Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis

There's some new angle to Elvis's story that hasn't been told?

Young people don’t really know who he is so this will reintroduce him to that audience.

Had no idea how big Austin Butler is

He towers over Tobey Maguire and Leo

Movie completely undone by Tom Hanks’s bizarre Dutch accent

Potential camp classic

Does Elvis have big streaming numbers, a la Queen?

I just don't understand or enjoy a Baz Luhrmann production. They're all just like a shiny sparkling carnival wagon but without the restraint or class. lol.

Tom Hanks will get an Oscar nomination for sheer chutzpah but this movie will be classic Luhrmann suburban trash.

I'm just not feeling it, from the trailer.

The most interesting part of the trailer is Elvis' music. The rest...meh.

It doesn't look like it'll be all that great. It looks nice, but without any charm. Tom Hanks performance doesn't look great either.

Is there a reason they couldn't have found an actor that at least resembles Elvis? Even though AB, is handsome.

Austin shirtless with his natural blond hair.

[quote]I just don't understand or enjoy a Baz Luhrmann production.

This is NOT a MacIntosh production.

I love Elvis, so I'll see this, but the actor isn't doing it for me. JRM gets a lot of grief on DL, but his miniseries from 2005 was one of the better Elvis interpretations I've seen. JRM had the same pretty androgyny as young E.

Austin and Zac Efron who both dated Vanessa Hudgens.

Oh, yeah. I most definitely will see this.

I like Baz Luhrmann, and the actor is cute, but he doesn't give off any Elvis vibes. Elvis was pure white trash, but he had a lot of charisma and sex appeal.

How was Elvis white trash?

R1, Way to miss a point! What, did Leo's "Titanic" add anything we didn't know? Did "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

A story may be "known," but it's all in the telling: the characterizations; the settings; the actual singing by the lead or not, if the story is of a singer; the director's emphases; and the quality of the acting.

The trailer is brilliant, giving glimpses of every aspect and "chapter" of the life of Elvis, including a harrowing depiction of drugged-out and near-death Elvis.

What the lead might miss in terms of Rami/Freddie resemblance to Elvis, Austin makes up for, it appears, in getting the King's moves perfectly. Of course, given the myriad previous media portrayals as well as innumerable impersonators, he has plenty of critics ready to pounce.

There is a name for Baz’s style of movies. What’s the word I’m think of here. Other directors do it too for some scenes but it defines his style.

R18 read a book.

R2 young people know who he is. Some celebs are always famous with each passing generation, like Elvis, MJ, Marilyn and James Dean.

Whether they know his music or not is one thing, but they know his celebrity.

Austin Butler doesn’t capture Elvis at all, looks nothing like him and no, his movements look choreographed whereas Elvis was spontaneous.

Elvis was a known racists POS. This movie is gonna make him seem like he was the opposite?

Does anyone know the name for the style of Baz’s movies? There is a specific name for it. I know somebody here knows the word I’m looking for.

I have read plenty of books about Elvis, R21. He had his faults but I would not describe him as pure white trash.

I think this video shows Elvis was not racist.

R25 …….. people who actually knew him and had to work with him have said otherwise over the years.

The video at R25 has numerous black people who knew and worked with Elvis and said he was not racist.

Interview with Sam Bell. He was a childhood friend of Elvis. He sure does talk well of a man supposedly racist.

Wow .. I teared up watching the trailer! So moving, so powerful.

If the movie has male frontal nudity, it will be perfect!

I thought the trailer was fantastic and apparently Tom Hanks’ accent for the Dutch Col. Parker is spot on.

I mostly loved what Baz did with The Great Gatsby, so I’m looking forward to this.

Does the movie end on the toilet?

Baz Luhrman has a very colorful, campy, glitter and glimmer Pierre et Gilles sensibility.

R24, if the momma-loving and underage girl-loving and peanut butter and banana on Wonder bread-loving wasn't clue enough, the dictionary defines white trash as "poor white people, especially those living in the southern US".

I do not see what is wrong with loving one's mother. Elvis did not get with Priscilla until she was of age. I think it is bigoted to call someone trash based on class or race. There are plenty of trashy people who have money.

I forgot to add where someone is from.

It's kind of a 'woke' film in a way which detracts from it and makes it preachy (if you know what I mean).

Is Tom Hanks wearing a fat suit or did he get Castaway fat again for this role?

My definition of white trash is if you have gun racks in the back of your vehicle, regardless of geographic area.

I never knew Colonel Parker was Dutch.

My favorite Elvis biopic

Did The King ever go up into the man?

Will the real Priscilla be playing young Priscilla? She looks like she could pass for a teenager!

I'm in. This is now my most anticipated film of 2022.

That scene cut that provides the stunning contrast between the vibrancy of boy Elvis with the black gospel church then an instant cut to the silence and stillness of the white audience when he's still an unknown but in a second or two they're going to be blasted into reaction, is brilliant.

I loved the "The Great Gatsby' and it looks like I'll love this more.

The word for a Baz Luhrmann production is bombastic.

I'll be watching Elvis.

So AB is dating Kaia Gerber now. This twat gets around!

Austin Butler is Chord Understreet.

Those looking for a term to represent Baz’s style, I would call it horror vacui.

The actor's lips are similar to Elvis and he looks like he has his moves down. It looks great.

R57 Yes, and the 'horror vacui' is full of garbage stolen from anywhere and everywhere.

I had totally forgotten about Elvis.

He always seemed stupid and trashy.

A friend and I went to Graceland when we were in Memphis for something else. It is very small (smaller than my parents' house) and HILARIOUSLY tacky.

Did they cast Brenda Dickson as the teenage Pricilla? She has $17 worth of red hair extensions stuffed in the bottom of a drawer.

Honestly, Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter, would make a perfect Priscilla but doubt she'd do it.

I'm sure Leo and Tobey had lots of fun times with him

They couldn't get a real A-lister for this?

Lana Del Rey had campaigned for the role as Priscilla in another movie and did a song for Gatsby.

Did she get it? She could at least do a flash forward cameo scene of a more mature Priscilla.

It ends like the Judy Garland biopic: On a toilet.

R21, "...Elvis was spontaneous." Bwahaha! I've got a bridge....

Moreover, your criticism is beyond lame. NS, Sherlock, that a film depiction might be---what's the word I want? Oh, right!---SCRIPTED.

Have you ever SEEN any biographical movies that included performances?? E.g., did you think Rami was being "spontaneous," or might you suspect just a wee bit that his on-stage Freddie was SCRIPTED?

"Austin Butler doesn’t capture Elvis at all, looks nothing like him and no, his movements look choreographed whereas Elvis was spontaneous." - I agree r21, he also just doesn't have the vibe of Elvis. He just doesn't click. No doubt there will be many who know nothing about Elvis hailing it as a "brilliant" performance, though. Judging by the trailer, the whole film seems off, and they're also trying to rewrite history by giving Elvis more of an awareness about race issues than he really had.

Elvis Presley was an absolutely beautiful young man and had a sexual charisma that imho has never been equaled by any other male performer.

The man who stole music and moves from black artists and loved the N word is being depicted as a good man who wanted well for black people? Lmao

r70 you are an idiot.

[quote] The man who stole music and moves from black artists and loved the N word

Pat Boone?

R38, And you gleaned this from the trailer how?

R20/r23: "Magical Realism."

R72 Ricky Nelson

It's a CREATIVE MOVIE! Some people are asking for a DOCUMENTARY! "Oh, Austin isn't a doppelganger for Elvis!" "Oh, Tom Hanks sounds DUTCH instead of Southern!" "Gee, Austin's moves seem less than the King's spontaneity!"

At least Austin Butler looks to be "wearing" his normal face, with no dental prosthesis or tons of masquerading makeup as with two recent Best Actor Oscar winners.

The big question is why did Elvis keep Parker as his manager? Elvis could've picked up the phone and signed with any of the top agencies in the industry but never did. Instead he stuck with Parker who put him in all those shit movies and had him record all those shit songs, which turned him into a joke.

I love Baz and Ive enjoyed all his movies so far so i'll see this. Ive told this story on here before but of course it was met with derision by the unfucked old hags who put down everything but here goes... Back in the early 80s I was living in St. Pete Fl and I met this old queen (my god,I just realized IM older than he was then!) who told a story that at first I poo-pooed but the more he spoke,the more I really began to think maybe so. What started it all was he had a picture of himself in the early 50s and he was angelically beautiful,I mean really breathtaking. When I asked him about it he said "Oh that was me" and started telling us all these stories about his life. He said in the early 50s he was working at a hotel in Memphis and one day this truck driver was making a delivery and he was quite taken by his looks so he put the moves on him.

After much convincing,he talked the blonde (1st time I ever heard Elvis was blonde) young man with a pompadour into accompanying him to a vacant room where he proceeded to suck his dick. He claimed it was stubby,uncut with big balls and it took the guy all of 2 minutes to blow a load. He also claimed he laid there with a pillow on his chest so he couldnt see who was sucking him off. After he came,he hurriedly fastened up and practically sprinted out the door. It wasnt until a few years later that he realized it was in fact Elvis. You had to have been there and heard the way he related the story ,it just rang of the truth. But you can believe it or not.

Exactly how does anyone here know so definitively that Elvis---you know, the stage-managed performer Elvis---was NOT "choreographed"?

Somebody here really thinks that Elvis GD Presley just thrust that left leg out and brought it back in knee first, "spontaneously"? You think that Vegas Elvis got down on his knee "spontaneously"? Of course the man moved to the beat, but his trademark moves? Yeah, okay, "spontaneous."

It is jarring to hear someone else's voice. This actor's voice is not distinctive enough to imitate Elvis singing.

I believe it r77

I'm conditioned to Elvis impersonators so I don't mind that that Butler doesn't sound and look exactly like Elvis.

Only Elvis can sound and look like Elvis.

Although Hanks seems to be channeling Fat Bastard in that last scene.

Let's ask Snopes:

[quote] Elvis keep Parker as his manager?

Because he was young good-looking moron who progressed to be a fat, middle-aged moron.

There's always going to be a casting problem with a biopic about someone known for their looks/charisma. This actor is good-looking, but in all the pics and in the trailer he looks like a teenager and has no charisma. Even mid-50s Elvis looked like a man and had the it-factor on stage.

R36, white trash is a description of a person's cultural background and not necessarily a moral judgment. I come from the PNW, but otherwise fit the definition of white trash. My mom fed us bologna sandwiches on white bread with ketchup.

The guy does not sound like Elvis at all. Elvis had a much deeper voice.

Elvis was great with black people, just ask the back up singers who worked with him.

He also bought his house keeper ( a black lady) a house and even paid the property taxes for the first year.

Elvis was so fucking hot in the 68 comeback special. Omg, nobody can match that.

Why does the actor playing Elvis look trans?

I never understood the popularity of Elvis and I grew up during his hay day

Is Nick Adams or anything fruity in the film?

Elvis was a great singer, the king of rock n roll!

Calling someone trash is making a judgment about them, R84. Ghislaine Maxwell was fine with trafficking those girls because in her eyes they were trash because they were poor. I grew up poor myself. Those are fighting words.

As for the story at R77, Elvis was naturally dirty blonde, uncut, and wasn't surrounded by an entourage in the early 50s. Maybe it did happen. His daughter is bisexual. Maybe she got it from him except she has supposedly had numerous same sex lovers. If the story did happen, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the only time Elvis was with another man. He probably rarely, if ever, acted on such inclinations if he had them.

I have no problem believing the story at r77 and I write this a concluding that Elvis was straight.

Anyway, Priscilla Presley wrote in her biography that one of the reasons for their break-up is that after she gave birth to their child, Elvis stopped their sex life.

I wouldn't put up with that either and I think Elvis was the sexiest man evah.

R73, the trailer is 2 minutes long and we already have references to Martin Luther King and obvious indications that Elvis was very moved by racial strife.

R81, we're not expecting Butler to look and sound like Elvis, but to have an Elvis vibe and to capture the spirit of Elvis - which, based on the trailer, he does not manage to do at all.

R78, Elvis may have spent hours practicing his dance moves, but it looked completely natural to him. From the trailer, Butler looks like he's labouring.

And, yes, to a certain extent that freedom of movement with his body probably was natural to Elvis, even if then cultivated it.

R94 and that happens in many marriages. Many men stop finding their wives sexually attractive when they’re pregnant and/or after childbirth. That has nothing to do with being gay.

The story at r77 is 100% made up.

Didn't Elvis tell Cybill Shepherd, after conferring with his boys upon her bedroom request, that only black guys perform cunnilingus?

R99 a link to that?

Cunnilingus is a big word for Elvis.

That is not true.

Elvis had a deep, deep voice. the actor doesn't sound like that at all. and he doesn't even look a bit like him.

[Quote] a link to that?

1:56

[Quote] That is not true.

Fuck off.

She also alludes to his preference for girls (not women) with the white underpants comment that comes earlier in the clip.

Just look at a few youtube videos of his 1968 comeback. OMG, so freaking hot. I know I'm repeating myself but he was amazing...no autotune or nothing.

Amazing talent and presence...those fucking people were so lucky to be thisclose to him...and Elvis used to kiss his fans at his concerts!!!! and gave out silk scarfs.

He was a very generous man, he rewarded his friends expensive cars and even bought houses for his very loyal friends.

You need to take everything with a huge grain of salt. esp stories from actresses who need to say something to keep themselves in the spotlight or to get attention. they tend to exaggerate, to spice up the otherwise very boring story.

We don't need to do anything, anonymous person on the internet.

Cybill has told numerous stories that don't paint her in a good light, e.g. telling Bogdanovich that his wife (not ex-wife then) wasn't in a restaurant they were looking to eat at, when Polly Platt WAS in the restaurant.

[quote] Why does the actor playing Elvis look trans?

In what ways does he look trans?

She knew Elvis. Elvis wanted to, and did, fuck her. It's entirely believable that a "good ol'" Southern boy would be unlikely to perform as submissive act like cunnilingus. And it's also believable that Elvis and his boys would engage in Out Group talk, i.e. "Only black guys eat pussy."

Autin Butler had his quite becoming original nose hacked down to its current form. Cosmetic surgery on men is nearly always feminizing.

"I wouldn't put up with that either and I think Elvis was the sexiest man evah." - Are you straight, r94?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

r112, yes

Great, so you drive us nuts and you're not even a lez.

You'll get used to it, r115. I've been here since right after 9/11.

Why have I always thought that Della was a lesbian?

How do you feel about bread pudding, Della?

Love it, r118, no raisins.

now back on topic.

It's been decades since I read Peter Guralnick's 2 volume biography "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love" but they were incredibly sad. Elvis story lingered with me for days.

He always was searching inside himself and with others for something spiritual that he never found. He became obsessed with reading all kinds of New Agey kinda schlocky religious and spiritual ideas.

Not that there is anything wrong with those, hell, look at how some have taken the Old and New Testaments , the first schlockbusters, and made life hell for others, but still.

Twitter will try to get the movie cancelled. He was a huge racist and pedo according to them.

I don’t like this guy’s face. He’s probably an alright guy, but his face is punchable.

I almost always prefer the BEFORE when men have plastic surgery.

I won't r116, I find you're posts eternally naive and annoying.

I wish Twitter would just disappear.

I guess, r117, because this is a gay board and she's such a regular. I don't care too much if straight people post here but, as a Brit, now that I know that Della is straight, I finally understand what an American frau is.

This has Baz Luhrmann written all over it. Never in my life did I ever expect the Sissyfication of Elvis. The lace shirt and nipple peekaboo. The fem twink portrayal. The smokey eye!!!...Oh my....I expect Lisa Marie to be outraged over Drag Elvis...

I'm excited to see the movie explain how 14 YEAR OLD Priscilla started dating this guy without the police getting involved.

Actually, r126, that's about the only thing Luhrmann has right. The young (and perhaps even older) Elvis did wear colourful clothes, even pink, and eye makeup.

I'll live, r123. Glad to enlighten you r125 *eyeroll*. But no, if you think I'm a frau you don't know what an American frau is.

You haven't really arrived at the DL until you've picked up a few haters and stalkers. You've both joined the club. Thanks for the attention

r128 is correct about Lurhmann getting teen Elvis right. Elvis truly was a teen freak and I use "freak" in a positive way.

Baz has given the predictable dog whistle for gays by throwing in Little Elvis--as if Austin Butler wasn't enough..I'm excited to see how much money this movie loses. And it WILL lose money. Who is going to see this? Austin Butler can barely act and he sure cannot play a 40 year old. Even Tom Hanks will not carry this movie to a box office win. It is going up against Transformers!!.

And you have no idea what the British royal family is about, r129!

Tom Hanks is unrecognisable, r131. I suppose it will get some buzz, but even the music in the trailer doesn't capture the excitement of Elvis's sound. It all looks like painting by numbers but is completely missing the spirt of Elvis and of his day. It's almost like Luhrmann has no idea who Elvis was and Butler didn't bother to study him.

It is premiering in theaters and HBOmax. Baz Luhrmann hasn't had a hit in years and this isn't going to change that. This is what happens when an old dude (Baz) thinks young people want to know who Elvis is. Unless Elvis was on TikTok they don't care. Elvis would be 85 if he were alive today. How many Elvis fans does Baz think is still alive?

R76, Because Mama Gladys liked Col. Parker and urged Elvis to sign with him. The family was impoverished, and she was no "King Richard" in negotiations. And Elvis would never, ever go against his mother's wishes.

So Elvis got 49%, and Parker 51%.

I notice that Baz only makes films every few years. He doesn’t have a lot of output.

Per Wiki---->>For the rest of his life, Parker managed the Presley estate, but he had sold the rights to Presley's early recordings, which would have ensured a steady income. In 1980, a judge ordered an investigation into Parker's management practices and found that Parker's management had been unethical. Meanwhile, his gambling habit increasingly eroded the huge fortune he had built up, and he died worth only US$1,000,000.............And the stories of Elvis Bisexuality are widely reported...

Elvis Boyfriend Nick Davis. He was cute.

^^^....Whoops...Nick ADAMS.....my bad...Cutie...Mysterious death...Alleged to be writing a Hollywood tell all naming names right before he died.

I couldn't be less interested. I haven't bothered seeing a Luhrmann film since "Moulin Rouge!". And I say this as a fan of Elvis' music (through the 60s, anyway).

R133, So "Titanic" was a flop, then? I mean, 1912! "Darkest Hour"? And don't even get me started on "Lincoln"!

Ah, well. I guess there's always room for another treacly Disney or puerile Marvel Comics movie for America's Youth.

AIDS happened right before World War 2 when Nixon was President and Elvis was the lead singer for Queen----->>Generation TikTok

He's beautiful in some early pictures but his contemptuous, thick-lipped face at R137 looks as contorted as Rossy de Palma.

Elvis Presley smelled like Tennessee Williams play.

Magnolias and sweat.

Elvis and Karen Carpenter. He should've given her one of his deep fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

So Butler is doing the singing?

I should have been cast instead.

[quote]They couldn't get a real A-lister for this?

Leo would be great for the Fat Elvis stage.

[quote] So Butler is doing the singing?

As the younger Elvis.

Butler kinda looks like an Elvis drag king.

Will the Luhrmann movie be lurid?

The Colonel wanted to close the '68 special with a Christmas song but Elvis insisted on singing "If I Can Dream". The special was filmed in June soon after Robert Kennedy was killed and this was in tribute. It was one of the few times Elvis defied Colonel Parker.

I just have been bingeing on "If I Can Dream" reactions on Youtube. What an incredible voice EP had!

I don't like his much of his music, but I am oddly fascinated by how famous he got. I'll watch for sure.

It'll be as big as the Hendrix one. Elvis's music is boring

Who would ever want to be that famous? Elvis slept during the day and only went out at night because he would mobbed. He became a prisoner of his own fame.

Dacre Montgomery is in this. Did he audition for the lead and only got a bit part?

It was Vernon who wanted Elvis to sign with Parker. Gladys did not like him.

They should have cast Riley Keough as Priscilla. Olivia DeJonge isn't pretty enough.

The entire creative team and I were so moved by the overwhelming response to the little piece of the film we've put out, so we thought maybe every Thursday, we'd introduce a character featured in the film.

Elvis Thursday, what you think, TCBzzz?⚡️

It is very difficult to convincingly cast anyone to play someone as iconic looking as Elvis—and then you add iconic sounding, and iconic moving on top of that, and it becomes nearly impossible,

The trailer did win me over a bit, the actor doesn’t have Elvis’s face, voice, or moves, but he’s captured the sense of sexual danger, the way Elvis was like a panther about to leap at you.

I was a little surprised to hear the Led Zeppelin-style electric guitar chords. I know that’s Luhrmann’s style somewhat, but the guitar sounds here will be central to the movie, don’t overdo it just to try and show modern kids the excitement of it.

R90, The trailer is all there is. Have you watched it?

How has Elvis not been canceled yet for his relationship with Priscilla?

R137 Elvis Presley *is* Che Diaz!

Petula Clark said that Elvis suggested a threesome with her and Karen Carpenter. Petula thought Karen was a bit hippy, which might explain why she passed.

[Quote] Baz has given the predictable dog whistle for gays by throwing in Little Elvis

WTF?

What do DLers think of Austin Butler’s look in general not just in this movie?

What do DLers think of Austin Butler’s looks in general not just in this movie?

Olivie DeSchlong could play Chynna Phillips in something.

I'm not a twink fancier but he was very cute in his original state.

I think he could pass for a lesbian Real Housewife nowadays.

He looks like Jeffrey Donovan.

Why didn’t openly Gay Austin, Austin P. McKenzie get chosen to play Elvis?

What has openly gay got to do with Elvis?

Damn. Was he caught in a fire?

I always thought the Elvis bedroom eyes were a more important trademark than the mouth, and this guy is somewhat successful (with the help of eyeliner).

Elvis did wear make-up and flamboyant clothes which in the '50s got him labeled a fruit.

"I want to pwomote you." Is that Elmer Fudd playing The Colonel? Looks like it.

Quincy Jones refused to work with Elvis.....hahahahaha......I would doubt that he was ever even considered to work with Elvis let alone ASKED......

Wow, R170, Austin Butler really had his nose whittled down. He must have asked for the Marlo Thomas.

Diana Dors could have done a good drag king Elvis back in the day, though I suppose there's never been much a market for drag kings.

The nose job makes his face look longer.

R177, Misreading.

QJ was relating a story wherein Tommy Dorsey and he, QJ, saw Elvis, and DORSEY said he would never work with EP.

Consider: Soon-to-be-defunct Big Band leader from the coal regions of PA [Digression: Same as Dorsey's father taught my father to play the trombone, which is why I then learned it.] sees Rising Young New Star of New Music Genre and expresses contempt. How unexpected!

THEN Quincy immediately segues into HIS calling Elvis an MFer. And thus, many readers conflate and extrapolate.

Elvis sounded so much like Cher in the 70s.

R157, Gladys might not have liked Parker, but she was the decider.

I don't remember Elvis wearing a pink outfit like that.

R184 You can't expect wacky homosexual Lehrman to stick to the facts. He is a trashcan artist!

Elvis did wear a pink suit.

Elvis's pink Nudie suit.

The nose job was a mistake. If he absolutely had to get it, he should have gone for something more subtle.

He looked better with his original nose.

I remember a story about the FBI setting a honeytrap for Elvis because they suspected he was gay. They had a guy pose as a religious guru and make a move on Elvis. Elvis had his Memphis Mafia goons throw the guy out.

A fortuitous similarity now to post-rhinoplasty Elvis, though, r188!

Elvis had a subtle nosejob that looked natural, not the ones that are done today that make people look like action figures.

r192 And you'd think nose jobs would have improved from the 50's.

For an already feminine face, the nose job makes him look more like a woman.

Vanessa Hudgens must like them feminine faced. She had Zac Efron before he had work done to make his face look more masculine.

Vanessa is quite the fag hag. Will Aaron Rogers be her next boyfriend?

Fag hag? Never.

Butler beat Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Austin Butler, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Harry Styles for the part.

R198, Butler beat Austin Butler? At least he wasn’t self-defeating, or was he?

Looking at how much Drag Elvis the movie is rolling in---Harry Styles might have been an interesting choice. Love Harry but his trashy tattoos do him no favors.

Butler is the most basic of the bunch.

LINK = Ansel queening it up with his "friend" Kevin Spacey.

[quote] Butler beat Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Austin Butler, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Harry Styles for the part.

Whoa, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 10 years ago, would have been an intriguing choice.

Off-topic, but what is it with star directors making wrong casting choices? Lurhmann- Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanon. Spielberg- Ansel Elgort as Tony.

Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Austin Butler, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Harry Styles - if these are the supposed hot young white male actors of the moment then we have little hope. At least Timothée can act.

I think, in the context of the full movie, we might be surprised at the suitability of Butler.

None of the other listed auditioners look anywhere near Elvis, for starters! Harry would have the moves, but he can star as Mick Jagger somewhere!

Movie tidbit:

In "Forrest Gump," a young Forrest meets a just-starting-out Elvis, and Forrest's movements in his leg braces supposedly give performer Elvis ideas.

The older Forrest is of course played by Tom Hanks. So Hanks is now in two unrelated movies with Elvis!

R183, I think it is more like Elvis and Vernon really wanted to sign with Parker and Gladys finally gave in since he managed Hank Snow.

Maybe so, r206!

To think what Elvis could've done if he'd had professional, competent management based in LA.

I've often wondered that, too, r208.

Still, I don't know if the true scoop would ever be known or told but I read that Colonel Parker talked Elvis out of co-starring with Striesand in "A Star is Born". Elvis wanted to do it.

At first, I was so crushed that he prevented two of my favorite talents on screen together in a love story, but now, I think it probably was for the best.

Elvis was in horrible shape at the time of Star Is Born. Fat and sweaty, etc. It wouldn't have worked.

True, r210, and damn, I wish I could remember the source, but I remember reading that Elvis wanted the part and, to get in shape for the role, he was willing to go to what was then called a "fat farm" and he raised the possibility of delaying filming for a few months so he could.

Again, I don't think the true story ever will be known, not even from Jon Peters and Streisand. I do think Peters confirmed that they approached Elvis about taking the part.

John Schlesinger wanted Elvis for the Jon Voight part in Midnight Cowboy but of course the Colnel said "hell no." Pity because Elvis would've been fantastic.

It would have been better if Elvis had avoided the movies all together.

He had incredible screen presence and acting talent, the trouble was that most of his films were total shit.

Oh, come on, to Quincy Jones any guy that refused to fuck his ass is racist.

The Colonel wanted Elvis to have top billing in A Star is Born which either Streisand or Peters refused.

Actually he might have been perfect playing a drug addicted rock star past his prime.

At 2:18 in the trailer Austin Butler looks exactly like Elvis.

The performance of Unchained Melody in the trailer was Elvis's last public performance.

The actor looks like he is a lesbian in male drag with stick on sideburns. Wasn't Elvis more rugged and did he wear so much make up?I'll wait to see what the reviews say.

Luhrmann also acknowledged the African American culture in The Great Gatsby. I don’t see any problem here other than this thread is full of butt hurt bigots who refuse to acknowledge African American influence on American culture in general. Deny it and make disparaging remarks about it all you want, but it’s true and genuine. Baz is Australian so he’s not invested in maintaining white supremacist ideology in a film about an American pop legend. Australians have their own issues with their indigenous population, but that is another story (but Baz did touch on racism against aborigines in his epic Australia).

I wasn’t really a big fan of Elvis, but I grew up with being exposed to him. And black people and a lot of white people I know who worked in the music industry know full well that Elvis was heavily influenced by black American music.

R220, No. Elvis was a pretty boy.

And yes, he did.

Elvis had a cute face, but the body was nondescript.

R218, Check out 2:25 (black leather, glancing to his back left)---2:26 (white Vegas profile). Perfection!

I watched the YouTube trailer on my Samsung TV so I could use the remote to go frame by frame, even within a second.

P.S. You are r218 recommending minute 2:18! 😎

R221 The only one that sounds butt hurt here is you. Was your top too harsh or is this theme making you such.

Elvis being beefy was part of the attraction, until his banana and bacon sandwich habit got out of control.

How do I sound butt hurt r221? You need new jokes too. That one was corny AF.

Hehe, you are butt hurt again. Tell that top of yours to slow down a bit R227.

Wow, still corny r228.

Don’t change. Oh wait, you can’t.

R226, PEANUT BUTTER! You forgot the PEANUT BUTTER!

No one's complaining that Elvis acknowledged a (invariably exaggerated) black influence, r221, just like he was influenced by white country music, bluegrass and rockabilly. What we find a tad ridiculous is the way in which, from the trailer at least, Luhrmann has tried to turn him into a civil rights activist, which was decidedly not the case.

R221 Might be corny, but it is true.

I listened to a few songs today and Elvis sang with such emotion...amazing talent.

Tom Hanks as Jim Broadbent.

31 items that had to be kept at Graceland at all times every day.

R235, thanks for that list, very interesting

Did someone forget to buy Feenamint laxative gum on August 16,1977?

Not exaggerated r231, but whatever.

For r231:

For r231 and others.

Here's the thing, though: Why does anyone ask, even demand, of 1956 Elvis Presley that he should have been a pioneering champion of Civil Rights when the vast majority of White entertainers---with the major exception of Sinatra---were not?

Elvis's records and stage performances opened doors for the music and styles of Black singers, which doors had been closed and segregated.

(Sorry for the Nixon inclusion.)

As you said, r238, you're not actually a fan of Elvis's music so you probably don't know that much about it, but most of the time when people go on about how Elvis was influenced by black music, they seem to imagine that he directly stole it wholesale from black musicians and that white musicians weren't producing any kind of music.

Lol r239, I think you should have a proper read of that article you linked to.

[quote]“With his very first recording in 1954, Presley did something no one had ever done before. He brought black culture and white culture together on one record,” said William McKeen, a University of Florida journalism professor and co-author of the soon-to-be-released “Norton Book of Rock n’ Roll.”

[quote]McKeen says Presley should be taken seriously as an historical character. In fact, like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., Elvis should be considered among America’s most influential civil rights figures, said McKeen, who teaches an honors class in rock n’ roll history at UF.

R242, What is your point to me, r239?

I posted it as a refutation to r231.

I'm also r240, r242.

R243, I am r231 and r242. Sorry, I should have added a comment. The more traditional story about Elvis and black music is that he was supposedly a typical white Southern racist who stole his style from the blacks but never acknowledged them. That is, of course, not true, but that is how he's been widely seen in certain parts, so it's funny that this 2021 Baz Luhrmann film is trying to project him as a great civil rights figure. The need to talk about race, of course, is less because it's a great part of the Elvis story (it isn't really, beyond some musical influences) and more because today everything has to be infused with racial politics. The fact that Luhrmann appears to be trying to reshape Elvis's story to fit in with current ideas and not the ideas of Elvis's own day tells me right from the start that this is probably going to be a very flawed movie.

Most people who hold the view that Elvis "stole" the music from black people wouldn't think much about the idea that Elvis brought black and white music together. They don't believe in the idea of different influences and fusing different musical styles together. They only believe that music can be stolen.

As for Elvis being a great civil rights figure on a par with Martin Luther King and Lincoln, that's a tad hyperbolic, don't you think?

No wonder he was constipated!

But singing that Mac Davis song about the poor little baby child born in the ghetto, is not exactly the best look as a supporter of Civil Rights.

Exaggerated black influence?! On Rock 'n' Roll?!

Did Lisa Marie Presley approve of this project?. I cannot imagine she is thrilled with Drag Elvis.

[quote] I cannot imagine she is thrilled with Drag Elvis.

Drag Elvis?

You think seeing her dad made up like a French whore bothers the woman who married Michael Jackson?

Uh, is there someone here who thinks Baz EXAGGERATED the look(s) of Elvis?!

Impossible!

Elvis was gaudy as fuck.

Elvis was fucky as gaud.

Is there male nudity in this? Maybe a shower scene during Elvis's army days...

What r252, r253 said and lol, r254.

And their correct observations are exactly why I'm not hung-up on this "Butler doesn't look or sound like Elvis" criticism of him.

Who on Satan's, or God's, Green Earth could look and/or sound like Elvis?

Now I do agree with the asking the question some upthread have raised about whether Butler can convey, at least some, of the "It" factor and charisma of Elvis.

Elvis was a simple hillbilly. He was well-mannered, hardworking and polite so that doesn't make him white trash because he lacked the arrogance, lazy and violent behavior. Also yes, he was inspired by Black musicians and ignored segregation to go see them perform. But that doesn't mean he saw them as his equals. A lot of old white Southerners have Black neighbors and friends but still don't see them on their level of intelligence. The racism of the South is more nuanced than cross-burning and lynch mobs. There is an expectation that you know "your place" and you will be treated politely as long as you don't challenge it. There was a reason Black people fled and it was because they wanted jobs that weren't just sharecroppers, maids, cooks and drivers and to get into good colleges.

Elvis was very silent on politics. To be fair, he said he wasn't educated on it. I do think people need to also be aware Elvis did cite Chubby Checker and Fats Domino as influences and superior artists when asked. He never took credit for Black music. Rock n roll was a hybrid of rhythm n blues, soul, country, bluegrass, jazz and hillbilly music. So it's a Creole genre. Elvis didn't compose his songs, that was guitarist Scotty Moore. It's best to see Elvis as just a singer and producer. He was manufactured albeit talented. I don't think his relationship with Priscilla can be excused. 14 was young even back then. Jerry Lee Lewis got a lot of flack for marrying his 13-year-old cousin who looked 9 years old. I really don't believe Elvis waited until Priscilla was 20 and they got married. Back then, people lied a lot about being pure until marriage. Premarital sex was a taboo to be open about though honestly most people did it.

*singer and performer

Elvis's cousin Billy Smith said Elvis didn't want to marry Priscilla. He was blackmailed into it by Priscilla's parents.

Is this going to be another huge barf fest musical like The Great Gatsby? I would only be willing to watch the end with all the dancing fairies when fat Elvis perishes on the toilet.

R260 Makes sense and why they divorced so quickly. Some hardcore Elvis stans dislike Priscilla for acting like a mourning widow though they need to lighten because I do think she did a good job preserving his legacy considering he was seen as a joke when he died.

After Elvis's death in Vernon Presley served as executor of his estate. Upon his death in 1979, he chose Priscilla to serve as the estate executor for Elvis' Lisa Marie. Graceland itself cost $500,000 a year in upkeep, and expenses had dwindled Lisa Marie's inheritance to only $1 million. Taxes were due on the property; those and other expenses due came to over $500,000. Faced with having to sell Graceland, Priscilla examined other famous houses/museums, and hired a CEO, Jack Soden, to turn Graceland into a moneymaker. Graceland was opened to the public on June 7, 1982. Priscilla's gamble paid off; after only a month of opening Graceland's doors the estate made back all the money it had invested. Priscilla Presley became the chairwoman and president of Elvis Presley Enterprises, or EPE, stating at that time she would do so until Lisa Marie reached 21 years of age. The enterprise's fortunes soared and eventually the trust grew to be worth over $100 million.

Baz doesn't understand how much Elvis is a cultural icon to the South. Casting a blond California surfer twink was a big no. Was it really hard to go to tour Mississippi and maybe find an unknown? That Mississippi accent cannot be easily faked

Elvis was a blond.

The Link from Hairspray looked more like Elvis and played him in a TV miniseries.

Elvis' life has already been distilled perfectly.

Couldn’t they get James Franco?

R265 OK. But he still doesn't look like Elvis though. Blondes are not interchangeable. Elvis had that cornfed eggs-and-grits farmboy look like Austin looks like an emaciated vegan LA twink.

R257, We don't need a lesson in US history. Everybody knows, or should, about segregation, Wallace, Little Rock, Birmingham, MLK, Black Panthers, SNCC, Stokely, Bull Connor, Medgar, Fred Hampton, etc.,etc.

Nought to do with Elvis per se, unless you think this teen hick should have been some Civil Rights champion when he himself was struggling to get out of debasing poverty.

R264, Yeah, "Baz doesn't understand" so much that he's made a GD MOVIE ABOUT HIM!!

JFC. Now we expect an actor portraying a real person to naturally look like that person, speak exactly like that person, and now even COME FROM THE SAME PLACE as that person!

Some of you bitches won't be happy until we get nothing but holograms.

R270 You're right about Elvis being uneducated and poor. But let's get real here, most Americans are ignorant about their own damn history. Willfully so. So history lessons do need to be told and beaten into people's heads.

I like Baz Luhrmann’s style, so I think that I will see this one.

[quote] I like Baz Luhrmann’s style

Which film shows Baz’s style at its best?

Elvis had the blessing from Priscilla's parents, they gave him permission to date Elvis (he asked). Nothing ever happened before marriage. He was very respectful.

Visually, it will be great.

The target audience is the young people. Elvis purists aren't gonna agree with everything in the film.

What they got correctly was that he was being chased by girls everywhere...

Also, if you listen to the trailer, you hear electric guitar...I don't think that was around back then.

In her book Priscilla said they took nude pics and did things other than vaginal sex. Once Elvis had her wrestle some girls in white panties while he filmed. It was a fetish of his.

I never read Priscilla's book. But I do know that Lisa Marie was conceived on the wedding night. According to Joe Esposito. I still remember some of his interview on Larry King decades ago...

Joe Esposito from Brooklyn Dreams?

[quote] Elvis had the blessing from Priscilla's parents, they gave him permission to date Elvis (he asked). Nothing ever happened before marriage. He was very respectful.

He likely got sex from other women than Priscilla. He had girls throwing themselves at him left to right and no young guy could resist that. And while he may not have fucked Priscilla's pussy, I'm sure he had her do other things. No matter what period of time and no matter who it is. Men are men.

[quote] Also, if you listen to the trailer, you hear electric guitar...I don't think that was around back then.

This stuck out to me in the trailer as well. There was electric guitar then - and it was partly Elvis, along with black musicians like Little Richard, plus Buddy Holly, that set off the electric guitar craze around the world, which would eventually bring us the Beatles - but it didn’t sound anything like the guitar in the trailer. That wouldn’t happen until blues and rock merged with people like Covid Clapton and producers made changes in how music was recorded (another Beatles innovation).

Elvis fucked around with Ann-Margret while Priscilla was hidden away at Graceland. Ann really loved Elvis and thought he would propose but that was never a possibility. Elvis had a massive Madonna-Whore complex and his bride had to be a virgin.

Elvis seemed emotionally stunted. I don't think any self-respecting woman would deal with that. He died a slob and embarrassment. It's interesting because he had good genes and kept his looks into the early 70s but once he hit his later 30s, he porked up. His daughter inherited no talent but looks so much like him.

Minnie Mae Presley outlived Elvis and her son Vernon.

Agreed in general, r272, but one hopes not needed on DL.

R283, Get real! MANY a "self-respecting woman" wanted to rock and roll with The KING! They could be "self-respecting" in the morning, Honeychile! 😉

And many a famous man has been "emotionally stunted"!

Good gravy! You think people can psychoanalyze at first or third glance?!

Yes, Elvis succumbed to other temptations, too, as he aged: Carbs because of where he came from; and drugs because of where he'd arrived at. Both because Elvis knew Col. Parker was keeping him from achieving more.

And so he died relatively young and definitely ignominiously, a heavy addled mess who missed his mother every day he lived.

But Elvis never lost his voice or his power to mesmerize. The small boy who was moved by the church music grew up to so move others. It is fitting that Elvis won his only Grammys for his Gospel albums.

It looks to me from the trailer that Baz L. shows all these moments.

No, Lisa Marie didn’t "inherit" her father's gift of song. But all of his descendants inherited his dark-circled, come-hither eyes.

The Eyes of Elvis Presley.

Mary Tyler Moore was the rare exception. She turned Elvis down but later admitted she didn't know WTF she was thinking.

Riley Keough took after Priscilla. The rest of Lisa's kids look like Elvis.

This looks abysmal. He's got it all wrong. I don't like his films, they are for people with short attention spans.

R289, Such a sweeping condemnation prompts the question:

What, IYO, would be getting "it all" correct?

If your first suggestion is "Hire a different actor," you would perforce say whom. And don't be a nitwit like another poster and say, "Some unknown from Mississippi"!

The trailer seems to be of a chronological film. Do you prefer non-chronological biographical movies?

The trailer shows the iconic stage moves of Elvis. Would you have preferred omitting these?

The trailer shows people dressed in era-appropriate attire. Do you suggest that the clothing, hairstyles, eyeglasses, cars, etc. be "modernized" for today's audiences?

So pray, tell us what would be "right."

For r5:

For r5.

Commercial appeal today:

Eh. I watched the trailer. It looks, I dunno, goofy. And yeah, looks like there's a woke (for lack of better word) angle. Gotta have that now, right?

I'd rather see an irreverent treatment of Elvis, depicting all his shenanigans with his posse, the drugs, the tacky decor, jetting across the country for special peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, etc.

For now, I'll stick with "Elvis: That's the Way it is"

The mention of the Fool's Gold pbj sent me Googling. I found out that the place in Denver that still serves the original posted hours ago - just today - that it will be closing next month. And I was about to fire up my private jet and fly me and my friend to go get us some. Dang.

Elvis was smothered by his mother. I think he had a twin or brother who died young and so his mom took extra care of him etc. He was devastated when his mother died.

Well, r293, I'd have liked more of the unvarnished shenanigans of Freddie Mercury, too, but Brian and Roger didn't ask me!

The trailer does, however, depict vividly Elvis's drug use.

SEE 2:42--2:46 IN LINKED YOUTUBE TRAILER.

And yet another post with an assertion but no GD supporting evidence! Where's the "woke"?

R295, You "think"?? Because your hands are too weak to use a keypad to GOOGLE?! But thanks for the scoop about Gladys. Nobody here was aware.

His twin Jesse Garon was stillborn.

YouTube Link for r296:

Interview with Baz and Austin.

^ Who is that poor stroke-victim wearing the necklace?

Is that 'Joe Exotic'?

What was Elvis' opinion on gays? I never knew of any gay men or lesbians were into his music or idolized him. Old straight white people love him though.

I didn't like him sneering at us.

He looked as though he was about to spit on us.

Thanks r299. Just the first few words that Luhrmann says tell me this film is going to be a fuck up. He compares himself with Shakespeare and then says that his interest was in exploring 50s, 60s, 70s America, and Elvis is just a vehicle to doing that. In other words, the film is about social commentary not Elvis.

Austin: Elvis is the wallpaper of society.

Apparently Priscilla still lives in Graceland and they randomly popped down to Memphis from Nashville one day and she was there and gave Austin her support.

His mother was the original ugly Karen. Woof. He clearly never got his looks from that sow.

No reason to characterize Mrs. Presley as a "Karen," r304. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Gladys and Vernon:

Karen means ugly racist white girl, fucker. No doubt she was being from the South.

Phhft, people who demand "evidence" of everything, like this is some cockamamie court. Please.

As for the drug use, judging from the trailer I'm sure those scenes will be super-duper dramatic. But hey, it's an artist's interpretation of Elvis, I get it.

I see Tom Hanks has the faint Dutch accent going for Colonel Tom. The late author Albert Goldman deserves credit for unearthing the truth about the "Colonel's" origins. Did anyone read his book? It was, as I recall, one of the first really controversial celebrity bios. I thought it was a great read, albeit hard on Elvis.

I like Baz. He plays the eccentric auteur to the hilt

R306, Hmmmmm... Seems you forgot the essential element of the definition, to wit:

A feeling of ENTITLEMENT. A complainer who wants to "speak to the manager."

Moreover, there doesn't seem to be support for calling Gladys a racist.

As for her being "ugly," well, thank goodness for Rock and Roll that Vernon didn't think so!

Superb article on Elvis and his alleged racism:

R307, It's not that this is some "cockamamie court"; it's that opinions based on something visual or audible that another didn't discern would be more persuasive if the "something" were pointed out. But if the opiner simply wants to assert and be done with it, fine. But his opinion means nothing then.

I'm guessing the "woke" claim is connected to race.

Biopics rarely do the subject any kind of justice ever.

R313 wholeheartedly agree. They never get it right.

That is utter BS. Elvis was not a racist. He was such a racist that he bought a black woman a fucking house! Wow!!!

You people need to understand Southern paternalism. White Southerners were not going around killing Blacks. They just had a strong racial hierarchy and you were expected to stay in your place. Poor whites had to stay in their place just as rich whites too. Blacks were treated with politeness as long as they stayed in a subordinate position, calling whites "sir" and "ma'am" and working as cooks and butlers. Blacks were seen as pets or children and intellectually interior. White people felt a sense of duty to give charity, employ the same and protect them from their savage instincts.

And they were brutally punished if they challenged the status quo like flirting with a white person, trying to integrate schools and get into political office. But again so were poor whites like Elvis's roots who were also lynched.

Elvis broke a lot of racial barriers and for his time was progressive. But we need to also be aware he could have still had racial prejudices here and there. He certainly was open-minded. Saying he was racist doesn't seem right but I don't think he was completely free of white supremacy in thinking just because it was so ubiquitous in the time of his upbringing and environment. Even Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain who were progressive would be considered racist by modern standards. It's very nuanced.

And to add Elvis did genuinely respect black entertainers and chose to go to black churches and jook joints to hear them. Breaking segregation laws. I think Elvis was an outcast in school so he clicked with others who were outcasts. So he was more egalitarian than most white Southerners who were feudalist. I think it was mostly disappointing he didn't vocally stand up for Civil Rights more. I mean you had celebrities going to the March on Washington. I don't think he was racist but I don't think he really had any real affiliation to Black culture and the community like people say. He just liked the music and performance style and it stopped there. He had black friends too but wasn't concerned about the struggle for racial equality.

I think people expected too much because he wasn't an educated or socially conscious person. He was in his own little world and a big manchild. Not everyone is political. I think he at least deserves credit for being aware of his intellectual limits.

[quote] Just the first few words that Luhrmann says tell me this film is going to be a fuck up. He compares himself with Shakespeare

Yes R303, Luhrmann is a drug-taking lunatic stroke-victim.

Baz does drugs?

^ Yes.

R313, Biopics don't have the luxury of showing a person's life in a multi-years-long film, so there's that.

R314, Plenty "got it right" and have been so judged.

Sorry to hear about that r320. I take it that his wife indulges with him?

R322 I suspect that's a marriage of convenience.

I say he takes drugs because he was doing PR at 11am on a Monday morning and he was so incoherent that the interviewer had to stop the interview.

Elvis is still known but most people I know who are fans coming from white working class homes. He's not on the same level of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn who are still adored by young women today. Many male 50s Hollywood icons sort of faded away like James Dean, Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Some male musicians like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and James Brown are still beloved especially since their music had a level of social consciousness.

I don't think this movie will revive interest in anything because it would only appeal to people who are interested in Elvis.

There are a lot of black people who post reaction videos to Elvis on Youtube.

R323 is Baz gay or bisexual? Allegedly?

R326

Baz = Discreet Fag.

Baz's movies = Outrageously Camp.

I’m surprised that he hasn’t helmed a LGB themed film yet.

^ I don't think so. He's an outsider already. Australia has a tiny film industry and Luhrmann has to toe the line.

He has already displayed massive chutzpah —or arrogance— by STEALING American stories like Gatsby and Elvis and doing them outside of where they belong.

R324, See r291 and r292.

R330 What about it? What does it disprove? I didn't say he was forgotten and nobody listened to him. I said he was not as popular or beloved as decades ago. You rarely hear him spoken about, so he's not a ubiquitous name. If young people are into Elvis then it's likely their parents introduced Elvis to them. Arkansas is in the South and Alaska and New Mexico have a high population of white people who have Southern roots with New Mexico being a popular retirement spot and an extension of West Texas. Maine is the only real outlier. You clearly are a fangirl lol

R301 Don't know how Elvis felt about it, but In his book Albert Goldman wrote about what he saw as some screamingly obvious gay allusions in "Jailhouse Rock," e.g. the relationship between Elvis and his prison buddy "Hunk," and the big title number itself.

I was thinking about this movie some more today, trying to imagine what kind of biopic I'd like to see on Elvis. The closest I can get in my mind is a kind of "Boogie Nights" vibe – dark, satirical, ridiculous.

I’d love a John Waters biopic of Elvis

R333 Yes that's up his alley. Most of the guys he cast in his movies as love interests are Elvis lookalikes.

Waters would be too obvious.

R325, reaction video youtubers react to whatever gets them views.

Did anyone like the 2005 Elvis TV series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers? He certainly had a good sulky, slutty look.

R332, Wait! You mean Mr. Goldman deduced that a song about men in prison dancing with each other has "gay allusions"? 🤫

R338 a shocking suggestion, I know! But it actually was shocking to mainstream Elvis fans in 1980 or whenever that book came out. And it surely wouldn’t have occurred to the 1950s bobbysoxers.

R337 I loved it. JRM is my favorite fictional Elvis.

Elvis was a RINO.

Rocker in name only, R341?

[quote] Baz doesn't understand how much Elvis is a cultural icon to the South. Casting a blond California surfer twink was a big no. Was it really hard to go to tour Mississippi and maybe find an unknown? That Mississippi accent cannot be easily faked.

Is Elvis really a "southern" icon? I am not young and I've always associated him with Vegas. I vaguely knew he had southern roots and I know about Graceland but he really kind of belongs to the world. That said, upon first sight the casting is dreadful. That kid does not make me think of Elvis. I hope he's a good actor.

[quote] Elvis broke a lot of racial barriers and for his time was progressive. But we need to also be aware he could have still had racial prejudices here and there. He certainly was open-minded. Saying he was racist doesn't seem right but I don't think he was completely free of white supremacy in thinking just because it was so ubiquitous in the time of his upbringing and environment.

I don't think there is anything in Elvis' known history that would suggest he was progressive or broke racial barriers. He was no more or less racist than any other white male entertainer of his time. Sinatra was known to be a progressive and to challenge racial codes, Elvis was not. Obviously, Sinatra started decades before Elvis. However, the Black entertainers who worked with Elvis generally say he was polite and generous.

I do know that Black entertainers of his day held Elvis in the same regard that Black hip-hop artists had for Vanilla Ice in the 90s. Elvis was talented but he borrowed extensively across racial lines. Elvis was unique to white audiences but only because James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke didn't have the same commercial platforms (because they were Black).

If I may add some addenda, r344:

From the articles and interviews I've read, Elvis was always humble in acknowledging, often by specific names, the Black singers who preceded, influenced, and bested him.

And secondly, it can be argued that Elvis, by being able to get Black music---albeit in his style and voice---played on White radio stations and becoming extraordinarily popular, single-handedly opened those doors to Black performers.

If critics today want to reply with "BFD. Small favors."---that's their prerogative. They just ignore the times and context.

Also, a poster up-thread said he detected some "woke" aspect to the trailer. I asked where; no response.

It seems to me that any "wokeness" is in some negative reactions to Elvis, movie or no movie. That Blacks (and it appears the nay-sayers are Black Americans) regard Elvis as a cultural thief, a scoundrel of the first order, and a racist.

I reject all of it.

Plus, it is not a little ironic that for some decades now, "sampling"---"borrowing"---has been a core component of Black music.

Finally, what should be said of any Black Classical musician who plays Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, ...? Or sings opera? Are they "misappropriating White European culture"?

Nobody is a saint in our Popular Music history, and that includes Elvis and any of his contemporaries, White and Black. People may have said and say things about Elvis from their heart, mind, and soul; but a heart can be jealous, a mind can be misinformed, and a soul can be weak.

Ultimately, Baz's "Elvis" is just a movie, with all the freedom and all the constraints of that medium. Like every movie, it will have both fans and detractors.

And Elvis, like every icon, has and will have would-be iconoclasts.

Elvis stole 100% of his shtick from blacks so that is pretty fucking racist. No doubt like all Southerners, he and his karen mom thought blacks were subhuman.

[quote] And secondly, it can be argued that Elvis, by being able to get Black music---albeit in his style and voice---played on White radio stations and becoming extraordinarily popular, single-handedly opened those doors to Black performers.

I'll stand corrected if I'm wrong, but I think Little Richard said words to this effect too about Elvis, however he's also on record as saying if it weren't for him Elvis would just another unknown.

I liked Little Richard, but I gather he was known for being all over the map about the subject of Elvis.

I think the fact that there was financial and recognition hurt and injustice about the Black performers who remain ignored,but Elvis copied them, and became rich and famous, should be shouted from the rooftops.

But anybody who denies that Elvis has not earned, and does not deserve, his singular position as The King of Rock 'n Roll is just plain wrong. His looks, talent, charisma were unique. They say his stardom is faded, but I think he'll still be noted, just like, say, Mozart still is, centuries into the future.

Elvis certainly misappropriated publishing royalties on songs he had no hand in writing...

R346, You are an ass.

There’s another aspect to the musician (Black or otherwise) critique of Elvis, which is that his earlier Sun Records days were considered revolutionary—stealing or borrowing from Black music, but also innovating, and more importantly, playing with musicians who innovated themselves—but his Army stint disrupted his career, and when he came back, his music was not the same and he took a turn toward mainstream schlock. It cemented him as an icon but also made other musicians derisive of him. But there was a lot of that going on—at the same time, Little Richard was claiming to have become devout, and Buddy Holly had died. There was a few years of a vacuum in rock before the British Invasion and Motown both hit.

I have a feeling that whatever racial tolerance Elvis had, he got from his mother.

R348, I take it your post is a dig at Madonna?

Some of these posts, man. Must be...something to have a mind that is content with believing its own fabrications, not to mention thinking others will believe them, too.

R345 Are you Baz? Way, way invested in this movie. Which is fine.

Since you keep demanding a response, I said “woke” - adding that it was for lack of a better word - to suggest that it appears in the trailer that the Elvis story is being viewed at least to some extent through the lens of race. Like so much else these days. Ok? You can agree or disagree. But quit baiting.

You never hear artists refer to Elvis as an influence. None of the huge male solo stars who came along after Elvis -- MJ, Prince, George Michael, etc. -- cited him as an influence. Not even Justin Timberlake (who has some superficial similarites).

R350, Meet your Chopped Liver of the pre-Beatles Era:

California Sound, Philly Pop, Motown.

They are too young - you have to go back to the Beatles, Eric Clapton, the Stones, Bob Dylan, that generation - they all have stories of listening to him on the radio as teenagers and picking up the guitar as a result. If you’re into rock memoirs, it pops up in almost every one by a musician that age.

The Beatles idolized Elvis.

R347, I like and admire Little Richard, too, but he seemed always eaten up by a feeling of not enough recognition for his place in Rock and Roll. That if it weren't for him, who'd have heard of Elvis Presley?

Yes, well. If it weren't for Elon Musk, I shudder to think of the multitudes of Americans who would never have heard of Nikola Tesla. Or if it weren't for "The Imitation Game," how many would know if Alan Turing?

Doors and minds open in their own time.

Hahaha, r353! I guess I do sound over-invested!

I think it's not so much that I'm a fan of Elvis, because I never was! My Aunts were, but I was too young in Elvis's prime, got hooked on Folk Music, and then came the Beatles!

What I get interested in most are facts, at least as best we can determine, about any subject. This thread's happens to be about this movie and its eponymous star.

So I Google and I read and I try to be discerning. And then I link to what I think are supporting and persuasive sources. What can I say? I'm a typical "detective" Scorpio.

As a result, it frickin' maddens me to read comments that are aggressively asserted as fact, but without any reason for them. E.g., "Elvis was a racist." Okay, let's go with that. What makes the writer think so? "He stole Black music." Did he? Are his biographers and music historians in a basic consensus on that? Are contemporaneous Black artists? Or is that serious accusation of more recent vintage? Not that the present cannot illuminate the past; it most certainly can. But where does this new illumination spring from?

See what I mean?

Now, as for the movie, I cop to thinking that Austin Butler looks like a darn sexy Elvis, doppelganger or not! But then, I don't know his teen oeuvre, so I don't "see" him as a blond kid. As for "woke," and not to totally repeat myself, I see and hear that in today's criticism, not in the trailer.

One thing is for sure: Baz knows from buzz!

Maybe I should go read the two-volume biography of Elvis that I bought a while ago!

Johnny Mathis explaining the mechanics of homosexual intercourse to Elvis Presley. Elvis does not appear DISinterested.

Baz was actually kind of cute in his younger days. Why'd he do all of that shit to his face?

R316, R344 You shouldn't use this word "progressive" if you can't define what it means.

Elvis was no intellectual and wouldn't know what the word means to 21st century people.

I read Peter Guralnick's two volume biography of Elvis "Last Train to Memphis, The Rise of Elvis Presley" and "Careless Love. the Unmaking of Elvis Presley" back in the mid 90s.

They're both superbly researched and written and were very well-reviewed.

But, there is no getting around it, they're a bit dry. Guralnick isn't a gossip (too bad), but he tells Elvis story in such a poignant, yet factual way, that you find yourself realizing very quickly that you're reading a tragedy. His biography of Elvis lingered with me and I was sad after reading them.

[Quote] I take it your post is a dig at Madonna? Some of these posts, man. Must be...something to have a mind that is content with believing its own fabrications, not to mention thinking others will believe them, too.

Fabrications? Check out "Stupid Thing" demo by Jem. Compare and contrast with "Nothing Fails" by Madonna.

[Quote] Why'd he do all of that shit to his face?

Old people are silly.

For me r274, it’s GATSBY. It’s visually OTT but stunning.

And, Della r363, I think the trailer shot of Austin/Elvis with his eyes rolling back in his drugged-out head indicates that Baz is not shying away from Elvis's fall.

Baz wants scandal and sordidness, r367.

R368, To my knowledge I've not seen any Baz Luhrmann film, and definitely not his Big 3: "Moulin Rouge," "The Great Gatsby," and "Romeo + Juliet."

So I wondered, reading your post, if "scandal and sordidness" permeated his directorial style.

Having just now read several articles on Luhrmann the director, in particular with regards to the above movies, I must perforce regard your post as pure poppycock.

The costuming, the flamboyance, the quick cuts, the colorfulness, the modern interpretation and adaptation, the music---all that the "Elvis" trailer comprises---THESE are the quintessential Luhrmann trademarks, not "scandal and sordidness."

But there I go again, actually doing some research to learn instead of just popping off my dumb mouth.

[quote] The costuming, the flamboyance, the quick cuts, the colorfulness, the modern interpretation and adaptation, the music---all that the "Elvis" trailer comprises---THESE are the quintessential Luhrmann trademarks, not "scandal and sordidness."

r369, you're entirely correct here, but I truly enjoyed Lurhmann's "The Great Gatsby" because of those things.

I waited well into adulthood to finally get around to reading TGG.

As you know if you've read the novel, TGG is a riveting, sordid, soap-opera, potboiler in purple prose (and I observe those as good things) enveloped in Fitzgerald's gorgeous words and sentences describing the attitudes, moods, scenes and decadence of the 20s.

I agree with the general consensus that TGG is unfilmable, but damn, I have to declare I did enjoy Lurhmann's attempt at it. It's weird, but it's like I tuned into his vision and "Got it".

I loved Lurhmann's TGG.

Luhrmann's THG was horrible. Had zero connection to the novel. There are way better adaptations. I love the one with Mira Sorvino. It was perfectly adapted.

r367, Yes, the trailer certainly does, at least, suggest that Lurhmann will address Elvis demise.

Please, Mr. Lurhmann, I'm hoping you've exercised good taste and restraint by knowing an image of where Elvis died isn't needed.

Pretty please.

R359 I appreciate your enthusiasm. Really.

I'll watch this movie, and I do expect a visual thrill ride. However, having seen his Gatsby – and in the theater – I must say it left me cold. All image, no soul. Part of that for me was the casting of Carey Mulligan, although I understand a gay man can get in trouble for saying such things. Also Leo, who I think is a good actor, didn't do it for me in this role. They seemed like teenagers. At least Robert Redford and Mia Farrow seemed like adults, and Mia was lovely and charismatic in the part.

There are NO new federation steps!

I liked AUSTRALIA too. The critics gave it mixed reviews but I found it charming. The only thing that I can stand Kidman or Jackson in, actually.

R371 Mira Sorvino, really? I haven’t seen that version but I cannot imagine her as Daisy. Mira is attractive in her way but for me she does not possess the WASPy aristocratic elegance required. I thought Mia was perfect in that regard.

You can't stand Kidman in To Die For?

People always complain about Daisy Buchanan casting.

Agree that Lurhmann miscast Carey Mulligan as Daisy.

I'll say it- she wasn't pretty enough, it's as simple as that.

Also, Daisy Buchanon is despicable; an evil encased a silken, subtle, purring, pretty villainy.

Mulligan just didn't have the charisma or acting chops to pull that trick off. Farrow came much closer to doing so.

I liked Carey in [italic]An Education[/italic], she was effective in that. Her Daisy wasn't bad, but it needs to be someone of an almost spellbinding kind of beauty. Carey is cute and button-nosed, but not the type of woman that men would sell their souls for. I don't think that we have a modern actress like that.

[quote] the type of woman that men would sell their souls for

Only Vivien could play that role.

Oh, I don't know, r381. I suspect the Burton/Taylor "Doctor Faustus" wasn't far from his truth.

R324, Revive, schmevive! I'm going just to see Austin Butler! And hear, for he does his own singing!

I've listened to some interviews with him---snippets on red carpets, a lengthier show with teacher Howard Fine---and Austin came across as humble, grateful, and most of all serious about his craft.

He studied everything he could, e.g., about Elvis, and worked with a voice coach to sound like Elvis in speech and song. Now, some might say so? I'm just saying Austin knows that he's not portraying just anybody, and that this performance could propel himself up from being just anybody.

The movie appears, in a way, to be the anti-"King Richard" in that Elvis, the gifted child, had no "King Vernon" to steer him past the career shoals of Col. Parker and the dangerous reefs of addictions.

Yes r383, Austin is saying all the right things that he's supposed to say, which in itself is too contrived.

He’s doing his own singing? Well then huge credit to him, I would watch for that touch of authenticity alone.

He took voice lessons for a year. He sings all the vocals as young Elvis. Older Elvis is a mix of Austin and The King himself.

Oh, please, r384! Like you've never heard interviews with actors before!

Indeed I have r387, and Austin's was the most "oh shucks, I'm so humble" I've heard.

I get you, r388. But I think Austin is treading very carefully, even risking sounding rehearsed in his gratitude in interviews because of nerves, hopes, and a stark grasp of what this movie could mean for his career.

"Elvis" could propel him from "Ensemble Actor" ("Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"; the play "The Iceman Cometh") to "Lead Actor" and just maybe "Star."

Baz and Catherine are selling their Manhattan townhouse:

what r389 said.

Social media hasn't freed someone in Austin's current, unique position; it's restricted them. As the film's release nears, his publicity and appearance schedule is going to be unreal.

And Elvis' fan base, more than any other modern star, dead or alive, are purists and ready to pounce on any verbal miss step

Butler's canned answers and demeanor makes sense.

Hasn't Butler always been the canned type?

Video...Austin muscled up..You're welcome...

IDK, r392; has he? Would like to hear more about this from you!

Oh, he was Tex in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood? I didn't realize. I just can't keep track of all the young kids these days. He was very good.

"Butler's canned answers and demeanor makes sense." - Yes, they make sense, r391, for someone who probably had no real interest in Elvis before this movie, but let's not pretend that they're anything other than canned and scripted.

Who is "pretending" that, r396?

How can I be "pretending" something if it's the very thing I pointed out at r391?

If anybody thinks that any actor, in the extraordinary circumstances that Butler is in now, in the midst of a contractually required PR campaign, in a big-budget buzzed about film ( a film, by the way, where that very actor has the lead role which is the name of said film) is going to, during promotional appearances, go spontaneously rogue and off the canned answers, they're foolish.

Whatever Butler is or isn't, he doesn't strike me as stupid. He's going to stick to canned answers, as he should, if he has any sense about him.

As for whether or not Butler had "real interest" in Elvis before being cast, since when is that the standard for casting someone in a biopic, or any other Hollywood historical drama?

I'm not comparing Butler to Brando. No actor compares to Brando. But I doubt Brando was quizzed about his "interest" in Marc Antony before he was cast.

and after the Ansel Elgort "ghosting" text debacle, one can only believe that since then, casting directors scour an actor's social media and texting history, because that can derail things.

I loved West Side Story, and it's not Elgort's fault that it flopped (although I do think he was miscast as Tony and I heard he made it to final auditions as Elvis and he would have been miscast as Elvis, too) but that texting business certainly didn't help matters. There supposedly was a lot of talk that some people were going to refuse to see the film.

because of Elgort.

I found Elgort immensely unlikeable and off-putting long before the scandal.

If truthful, Butler spent the time and put in the effort to learn about, study, and practice the voice and moves, not just on stage but in walking and being, of Elvis, plus he visited Graceland where he serendipitously (?) met with Priscilla GD Presley to learn more---i.e., he paid some major dues. Would Harry Styles or Ansel Elgort (may I tell you how much I abominate that ugly name?) have taken a year of vocal coaching? Maybe, IDK. But Austin did.

And Austin is no kid. He's a 30-year-old man who seems to want to play in the Major Leagues.

This serious career goal also requires him not to associate with teeny-bopper "love interests." He needs a different level of P.R. this crucial year.

In any event, what we've heard from Austin has been pre-movie release. Post-6/24, I think we can expect more television interviews, morning (Kelly & Ryan) and late-night (Kimmel). I hope we hear more in-depth revelations. One question for sure will be, " What was it like working with Tom Hanks?" Prepare your reply now, Austin!

Yup, r400.

I usually avoid most of the pre-opening publicity merry-go-round the actors will be on before big premiers, but, this time, I'm making a special point to watch a couple interviews of Butler, just to see how he handles himself.

Hanks is on old hand a big-time, professional, promotional duties. I'm not interested.

"Elvis" is my most anticipated movie this year. I've already taken June 24th off work so my group can attend the day's first late morning screening.

The Butler sycophant needs to dial it down a little.

What’s his skin color?

Chartreuse, Rose.

Haha, r402! I'd never heard of him until this thread!

So I'm a neophyte sycophant, the worst kind!

I think he looks lie Miley Cyrus in drag.

[quote] I think he looks lie Miley Cyrus in drag.

Best of both worlds?

Hannah Man-tana.

Wait, does Miley Cyrus play Priscilla?

"Miley Cyrus in drag" is redundant.

Just thought of this angle, re: the release of the full trailer after the 21-second clip:

It is not only for the building of antici........PATION!

Reading the myriad reactions to the trailer, from Variety to Twitter to DL, Baz et al. can and could ready their interview answers to questions as to the singing (mostly all Austin's), the casting choice (addressed by Luhrmann, naming famous rejects), why the weird Hanks accent (Dutch immigrant), etc.

Looking at the trailer again, I realized that it's a good thing that Austin knows how to play the guitar, or critics would be questioning THAT!

IMO, he looks most like Elvis (in the trailer) when he's in profile--in his Army uniform with Priscilla; in the white Vegas suit; giving a kiss to little Lisa Marie.

But there is a split-second frontal of (exhausted? Drugged?) Vegas Elvis's being basically thrown into the back seat of a car, where Austin is uncannily and perfectly THAT Elvis.

One other actor is seen prominently, fabulously, and without any mention whatsoever, so TCB for DL, may I present to you, BOY ELVIS, Chaydon Jay:

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Does he have an overbite? His upper lip juts out quite a lot.

I'm still mystified by this comment:

[Quote] Baz has given the predictable dog whistle for gays by throwing in Little Elvis

Oh, man, r412. Don't these girls, and their mothers in certain cases, know that we know? Can Austin and his manager be that obtuse, or think we are?

This is not the PR Austin needs at the moment, fake OR real.

Austin should be playing it unencumbered, for he will soon want to be popular fantasy fodder, and girlfriends (and wives; ask John Lennon) spoil the effect.

[Quote] This is not the PR Austin needs at the moment, fake OR real.

You're as bad as any fangirl.

Why’s Kaia a model again?

R417 Nepotism.

Well, r416, I AM a fangirl!

Cannes premiere

Damn. Elvis could look quite draggy, couldn't he.

The Great Gatsby was awful.

I enjoyed GATSBY. The story itself, not so much, but I loved the sets, costumes and cinematography...

Me too, r423. In fact, I loved it.

And, I know Leo Di Caprio is disliked here, but that uber-movie star intro of his thrilled me. Star power to the max.

Ray Charles dragging Elvis.

Clearly this movie is not a hagiography, nor is it a tale of sordidness. I suspect Elvis's life will be portrayed at least as honestly and completely as were the lives of Freddie, Richard Williams, Lucille Ball, or Elton. IOW, edited for effect.

The more curious will read biographies.

As to Ray Charles and the reaction of Black America in general to Elvis Presley, they are free not to watch this film.

But Elvis wasn't the White Musical or Political or Social Establishment. He wasn't anything but what Col. Parker says in the trailer: "We are the same, you and I! Two odd, lonely children, reaching for eternity."

Did the Colonel also have a dead twin? I feel diving into that is the greatest insight into understanding Elvis.

R427, Interesting. "Survivor's Guilt" may indeed be the key to Elvis's psyche, his maternal love, drug use, attraction to young teen girls (per a biography, it was voyeurism. In addition, he didn't touch Priscilla after the birth of LM), and his draw to Gospel---i.e., soul-saving---music.

Okay, Butler doesn't look that much like Elvis and he doesn't have the charisma of the role, but he NAILED the movements of the raw, young, unchoreographed Elvis!

Elvis was an awkward white man who couldn't dance and who'd never be able to dance with other people, when he was young and spontaneous, he didn't so much dance as burst with raw energy. It was the energy of someone who didn't know how to dance, but who was so filled with tension and emotion that if he didn't move he'd burst! It's not dancing, it's the jitters turned into a performance style, a style that was refined and controlled over the years, to the point that it was no longer interesting. But when Elves was young, he had this barely controlled hormonal energy, that read as sexual in context but which could have been seen as dorky if the music it went with weren't so good.

Well, if we're onto what was wrong with Elvis, MY theory is that he was sexually abused by his mother when his father was away serving a jail sentence.

And that's why he wouldn't have sex with any woman that had borne a child, even his own wife.

Oedipus Presley!

What killed Elvis’ mother?

I wish there were some way to find out, 432.

R432

Is this streaming yet?

Cinemacon 2022 attendees raved about the "Elvis" footage that Baz Lurhrmann presented there during the Warner Brothers presentation.

and that Austin Butler is amazing.

In the words of Bart Scott...

Wasn't this film already released?

No, r437.

It opens in theatres Thursday June 23rd.

My group's tix are for the first morning screening on Friday.

Thanks, Della. Are you an Elvis fan?

I don’t think it’s going to do well because no one cares about Elvis. All his worshippers who collected his face on plates in the South are mostly dead.

Priscilla saw it and gave it a rave.

Absolutely, r439.

I think young Elvis is the sexiest human being who ever existed.

I have a sentimental pity for old, heavyset Elvis.

[quote] All his worshippers who collected his face on plates in the South are mostly dead.

From coronary problems and Covid?

Thanks, Della. Are you a member of the Elvis Presley Hunk-a Hunk-a Burnin' Love Fan Club

[quote] Priscilla saw it and gave it a rave.

[quote] Baz Luhrmann, the director, provided a private screening for me and Jerry Schilling

[quote] penned by a directer

Oh, dear.

YES, r444

LMAO!

Never saw that GG clip before.

We'll soon get full-movie reviews from the Cannes Film Festival, starting May 17.

Oooh, thanks for that reminder, r447.

Lisa Marie Presley Thinks Austin Butler Should Get An Oscar For 'Elvis'

Lisa Marie Presley has made an official statement about Baz Luhrmann‘s Elvis movie.

Following her mom Priscilla‘s own statement on the movie, the 54-year-old singer took to social media to share her thoughts of Austin Butler portraying her late father.

Lisa headed to Twitter to share her opinion for the first time since last year.

While first touching on how she is still in mourning over the loss of her son, Benjamin Keough, she then went on to open up about the movie.

“Let me tell you that it is nothing short of spectacular,” she wrote. “Absolutely exquisite. Austin Butler channeled and embodied my father’s heart and soul beautifully. In my humble opinion, his performance is unprecedented and finally done accurately and respectfully. (If he doesn’t get an Oscar for this, I will eat my own foot, haha.)”

I want to see it.

When is it being shown at Cannes?

According to Wikipedia, May 25.

Australia will get it before the US, so expect bootlegs.

That's a dreadful poster.

Agreed, r453.

Aside from the dreary colors and the too-heavy facial dimensions, Elvis is depicted in the poster wearing his famous black leather '68 comeback special clothing.

Elvis' unhappy moments in his life are legion, but he was enjoying a happy interlude performing and taping that special. Why not show him smiling?

Lord knows we all are aware of the unhappy moments.

forgot to add, Austin Butler has to be agog, in a good way, that he's getting top billing over Hanks.

I would guess Hanks is like "been there, done that" and he doesn't care.

Luhrmann, apparently, can't resist black & gold.

"The Great Gatsby" movie poster also is chock-full of it.

Didn’t realize that Colonel Parker was Dutch. Was he a cunt too?

r452 That's an awful poster. Why does his face look so messed up? It's some truly awful Photoshop.

That is such an ugly poster!

I love elvis but the official website has terrible tshirts! whoever owns the website is a terrible businessman! very limited selection.

R458, You realize that's Austin Butler, right? And that I, r452, didn't design the poster?

But r454/Della, "Elvis," from BL's chosen trailer bits, doesn't present itself as anything other than intense, from childhood "feeling the Spirit"; to early heckling; to his relationships with his mother, Col. Parker, Priscilla, and crazy fans; to drug use; to praised comeback---only for the last to devolve into Gaudy Vegas Elvis.

TL;DR = Doesn't seem like there's many happy moments shown.

I believe this is a new "trailer" from Priscilla Tweet!

"He was a taste of Fowbidden Fwoot".

LOL!

That looks and sounds amazing! It's blatantly, gaudily, deliberately, OTT, bordering Camp. In short, classic Lurhmann.

But, (and here's where I think the dividing line is between those who find Lurhmann not to their taste and those like me who do) If their ever was human being alive who himself was gaudily, deliberately OTT it was Elvis Presley and this looks like the depiction he deserves.

I can't wait to see this film. It's easily my most anticipated of the year. I usually want to see advance reviews but for this, I think I'll try to avoid them. Don't know if I'll succeed.

Elvis may have dressed in a tacky way but I don't think that describes his artistry.

[quote] If their ever was human being alive who himself was gaudily, deliberately OTT it was Elvis Presley

Pardon?

More Official movie posters:

He’s so fucking hot in the white jumpsuit one

Scroll for better depictions.

For r467.

Maybe Baz looked to Elvis for his color scheme.

I feel this movie won’t get any awards. It’s coming out way too early in the year. MTV movie awards maybe

Oh, you "feel" that, do you?

R463 and r464, points well taken.

I didn’t, but intended to convey in my post at r462, that what was gaudy, in its social impact, was when Elvis’ stardom emerged.

I agree his artistry and talent wasn’t “deliberate” , as though a person could conjure such a thing for themselves, it just was, like a human supernova.

Lurhmann was attracted both “The Great Gatsby” and Elvis.

There is a similarity. Fitzgerald’s words describing the mood, matter, and atmosphere of the debaucherous, decadent, 1920s we’re purple, gaudy, beyond mere descriptive, they were OTT, and, oh so riveting.

So was Elvis.

Luhrmann can’t resist (although some wish he would) interpreting that stuff.

Baz pings to the alternate universe. I love it.

New trailer

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Priscilla has really made a career out of all things Elvis, even though they were divorced. Kind of sad. Not sure how many Elvis movies we really need. The guy is cute, but looks nothing like Elvis.

Dallas and The Naked Gun were nothing to do with Elvis. Priscilla actually made something of herself, though she was a bad actress (it worked for the Naked Gun).

His eyes are smaller and closer together than Elvis’s, but he has the pout down, the lips are similar.

What a review! Many grains of salt after this…

[quote]Potential camp classic

My god, I hope so. Tom Hanks sounds like he has down’s syndrome.

GQ's Austin Butler.

12-minute Standing O!

Jesus, I'm All Shook Up.

I already violated my intention to NOT read any advance reviews but, man I could not resist reading one at r479.

Panned by Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson:

Perhaps it’s by design that the Elvis Presley of the new biopic Elvis is rendered so unknowable. There’s lots of him in Baz Luhrmann’s film, swaggering and crooning and sweating. But little of his inner life, the fire uniquely his, is communicated to the audience. It’s a film about a legend that keeps him just that: an idea, thrashing away at a distance.

That’s no fault of Austin Butler, the young actor handed a nearly impossible task. He has to embody one of the most impersonated people in modern history in, somehow, a new or revealing way—to move past caricature and toward something like personhood. Butler succeeds as well as Luhrmann will let him.

With his pouting lips and dizzying cheekbones, Butler ably embodies early Elvis’s almost androgynous—and yet still aggressively virile—magnetism. He does some of his own singing, and while he doesn’t quite nail the power and richness of the real thing, it’s a good enough approximation. Much later in this turgid 160 minute film, Butler gives good deterioration, all the pill haze and frustrated rage that defined so much of the singer’s final years. It may well be a star-making turn for the actor, a bold announcement of thespian vigor and ingenuity that even devoted fans of The Carrie Diaries didn’t know he had.

A shame, then, that Luhrmann works so hard to drown him out. Toweringly noisy and ceaselessly moving, Elvis finds Luhrmann working in overdrive to recapture the old flare that gave such florid life to films like Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. But those films—and even Australia and The Great Gatsby—have a sense of order to their physics. Their cameras seem to move in intentional rhythm, soaring and swirling on rails only visible to their creator. But Elvis yanks and jerks and rattles all over the place, looking for shape and purpose in every direction and finding little of it.

he film settles down some toward the end, when Luhrmann actually lets us sit with a scene and attempt to absorb it. Much of the film’s runtime, though, is exhausting and irksome. Beyond-the-grave narration from Elvis’s shifty Svengali, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), is meant to offer some narrative guidance—but his mutterings jump around erratically, eliding over foundational parts of Presley’s life in favor of wan observations about the singer’s burgeoning fame. Hanks, doing some kind of Dutch-ish accent, plays this conniving Rumplestilskin with the appropriate slime, but Parker’s looming presence in the film proves an odd storytelling choice. I’m no fan of rote music biopics, but what if, this time, we were just served a singer’s life story? Maybe the calculation was that everyone knows everything about Elvis already, which certainly might have been true 30 years ago. Nowadays, however, his iconic status might need more arguing. The film does at least take advantage of some present-day hindsight: it is careful to note that Presley and other white rockers like him owed a huge debt to Black musicians who were criminally undervalued at the time (and now). But in some ways, that’s the only analysis the film bothers with. Otherwise, it trusts that we just want a busy wash of Elvis-ness without many of the boring details.

That’s an error, especially given that Butler is straining so hard to give us a full show. The musical performances are, as expected, the highlights of the film, particularly a scene at the Louisiana Hayride during which a theater full of young women have a collective sexual awakening. Elvis is successful on that front: we really do feel the ardent rumblings of all these girls (and, in one funny moment, a boy) as they see before them something that seems to click the last puzzle piece into place.

If only we learned more about the mind and heart from which that ecstatic revelation was emanating. It is the film’s bitterest irony that a story about a man controlled by a domineering force seems itself unwilling to give its subject true autonomy, lest that distract from its director’s aesthetic interests. Elvis presents the spectacular, but has little to say when the lights are off and it’s just the man, grasping to find purchase in the making of his own legacy.

End of VF review

I have never agreed with Richard Lawson about anything ever and find him beyond insufferable so the fact that he hated it only makes it more likely I will absolutely love it.

If Will Smith could win Best Actor.......

Just from my short survey of 3 or 4 reviews, so far, it's getting panned.

I think Baz's major error was two-fold: to use Col. Parker as the framing narrator/viewpoint; and then, worse, to cast the usually bankable but here ill-fitting Tom Hanks in the role.

I wholeheartedly hope that Austin Butler's performance and all he invested in it do not suffer at awards time for others' decisions.

Baz perhaps should have had more faith in his own subject and chosen actor to afford them, at least according to one critic, lengthier scenes and some introspection.

Col. Parker is shown in the trailers experiencing an epiphany, that "skinny boy" Elvis was "my destiny," but what of the inner life of Elvis, always watched, always reacted to, always the object? What of his epiphany?

I think now the movie will need to depend on the kindness of strangers, aka the ticket-buying public.

Tom Hanks got Covid for this.

Agreed, r490. I'm glad in my eager anticipation that it was Butler's performance that I've always mostly been curious about.

Ever since, months ago, when the first long trailer was released, somebody compared Hanks as Parker to Austin Powers' Fat Bastard (then I stole that observation and used it upthread) I've been wary of Hanks in this.

So far, the reviews of Hanks as Parker have reinforced that wariness.

Still, I'm not jumping ship. I gotta see for myself. I'm still in on opening day.

Oh, opening day it is, R492 Della! Meetcha back here afterwards, for sure!

Brutal.

For sure, r493!

Back at ya, R493! Smooches!

Baz is so used to polarizing movie critics.

You’re sweet, r496

Yup, r497, but if this Hanks as Parker criticism has some heft to it, that’s a lot to overcome.

The music alone is worth the price of admission.

[quote] The music alone is worth the price of admission.

Whose music do they play?

Is Butler the new it-boy darling? They are calling him the new Leo DiCaprio. Has Chalamet finally fallen out of favour?

R498/Della, You might want to check your local theaters, particularly any Regal Cinemas.

My local Regal is showing "Elvis" A DAY EARLY: 6:00 p.m., June 23.

[...]

R593, I’m not an Elvis fan, but even I can see his appeal and charisma’s. He had “it” even if it doesn’t appeal to me personally.

Yes, r503, Lisa was quite underage, considering Elvis met her as a newborn.

If you are going to use "marital fidelity" as a criterion for judging a celebrity, you have your work cut out for you.

Finally, as to Elvis's oeuvre, so you don't like it. So what?

However, it would be irrational to deny his place among the Rock and Roll Pantheon. How many performers are remembered, never mind being the stuff of legends of whom movies are made, 20 years later, let alone 65?!

That nose is all kinds of wrong, but maybe it got him this gig, so good for her.

Not wrong in profile, though, r506, of which views the trailers show many.

Anyway, it seems more of an essence kind of portrayal---the energy, the voice, the allure, the NEW.

And America is, has been, and always will be about the NEW.

Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Alan Freed---they ushered out the Big Bands and ushered in Rock and Roll.

Hanks is too old to portray Parker. Parker was in his mid-forties when he discovered Elvis. Hanks is sixty-seven.

Parker looked old to modern eyes, though, so Hanks is not miscast in that sense.

R498/Della, EARLY-ACCESS showings! JUNE 21st!

Tickets on sale Wednesday, June1st!

I will be out of the country.

Thanks, r510.

Are you going to early access? If you go, please post your review.

My group is pretty much locked into Friday the 24th first late morning showing.

Haven't decided, R512/Della; the closest to me is via winding country roads (Warrington, PA.). Sure would like the free poster, though!

I did just purchase tickets for a 12:10 showing on June 24, though! 😁 (I'd go the night of 6/23, but my friend won't be home from the shore until late.)

More reviews. Critics might not like the movie as such, but Austin Butler gets "sensational," "impressive," "sparkles," and similar.

Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!