel Tom Parker is also outstanding.

The Oscars began in the glory of the good old days, but ended as one of the worst in 94 years. Will Smith, who won the best actor for the movie King Richard, walked to the stage and slapped the presenter, casting a thick shadow over the magic of the ceremony. In addition, there were a number of cinematic inconsistencies in the award distribution. While The Power of The Dog, one of the best films of the year, won the "best director" award, the film itself has been completely ignored. Consisting of the initials of the words for children with deaf parents, CODA was chosen as the "best movie" which is an exact adaptation of French original La Famille Belier of 2014. I find the French original much more successful and, unlike the adaptation, it renders more sincerity without running on clichés.

Judgement on any given movie is certainly subjective, thus all 10 films in the nomination list are worthy of the award. For me, any movie capable of artistically creating its own world and conquers the mind and heart deserves a higher note of appreciation. Story-telling is paramount when the characters are framed with narrative depth to encourage more than one reading.

Except for Haruki Murakami adaptation of the Japanese movie Drive My Car (nominated for the best international feature and won), two of this year's nominations were perfect examples of cinema, in my opinion: The Power of the Dog and Licorice Pizza.

Licorice Pizza is truly an original film, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, completely wasted at the Oscars this year.

The Power of the Dog is adaptation of a novel by Thomas Savage, tells the steppe life and country codes of America in 1925 in a multi-layered story. Bringing the novel to the screen with perfect vision, Jane Campion brought up the concept of "toxic masculinity," which perfectly fits to express the spirit of the film. Phil, beautifully played by Benedict Cumberbatch, tortures himself with inner agony for the sake of pursuing societal norms on masculinity. He reflects this struggle in the most toxic ways in his relationship with others including his own brother. The Power of the Dog is a perfect drama of people wasting their lives through the imposed perceptions of brute force and soullessness.

While Phil does his best to torment his brother, wife and her son; his redemption and death paradoxically come at the time when he unleashes his suppressed emotions. This movie requires to be seen through the eyes of four main characters, Phil, George, Peter and Rose. Director Jane Campion already points this way by dividing the story-flow into chapters.

If Phil had not denied himself under the pressure of the toxic codes, his life and close relations would have grown completely different. Peter seemed to offer him this opportunity, however, the unspoken laws of brutal masculinity laws came to the fore, turning one into a murderer and the other into a victim.

While the toxic masculinity were fictionalized like this on the big screen, this year's Oscar ceremony demonstrated another form of it live. Under the disguise of family values, Will Smith literally slapped the presenter. His action showed that brute force knows no time and place, and that treating women as second class by underlying the perception of "women need to be protected" has its place even today and even in Hollywood. Will Smith later issued an apology to Chris Rock but the damage in many forms is done irrevocably.

Artistic elite is driven by hypocrisy and greed, explains Don Gilroy's latest film Velvet Buzzsaw, shedding a satirical light upon the world of art gallery. This ambitious film is a power house -- also in terms of character studies; Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in Morf Vandewalt, a renowned yet snippy art critic as he delivers many memorable lines of a well-written script. Gallery owner Rene Russo and Toni Collette are also great. I immensely enjoyed the first half of the movie up until the director's effort to combine its material with horror tricks. The idea of cursed paintings of a late psychopath worked fine in the beginning because the artistic material very much reminded me of Francis Bacon paintings. However, the "revenge" or haunting of these paintings toward the end turned pointless with the B-type slasher cinematography.