Watched the "Elvis" movie, here is my quick review

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stratozyck
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06 Dec 2022, 10:55 pm

I had read other reviews that said they did not like the style of the storytelling. Its done by the same guy that did Moulin Rouge, so it has a similar "ADHD" style where its constantly switching scenes. It has a high energy going through out the film.

It had a consistent homage to the Black artists he was influenced by - if not whose music he stole. I felt that was appropriate - but it was weird when they'd play hip hop songs in a 1950s environment. I thought that didn't make sense. However, in the end credits they played Eminem and his fans might know he had a song where he mentioned Elvis. So, I felt that the prior hip hop made more sense in the credits.

The main negative I felt in the film was I felt it did not have enough Elvis songs performed. I thought this was disappointing as I was expecting with the Moulin Rouge director to have some high powered Elvis song scenes. They did play some, but when it came to music others' performing had more energy.

I felt it was because the actor playing Elvis couldn't sing his songs (and obviously was faking it in the scenes) so they decided to downplay that. Maybe I was spoiled by the Queen biopic, but I really felt that not having an actor who could sing his songs was a bad idea. It felt to me that they did the movie differently because of that - like if they had an actor that could it would have been more "Moulin Rouge" like.

The movie ended strong and really did a great job conveying his death. I didn't realize how tragic it was until seeing it.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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13 Dec 2022, 6:59 pm

One early scene—

a 10-year-old Elvis and two other boys are peaking into a brothel through some rusted and pulled away metal siding. Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup is playing guitar and singing as a man and woman slowly dance [actually with surprising feeling].

The boys next go to a tent revival!

Elvis “feels the spirit” as he goes into a trance, or maybe a hypnotic state. One of his friends tries to lead him away. But a church elder puts his hands on the friend’s shoulder and says, No, let him stay.

========

A connected series of scenes which have a lot going on.

And which show that Elvis was really into music.