It's always been a pet peeve of mine that they use Dollar amounts to decide a movie's success. Why not use actual ticket sales? then you can compare movies through the years without trying to factor in inflation. You mention matinees , but even a movie's popularity in certain segments of the country can effect box office reciepts. A movie popular on the coasts where ticket prices are much higher than in flyover country, for example.
It takes two to tango, and Elvis kept signing the movie contracts because he liked having and spending money like water. While Elvis was a one-of-a-kind singer, I find the notion that he was ever going to be a “serious actor” difficult to swallow. Having a different manager wasn’t going to magically turn him into Paul Newman. I’d also argue that there’s an inherent bias among “serious” rock fans against “frivolous” musicals that radically undervalues the worth of films like Jailhouse Rock, Viva Las Vegas, or even Blue Hawaii, that do succeed on their own terms, even if they’re not Serious Movies with a Capital M like East of Eden or Lawrence of Arabia. Elvis was good at singing, dancing, and playing the lead in a light romantic comedy like Viva Las Vegas. Wishing that he could also magically be Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront or Laurence Olivier in Hamlet is not realistic, in my opinion. For me, one of the biggest howlers of the entire film was Elvis’s monologue in the limo on the tarmac about how “Ah’ve-uh never made a great movie that will last, Cilla! Ah could have been in A Star Is Born-uh!” Anyone who thinks the 1976 A Star Is Born is a good or serious movie, I just can’t take seriously. And I would say Elvis dodged a bullet by passing on the maudlin role of the washed-up rocker than went to Kris Kristofferson. But if only Colonel or a different manager could have gotten Elvis this role in this awful movie that would only have reinforced the narrative of himself as washed-up has been.
Maybe you saw a different movie than I did as Elvis/Austin didn’t say “Ah could have been in A Star Is Born-uh!”
Elvis actually told the filmakers of Elvis On Tour that he regretted making most of his movies so it's not all made up.
Sure enough that Doja Cat song is one of my daughter's favorite songs from the movie, besides the solo Elvis ones. My daughter's husband, who was never a big Elvis fan to begin with, wants to not only get the new movie on Blu-ray when it comes out, but they both want their own physical releases of That's The Way It Is and Aloha From Hawaii. I think this film is doing exactly what it was intended to do. Baz was extremely ambitious with this film, from both a financial standpoint and a creative one. I think he set out to not only please the true Elvis fans with his highly detailed and mostly very accurate character portrayals and background sceneries, but he also brought a modern dynamic musical vibe that young people could relate to and realize what a true innovator Elvis was in his time frame. Huge credit needs to go to 8 time grammy winning musician Dave Cobb for recreating a lot of those fantastic Elvis musical moments, something @MRamble has mentioned in one of his many fine posts on this amazing film.
I don't believe that for a second. It was a pure money grab from some fired employees/friends. I don't really blame them, with the way they were fired but it was all about the money. Why didn't they write the book earlier if they were so worried about Elvis? Even if they knew they'd be fired. If you're that worried about your friend's life you'd have done it before you were fired.
If he regretted making them, perhaps he should have taken more initiative to decline to make them, demand better scripts, or do whatever was necessary to fix the problems he had with them. But Mean Col. Parker forced him to make all these awful movies, I guess. If only Mean Col. Parker hadn’t been there to stymie his artistic ambitions, Elvis could have won the Dustin Hoffman role in the The Graduate, won an Oscar for that, and then he could have gone on his dream world tour of France, Germany, and Japan, which would have gone perfectly smoothly, and there never would have been any problems with boredom or drugs or overwork if only he was flying around the world to different countries on his dream world tour. As I just said, at least half of the movies he did make are more interesting and successful and, quite simply, entertaining, than the received opinion allows for, and, again, I found it amusing that the Montage of Bad Movies in this biopic began with a snippet of Elvis singing “A Little Less Conversation” from Live a Little, Love a Little, which, to my mind, is one of the more quirkily interesting moments of his career. While there is no rehabilitating the likes of Harum Scarum, I do think that the entire “Elvis died when he joined the Army/all of the Elvis movies suck/Elvis did nothing of merit between 1957 and the 68 Comeback” worldview that this film embraces is colossally misguided and wrong.
I've heard Elvis speak on recordings, movies, interviews etc. for I'd say close to 45 years now. I think Austin Butler pretty much nailed the nuances and accent of Presley's voice, and his delivery. At all ages of his career. You're way off the mark with your constant ridicule of his performance, IMO. Did a pretty damn good job of singing also.
You are absolutely correct. I saw it yesterday on the huge screen (Ultra Screen) and Atmos sound and it was a simply remarkable experience. Baz really utilized the potential for this type of wide screen presentation. As for the film. For years I've always said that "Coal Miner's Daughter" with Sissy Spacek was the gold standard for an accurate and perfect "biopic". That has now changed simply because "Elvis" is as good as we're ever going to get for an accurate film on a major music icon. A nearly perfect film. I could make a long list of stunning sequences in the film (I've been collecting Elvis since 1960) but my favorite is the outdoor concert he gave (after Parker said no wild stuff and after the Steve Allen show Hound dog fiasco) where Austin has the"real Elvis "speech to the crowd, wiggles his little finger, then tears into a remarkable performance of"Trouble" with some of the most incredible stage moves in the film. It's worth the price of admission just to view that performance. Amazingly, that performance was released as a special clip. Seeing again I want to see the film several more times ... Oh, by the way, it's the best film I've seen in at least 10 years.
I think that was a bit of revisionist history from Elvis there. While he no doubt got tired of them in the later years I think he liked the easy money they brought in
The truth of the matter is that the facts themselves regarding Elvis's estate successful litigation against Parker are now set in stone for history to see. No amount of historical revision will be able to change those facts, even if one were so inclined to do so. Parker was his own worst enemy with his own greed and paranoia running pretty rampant, as well as his gambling addiction. Nevertheless, I think Tom Hanks actually did bring some humanity to Parker's character at times, despite the dire facts of his legacy. There is that scene after Elvis blew up and fired Parker and I see some regret in both of their eyes. The relationship between Elvis and Parker was like an old married couple who were once really in love with each other, but things had fallen apart slowly, but dramatically. Two people growing further apart by the day.
I would like to see it at least two more times in the theater and of course I plan to buy the 4k release when it comes out eventually.
While I do believe them, even if you don’t (no argument there, no way to prove it either way definitively) the book in and of itself was a statement of three people who worked for him saying ‘get help’. Which is the question I was answering.
Quite right. The Presley family, who should know, were astonished at the accuracy of AB's portrayal of the man.
Can’t wait to see this in IMAX this friday. I saw it a couple of weeks ago in a good theatre and big screen, but I believe the IMAX experience will be a lot more. The first screening brought tears to my eyes multiple times. What a wonderful movie!
Going forward I think "Unchained Melody" is going to be considered "essential" on any Elvis compilation. The only question is Moody Blue version or posthumous single version?
Interestingly, I had just finished reading the book back in 1977. I felt they were sincere and really wanted to help. And then, the day after I had finished the book, Elvis died. It hit me like a ton of bricks. If only...
I look at it a bit differently and I agree with your general assumption that Elvis's movie career did have some decent moments and some great musical moments as well. His entire movie career should not be dismissed out of hand. I love the movie montage, but using a bit of your previous argument on biopics in general once again; If I want to see Elvis's movies I will watch them on DVD or Blu-ray and I own all of them. Recreating the movies just seem redundant and repetitive. It would be a movie in a movie, Lol, whereas when you create the live concert moments from his career, you can update the sound and production qualities a bit, plus, there is not a ton of 1950's footage available, and if it is there at all, its either with terrible sound or no sound at all.
