Nicolas cage

Thursday

Christopher Sandford

Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous book exposes the horrors of celebrity

The title of this book may offer a clue to its prevailing tone. There’s a certain amount of showbiz gossip involved, but it is essentially a protracted rumination of the “What’s it all about, Alfie?” variety, with plenty of unflinching discourse on matters such as spirituality, depression, addiction and the precariousness of the human condition. “I wondered how many times a heart can break,” the authors write near the end of their tale of untold material privilege and wrenching emotional grief. All too often, is the inescapable answer. The book is freighted with a certain amount of woe from the start, because its principal author, Elvis Presley’s only child, herself tragically died in January 2023, aged fifty-four, due to weight-loss surgery complications.

Lisa Marie

Monday

Alexander Larman

Elections are always better in the movies

As the midterm elections loom, there is the usual excitable commentary about what it all means. Every voter will have their own heroes and villains, the dashing white knight and the looming bogeyman. The complexities of the wider sociopolitical issues at hand will be subsumed to simple questions: will the results encourage Trump to run in 2024? Is this curtains for Kamala’s presidential ambitions? These are, of course, over-simplifications of difficult and nuanced issues. This is why the movies have inevitably dealt better with the drama (and farce) of fictitious — or at least fictionally disguised — election campaigns.

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

The return of the brilliant Nicolas Cage

Casting was recently announced for the film Renfield, an apparently humorous and contemporary take on the character of Count Dracula’s long-suffering assistant. The actor Nicholas Hoult, who has displayed fine comic timing in projects such as The Favorite and The Great, is to star as Renfield, and he will be joined by the hyphenate actress-rapper-comedian Awkwafina. Yet the most exciting news is that none other than Nicolas Cage will be playing Dracula. After a decade in which he has largely eschewed mainstream Hollywood, it's a career comeback that even the undead would be delighted by.