Iām not terribly surprised to hear this turned out as one might expect. I was really hoping Luhrmann could really pull a rabbit out of his hat on this one though.
Me not big fan of Luhrmann, and me not think his maximalist style good fit for someone who may have had flashy sequinned Vegas phase, but was at heart country boy who sang simple songs very, very well. But me not sure what anyone could have done with this story beyond paint-by-numbers "Elvis has to think about whole life before he go on stage!"
And while me have to make obligatory reference, me would also be willing to bet box of Samoas that Jack White's gonzo cameo in Walk Hard more entertaining and captures spirit of Elvis better than this movie will.
Has there been a genuinely good musical biopic in the last 20 years? I feel like Walk Hard really took the air out of every biopic convention, so that the only ones that stand out are very unconventional, like I'm Not There
No argument, Tom Hanks jowls and another one of his just-short-of-ham performances are really distracting and there is nothing new here. But it felt to me that the music, surely the important thing here, was given due respect. Some of the split screen pizazz really zinged. And it looked pretty good given it was made during lockdown on the Queensland Hold Coast. A packed house at the Sydney Film Festival didnāt hurt.
Way late to the party on this but for posterity's sake, I would say the interesting element Luhrmann adds here is to heighten the ghoulishness of Tom Parker in order to elevate the innocence & goodness of Elvis, both by contrast and by elision (for instance, the film credits Parker's cynicism with how well Elvis could sell black music to white audiences, but surely the real life Elvis was canny about that as well). The cinematic Parker is used to leech away all of Elvis' worst qualities, just as the real-life Parker profited off his best qualities.
This is supported by Hanks' gloriously vanity-free performance, where he comes across as a barely human gargoyle; the real Parker looked & talked like a basically normal guy.
Iām not terribly surprised to hear this turned out as one might expect. I was really hoping Luhrmann could really pull a rabbit out of his hat on this one though.
Me not big fan of Luhrmann, and me not think his maximalist style good fit for someone who may have had flashy sequinned Vegas phase, but was at heart country boy who sang simple songs very, very well. But me not sure what anyone could have done with this story beyond paint-by-numbers "Elvis has to think about whole life before he go on stage!"
And while me have to make obligatory reference, me would also be willing to bet box of Samoas that Jack White's gonzo cameo in Walk Hard more entertaining and captures spirit of Elvis better than this movie will.
Has there been a genuinely good musical biopic in the last 20 years? I feel like Walk Hard really took the air out of every biopic convention, so that the only ones that stand out are very unconventional, like I'm Not There
No Elvis will ever live up to Bruce Campbell in Bubba Ho-Tep
No argument, Tom Hanks jowls and another one of his just-short-of-ham performances are really distracting and there is nothing new here. But it felt to me that the music, surely the important thing here, was given due respect. Some of the split screen pizazz really zinged. And it looked pretty good given it was made during lockdown on the Queensland Hold Coast. A packed house at the Sydney Film Festival didnāt hurt.
Way late to the party on this but for posterity's sake, I would say the interesting element Luhrmann adds here is to heighten the ghoulishness of Tom Parker in order to elevate the innocence & goodness of Elvis, both by contrast and by elision (for instance, the film credits Parker's cynicism with how well Elvis could sell black music to white audiences, but surely the real life Elvis was canny about that as well). The cinematic Parker is used to leech away all of Elvis' worst qualities, just as the real-life Parker profited off his best qualities.
This is supported by Hanks' gloriously vanity-free performance, where he comes across as a barely human gargoyle; the real Parker looked & talked like a basically normal guy.