Elvis

2022 - 9 - 2

Elvis film Elvis film

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Image courtesy of "Vulture"

How Not to Make a Villain (Vulture)

Tom Hanks has never gone bad the way he does in Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis.' He's also never delivered such a broad, silly performance.

What a shock and thrill it would be to see Hanks truly get in touch with his without the crutch of quotation marks or fat suits. The best that can be said for his performance in Elvis is that it’s in keeping with the big-top theatricality of the material — and with the conception of Parker as an ersatz cowboy, a fraud entrepreneur for the ages. To truly subvert it, he’d need to go full Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West, draining his heroic persona of all mercy and compassion. To that end, the past Hanks performance this new one most resembles is his over-the-top turn as a Southern dandy crook in the Coen brothers’ widely reviled remake of The Ladykillers. Is Hanks now so synonymous with virtue and integrity in the public eye that he has to be wholly caricatured — to be turned into a living cartoon — to convince as a scoundrel? In a sense, it’s the opposite tactic of the one It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood employs. There, director Marielle Heller did little to disguise the star because the idea of Hanks as Hollywood’s premier backbone of essential goodness is basically identical to the film’s conception of Mr. And when he’s cast as a real person, it’s usually for the way his own comforting qualities as an icon can evoke someone else’s, even serving as a proxy for — in the most pertinent example — the comparable wholesomeness of Fred Rogers. There’s a germ of a canny idea in putting Hanks in such a dastardly new context, in securing him to play such an unscrupulous man. What that ridiculous, Professor Klumpian getup suggests is that Luhrmann (or at least his financiers) refused to believe that audiences would accept Hanks as a bad guy without the visual aid of a total physical transformation. That the movie is narrated by Parker should, in theory, put uninformed viewers in the same position as the budding rock star — which is to say, invite them to mistake a music-biz Lucifer for an eccentric fairy godfather. To play Colonel Tom Parker, the infamously exploitative manager of Elvis Presley, Hanks dons mounds of prosthetic enhancements: a fake nose here, baggy glue-on jowls there, padding that lends him roughly the same bulbous shape as Jim Broadbent in Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.

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Image courtesy of "Comicbook.com"

Elvis Now Streaming on HBO Max (Comicbook.com)

Elvis is finally streaming on HBO Max as fans pour into the service to see Baz Luhrmann's interesting biopic. Warner Bros. Discovery announced the news on ...

"The story delves into the complex dynamic between Presley and Parker spanning over 20 years, from Presley's rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and loss of innocence in America. It's really about, for me, America in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s," Luhrmann shared. "And if you want to talk about America in the 50s and 60s and the 70s at the center of culture, for the good, the bad, and the ugly, is a figure [like] Elvis Presley." In the earlier moments of the summer, Elvis [managed to hold off](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/elvis-beats-top-gun-maverick-top-spot-at-weekend-box-office/) Top Gun: Maverick for top spot at the box office during its debut. The reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes praise Butler's performance and with this director, you can [expect some beautifully composed shots](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/hugh-jackman-reviews-elvis/). [Elvis](/category/elvis-noncomicmovie/) [is finally streaming](https://comicbook.com/movies/news/elvis-streaming-premiere-date-hbo-max/) on [HBO Max](/category/hbo-max/) as fans pour into the service to see Baz Luhrmann's interesting biopic.

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Image courtesy of "CNET"

'Elvis' Review: Over-the-top Biopic Is Streaming Now on HBO Max (CNET)

Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, in a pink suit holding a guitar. Austin Butler's Elvis Presley is better than any impersonator I've seen. Warner Bros.

At times it does feel like an excuse to showcase all the iconic Elvis costumes and songs, which is understandable -- it's largely why audiences will show up -- but there's so much of Elvis' story missed out in favor of a more prismatic collage. While the prosthetics do most of the heavy lifting, an inconsistent accent and caricature presence make it hard to suspend disbelief that we're looking at anyone other than Tom Hanks in a fake nose. But if you can get past the dizziness and distraction of Luhrmann's more outlandish choices, there really is a lot to love about the film.

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Image courtesy of "Vulture"

Baz Luhrmann's Tortured Artists (Vulture)

Roxana Hadadi is a TV critic who also writes about film and pop culture, with the closed captions on and motion smoothing off. Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros.

And the kiss-off Elvis is never able to give Parker is just as important to this redemptive effort as the kisses he’s forced to provide. As Presley punches his fist in the air to their tempo, it’s a rare moment in Elvis when he’s actually in control — and Luhrmann is swift in undercutting it with a reminder that this triumph will not last. Elvis doesn’t go all the way into that period of Presley’s life; it’s too enamored with its subject to consider the man’s mistakes and missteps or make space for the individual agency that caused them. That scene cuts back and forth between Satine and the Duke in a bedroom, Christian singing “Come What May,” and other Moulin Rouge performers singing and dancing a tango version of the Police’s “Roxanne” with a hard, sexualized edge. After Presley puts on that fantastic first show at the International — one in which both he and the performers he assembled are doing the absolute most and best — it’s not Priscilla who comes out to stand by his side. Elvis, meanwhile, stays in one location, the theater of the International Hotel, and one song soundtracks the sequence: Presley’s “That’s All Right.” Luhrmann divides his attention between Presley, who is unleashing that gigantic voice and strutting around; his wife, Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), proudly watching him from the audience; and Parker, seated with the owners of the International and signing Presley, without his knowledge, to a five-year exclusivity contract with the hotel as a means of covering the Colonel’s gambling debts. Army stint, the dozens of films in which he starred, co-starred, or cameoed — Parker engineers it all, and it’s a thrill when Elvis finally allows the singer to strike back by advocating for his own music and his own preferences. The scene that follows in Elvis plays like a remix of another late-film confrontation Luhrmann staged: “El Tango de Roxanne,” from Moulin Rouge!, in which Kidman’s Satine is basically sold to the tempestuous Duke (Richard Roxburgh) for a night, and her lover, Christian (Ewan McGregor), stews in a mixture of anger and grief, knowing what she is being forced to do. and Elvis make a complementary pair; they argue that the greatest danger to an artist and their art is the loss of bodily autonomy and the sacrifice of self. Here, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) is the sole culprit behind Elvis’s financial instability, drug addiction, fracturing family, and increasing irrelevance in the 1970s, and the film’s boundaries around Parker as a villain and Elvis as a hero are rigid and unmovable. Butler adds an edge of sly cunning and a raw vulnerability as Presley refuses Parker’s demands to don a bright-red cardigan to sing “Here Comes Santa Claus,” instead performing the Martin Luther King Jr.–inspired “If I Can Dream” in a creamy-white suit. [Glitter](https://www.vulture.com/2021/09/the-never-ending-story-of-glitter-20-years-on.html) to [The Runaways](https://www.vulture.com/2010/01/kristin_stewart_runaways_sunda.html) have positioned this as a particularly female problem, locking women into a restricted identity and spiraling them into despair.

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Image courtesy of "Polygon"

Elvis, Jurassic World Dominion, and every new movie you can watch ... (Polygon)

This week's slate of new movies to watch at home is led by Elvis, the audaciously over-the-top Elvis Presley biopic by none other than Baz Luhrmann.

Brown (Hotel Artemis) as Trinitie and Lee-Curtis Childs, the first lady and pastor of a Southern Baptist megachurch. This is an all-purpose spoof, with specific nods to older, American, mostly unrelated films like Schoenbrun suggests that within that range of collective expression, people can decide who and what they want to be. As she begins to notice inexplicable and sinister changes within herself, Casey is forced to confront the possibility of whether all of this is in her head. Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 musical biopic chronicles the life of American music icon Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) from his childhood singing in a small church choir to his stadium-packing performance as a rock legend. While you’re in the mood for that, why not consider

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Image courtesy of "Screen Rant"

10 Unpopular Opinions About The Elvis Movie, According To Reddit (Screen Rant)

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis has been a huge hit with most audiences, but some fans have taken to Reddit to voice their unpopular opinion about the biopic.

[More_Acanthisitta_73](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vjuunq/comment/ifedh6d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) thinks it was too long and "poorly orchestrated. [Huntday4](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/wsoq9k/elvis_movie_is_just_too_weird/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) was made very "uncomfortable" by the behavior of the young women from the very first performance scene. [Paultheschmoop](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/vjd54g/comment/idv19h0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) "could’ve done without the 2 or 3 random Elvis remixes with rap verses that completely took me out of the movie." [ soundtrack features a lot of Elvis songs](https://screenrant.com/elvis-movie-best-songs-ranked/), but it also showcases new talent with original songs as well as remixes and collaborations with The King's material. Elvis was as fallible as any one of his fans, and by no means a perfect person. While there can be no doubt Hanks prepared for his role with all the diligence of previous performances, he didn't completely disappear into the role and was seen as more of a distraction than anything else. Most fans feel that with his heavy makeup and prosthetics, as well as his accent of dubious Eastern European origin, Tom Hanks was the weakest part of Elvis. [Typical_Ranger_1684](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/w0tm3w/the_elvis_film_is_awful/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) thinks that aside from being "inaccurate it tries to present Elvis as someone that did stuff about social issues like civil rights when he never did which is just disrespectful." [Darkobscurities](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/w0tm3w/comment/ilj739b/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) thought the movie "took inaccuracy and creative liberties to an extreme. [things about Elvis's life the movie didn't show](https://screenrant.com/things-about-elvis-presleys-life-movie-not-shown-baz-luhrmann/), such as his meeting with President Nixon, would have pulled attention away from more important aspects that serviced the plot. Also, it should be noted that [many details of Elvis's life](https://screenrant.com/elvis-details-hardcore-fans-noticed/) were well-researched, and even if the movie's aesthetic wasn't universally liked, Austin Butler's powerful central performance across three decades can also be attributed for the movie's overall higher score. Audiences have praised the musical biopic for its depiction of Elvis Presley's fame, from his early Memphis days on Beale Street to his troubled residency in Las Vegas, anchored by an intense and authentic performance by Austin Butler and a hypnotic attention to detail.

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Image courtesy of "Variety"

Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe Make for Dream Team at Orange ... (Variety)

Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe have been touring together and, at an Anaheim stop, took the occasion to offer several duets.

With the latest album, he has two songs that are the kind of rave-ups he hasn’t written in decades — “Magnificent Hurt” and “Farewell OK” — which seem more likely to endure in his sets in years to come than some of his other, less live-friendly 21st century material has. Costello did his extra bit to make it a more Lowe-centric night than normal by opening his part of the show with his never-recorded, 120-mph reading of the other singer’s “Heart of the City,” as he occasionally has in the past, if never previously on this tour. It served as a turquoise mood-setter for “Almost Blue,” a somber classic that hasn’t gotten much airing lately amid his mostly frenetic shows with the Imposters, but which maybe needed exactly that setup for a RBI. Of all the songs from that thwarted show Costello has introduced in his sets over the years, this may be the one that best stands alone without any need of a we-join-this-story-in-progress stage intro. Anyway, theirs remains a pairing that keeps on working over the years, as Lowe has a world-class pickup band at the ready when he needs one, and one that can veer between his power-pop and country-rock sides with no sign of stretching. On that last ballad, the guest singer offered far different phrasing than Costello’s traditional reading, taking out the faint sense of vituperation and, in his gentler tones, sounding as if he fully emphasized with why the heroine put up with having her hands shmushed into a cake.

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Image courtesy of "Tom's Guide"

Elvis is my favorite movie of the year — and it's now available on ... (Tom's Guide)

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis is an outstanding biopic of singer Elvis Presley. Here's why you should catch it now that it's on HBO Max.

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Image courtesy of "PINKVILLA"

HBO MAX: Why watch 'Elvis': The New Elvis Presley Biopic starring ... (PINKVILLA)

Thinking about what to binge? Here's why you should watch Elvis Presley's Ultimate biopic by Baz Luhrmann on HBO Max. Fans call it a musical extravaganza ...

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Image courtesy of "AnalogPlanet.com"

AnalogPlanet (AnalogPlanet.com)

Called The Juliet Letters, Elvis' song cycle imagined and brought these letters to life, as backed by a highly talented string quartet known as The Brodsky ...

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Image courtesy of "Winona Daily News"

Elvis Explosion celebrates 25 years in La Crosse (Winona Daily News)

According to promoter and host Ronny Craig, the purse has grown from $1000 to $25,000 and the event has launched the careers for many Elvis Tribute artists. The ...

They will also make brief appearances during the competition on Friday, Sept. The competition is by invitation only with up to 40 performers. Not competing but headlining the Saturday, Sept.

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