Unlike myself, who was seemingly entrapped in a helpless limbo of awkward exchanges with my friend, Makoto reverses time to void Chiaki’s romantic confession to Makoto, as Chiaki’s confessions end up lost in a web of alternate timelines.

I settled on James Cagney, who was playing Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces: The Lon Chaney Story. Lon Chaney was a famous actor and makeup artist on vaudeville and in silent films in the early 1900s. He was a CODA (long before the term CODA had been coined).

Vacations are exhausting. And what’s most exasperating about German writer/director Maren Ade’s Everyone Else (2009) is that there’s no escaping the claustrophobic world she’s created. The volatile coupling of Chris (Lars Eidinger) and Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), holed up together at Chris’ parents’ Sardinian villa, defies any expectations for a customary on-screen getaway.

Phantom of the Paradise rewired me. Electrified me. This movie is, in the words of Jessica Harper’s character Phoenix, “special to me.”

When I was growing up, White Jesus was everywhere, but I never thought of him as a real person. He was like Zeus or John Henry or Captain Kirk—iconic figures operating outside my daily life, moving in worlds so far away they were impossible.

Perhaps this is the anthem of Commando as a whole. Don’t think, don’t ask questions, just shut up, watch, and enjoy.

In fact, substance runs aplenty in Elvis cinema if you only know where to look. The films often challenge authority and prove downright fascinating in their portrayal of class dynamics, gender, and sexuality.