It was so surreal being at the 21 table and having The Gambler as our dealer. Kenny has a great sense of humor too. One of the most down to earth entertainers I have ever been around. He acts just the same way in private as he does in public. So does Carrie Underwood when I meet her a couple of times.
Baz Luhrmann is an incredibly talented but equally divisive director, and there are some folks who will never like his style of filmmaking. He's the closest thing we have to a mixture of Busby Berkeley and David Lean (although that isn't perfectly accurate.) My point is, he doesn't make quiet, interior focused personal dramas - he would not be a good choice to remake Redford's Ordinary People. He makes spectacle, and some film critics just don't like spectacle. Vickie and I used to love watching Siskel and Ebert's various TV shows, and remember that Siskel did not call himself a film critic. He proudly stated that he was a movie reviewer. A film critic will tell you whether or not a particular film is art, while a movie reviewer will tell you whether or not it's any damn good.
A great point Gene Siskel makes in your point above. I have been waiting for a critical review from someone I actually respect or at least know their reputation is decent. Gene Siskel's replacement for his show with Roger Ebert; At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper, Roger Roeper, just posted his review on the new Elvis biopic and it is stupendous. I also notice that he hates the new Jurassic World Dominion movie, despite it being a huge box office hit, so he's definitely not afraid about going against the public's opinion on a film. Here is the link to his stellar review, along with one of his quotes from the review. Still, the film’s fate rests on the shoulders of Austin Butler, who flashed serious movie-star potential as the evil fool Tex Watson in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and is mesmerizingly strong here. Butler doesn’t do an Elvis impersonation, but he does a stunningly good job of capturing the hip-swiveling, pink-suited Elvis who makes girls swoon and scream in a comedically effective early sequence; the ’60s Elvis who starred in a series of forgettable and dopey movies; the brilliant performer who made one of the most memorable pop-star comebacks of all time in a 1968 TV special, and the lost and borderline self-parodying Karate King who sweated and toiled on the Vegas stage and only occasionally touched greatness. Butler is an electric performer who shines in the spotlight when Elvis is onstage, but he also infuses Presley with an empathetic humanity and vulnerability. We know the man was hardly a saint, but we understand his sins. 'Elvis' review: Movie by Baz Luhrmann brilliantly floods our ... https://chicago.suntimes.com › movies-and-tv › elvis-re...
Thank you for sharing that. I miss Siskel and Ebert, mostly for their reviews, but also because I knew their tastes well enough that if they disliked something I would be able to tell whether or not I would like it nevertheless. For instance, Ebert gave Raising Arizona 1 and 1/2 stars, but long before I saw his review, I knew that he was untrustworthy on comedy, that are tastes in humor didn't match. I'm getting there with the critics on KCCP's Filmweek. I'm figuring you have to have read or heard at least 100 different reviews to know whether or not you can rely on someone's taste, and comedy is the hardest one of all. One other element is that critics often see films in circumstances that have nothing to do with the average filmgoers experience - we'll see it in a crowded theater, well they'll see it in a screening room, in a sparsely populated theater with only other critics or on home video. So if we are talking about a film spectacle, the critic may have had an entirely different experience. One critic I don't miss it all was The Readers Jonathan Rosenbaum. The first half of any of his reviews was a lecture on film history, and you could get to the end of the piece and still not know whether or not he liked it.
Apparently Baz has a 4hr cut of the Elvis film in the can, but had to edit it down for the theater. I hope we will eventually get that extended version on a director's cut Blu-ray release when that eventually comes to fruition. Baz Luhrmann Says 'Elvis' 4-Hour Cut Exists: 'There's So Much More' - Variety
Or it could get the "Zack Snyder's Justice League" treatment (but unlike that reworking, this would be from the same director as the theatrical): A four hour TV series event, broken up either in half or in quarters. Elvis And Me was a two-part miniseries a few decades ago, and this sort of thing could work for the Elvis-by-way-of-Baz story. Justice League and this flick were (are?) both WB productions that ended up expanded on HBO Max so it's not like there's not precedent.
I just watched that, thank you so much for sharing it. As a 61-year-old white guy, I don't have his experience, but he definitely conveyed why he would feel conflicted about Elvis, and I was impressed by the intellectual honesty to admit that he had to rethink everything he'd been taught. A good friend of mine is Blues musician, and I suspect that he has the same "cultural appropriation" view of Elvis. I can hardly wait till I've seen the film, and I can let him know if the film makes its case well.
"We know the man was hardly a saint, but we understand his sins." Bravo! If that's all the film achieves (to humanise), then it's more than done its job. The rest is icing on the cake. My ex is keeping me busy with threats to take me to court, so this film could not come at a better time for me!! A very welcome distraction.
Saw the theatrical trailer last week...looked a lame piece of **** right out of the gate. The casting and period detail looked WAY off (and '80s retro' in the 50s shots for some strange reason). Prince didn't wear that much eye makeup in Purple Rain! I wonder who is playing Cliff Gleaves? (lol) p.s I get it now...I didn't notice who the Director was (double lol).
Betcha all the original songwriters/copyright holders for those R&B songs that Elvis and Pat Boone covered on RCA and Dot Records got paid their royalties. No way to turn back the hands of time to help artists like poor Willie Littlefield who got fleeced by music industry sharks (but not by those legit recording artists).
Other people have watched it, and concluded that the instruments and the sound equipment looked correct. The trailer is available online, so please feel free to tell us where we're wrong.
Former Megadeth lead guitarist Marty Friedman is apparently a huge Elvis fan. He recently went on a whole rant about how great he thinks the Elvis movie is on a blog. Here is a couple of excerpts from his post below. "There have been many Elvis biopics and I enjoyed them all a lot. But nothing could have prepared me for this one, and how it utterly destroyed every one I had ever seen before. Don't get me wrong, the others were very well done and top class productions all the way. But this one is in such a different world that it obliterated its predecessors so violently, it's made me envision a stadium class band showing up at a high school battle of the bands contest to the shock of all witnessing it. "My expectations were high because I heard Lisa Marie give it big praise and Tom Hanks has a solid record of being associated with hits. Still how many times do I need to see the same story I have seen countless times already? The filmmakers managed to tell the story we all know and love with so much fresh creativity, wonderful modern sense and from such a fresh angle that even a jaded Elvis maniac like myself felt like I was seeing everything for the very first time. MARTY FRIEDMAN, Self-Proclaimed ELVIS PRESLEY ...
Another stellar review from critic Jon Gallo below. I like this quote from the reviewer as well: Austin Butler is fantastic as “Elvis,” from the way he looks to the way he talks, and from the way he performs on and off stage. He’s better than Malek and Jamie Foxx, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Ray Charles in 2004’s “Ray.” Crow River Media MOVIE REVIEW: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks give King-sized performances in 'Elvis'
This is easily my favorite video review by a true Elvis fan. Ashley is an extremely well informed young lady who really knows her Elvis. Apparently, she is also well connected enough to some Elvis insiders that she actually got invited to one of the premiere showings at The Guesthouse at Graceland last week. You can also scan the video where she talks about that event. She actually sat just a couple of rows away from Priscilla, Lisa Marie and Riley. She also talked to Jack Soden, who is the man in charge of Graceland and is CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises. Ashley is simply a delight; Beautiful, well informed and highly articulate. This video does include some spoilers as she warns in the title, but to me personally, nothing that consequential was revealed. She starts to talk about the ending of the movie, but she stops herself and really only tells you what is not in the ending of the film, Lol. I am glad to know what's not there, but if you don't what to know what might not be there, avoid the last part of the video. She mentions her favorite characters are played by Austin and Tom Hanks, but she really also loves the lady playing Gladys, Elvis's mother. Enjoy at your own risk of hearing some spoilers, Lol, not much at all really. It is so cool to see someone so relatively young and so knowledgeable about Elvis and his career.
Great review. That dreamlike quality Ashley describes is typical Baz! I will never forget the experience of seeing the opening sequence to his Romeo and Juliet in the cinema 25 years ago - like nothing I'd ever seen before - and still very powerful!
In regard to Elvis and 'cultural appropriation', I like this part of the liner notes to the CD "Elvis Presley-Elvis Country": 'Elvis, who some major-label types initially feared was just a hillbilly novelty act, routinely climbed all three of the Billboard singles charts, simultaneously scoring hits in pop, country, and R&B. His forays into gospel earned him three Grammy Awards (as well as a posthumous into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame). This versatility illustrates how much Elvis absorbed and retained of the music that surrounded him growing up in Mississippi and Tennessee.' That excerpt from the liner notes say what a lot of have been saying in this thread, that he didn't appropriate anything, he was surrounded by it his entire life, so he absorbed it.
If Baz accomplishes absolutely nothing else with this film, he will lay to rest the idea that Elvis Presley was some sort of carpetbagger middle class white boy who looked at music being created by Black artists and said "I've got to do that!"
The "Elvis as a calculating cultural appropriator" narrative is one of the dumbest and most dishonest music-related myths of the 20th Century. Any literate human can easily find out that there is no evidence supporting it. It really only came into vogue in the 1990s as internet B.S. became 'fact' to the gullible.
It goes back lot further than that. Watch this video that @RSteven posted earlier by a Black movie reviewer who appears to be in his early 30s, talking about how he was raised to believe that Elvis had spent his career ripping off Black people. This is something that he'd been told when he was a child. Granted, it might have been one of those things that was common cultural knowledge in Black families that didn't become generally known until much later (like how I, as a 61-year-old man raised in Kansas City, was unaware of the Tulsa Massacre until episode 4 of the HBO show Watchmen - when I could easily have met a survivor - and probably have.)
It’s with great anticipation (as well as a helping of being cautiously optimistic) that I’ll be seeing the film in 9 hours. I’ll of course post my thoughts and will keep it spoiler-free but I was thinking, for those of us in this thread are there really any spoilers to be had? We all know the story like the back of our hand
I know my expectations are a really high now and I obviously have shown that glowing anticipation in my posts, but that is based mostly on Austin's Butler's dedication to his role as Elvis and his natural charisma and personality match with Elvis's. I still reserve the right to be critical of the film, if it warrants it, Lol. I also have been impressed with all three of the Presley generations endorsement of the film and Baz's research and enthusiasm for the project. I also like the way Baz has chosen to emphasize the three great periods of Elvis's career; Early 50's, Comeback Special and late 60's recordings, and early Las Vegas residency. Some people may be unhappy that Baz has chosen to skip over Elvis's movie career in a blur, but if you want to see Elvis's movies, and I do enjoy many of them, I suggest you watch those at your own leisure, Lol. A big question for me is Tom Hanks as Parker. It is not his hybrid dutch accent that I might have an issue with, but is it a historically accurate, though dramatized version of Parker that I can buy? I also have no major issue with Parker being portrayed as a villain in this story as long as it is not totally a one sided and historically completely inaccurate version of the infamous manager. I think I am going to like Tom Hank's slightly over the top version of Parker, but I could be wrong. The clips look great between Hank's Colonel Tom Parker and Austin's version of Elvis.
True, but we didn’t know the story up to that point with the characters. With Elvis we do (born in poverty, signed by Sun, went to RCA, made a bunch of movies, had the comeback, toured, Aloha, toured, drugs and well, Aug. 16 1977). But this is in regards to potential spoilers, not ticket sales
