Elvis XXX (3 Stars)

I've been writing this blog for over a year. 353 posts, of which at least 330 were about films. I allowed myself a few posts that were either about television series or totally off topic. Anyway, check out the list of my 10 most popular posts, the ones that most people read. It's updated daily, but if you look at it today you'll notice something interesting. Six out of the top ten most read posts are about films directed by Axel Braun. Maybe my blog isn't a very representative sample, because I haven't reviewed any films by Steven Spielberg, yet, but it still points to the fact that Mr. Braun is one of the most popular directors alive today. People want to read about his films and find out more about them.

Maybe my blog has been singled out by Internet users because I review his films seriously. Pornographic films have a bad reputation among "serious" film critics. It's all about in-out-bang-bang with poor actors and no plot, they say. I would point them at Axel's films. Like his father before him, the legendary porn pioneer Lasse Braun, Axel Braun lifts pornography up to the level of fine art without ceasing to be pornographic. I'm not saying that his films are perfect. I could fault them for his habit of filming on a small budget, even when a film like "Spider-Man XXX" could have profited from a bigger budget. I've read that his Star Wars parodies, as yet unreleased, have been made with his biggest budgets to date. I can hardly wait to see them.

Having said all of that, I'm sorry to say that "Elvis XXX" is one of his weaker films. Made in documentary style, it would have been better if it had included more songs. The scenes with Jimmy Dean and Muhammad Ali seem out of place, just pushed in so that not every sex scene would involve Elvis himself. Still, Axel manages to capture the tragedy of his later life, such as the scene where Elvis is riding round Las Vegas searching for Marilyn Monroe, refusing to believe that she's been dead for 15 years.