THB #173: Elvis

Elvis is as much a theme park ride as it is a movie.

Strap in. Pull down your emotional restraints. And let Baz Luhrmann tell you a story you probably think you have already heard.

It’s Tom Hanks, as our narrator Colonel Tom Parker (neither a Colonel or a Parker), that defines the journey. His accent and affect are so strong at first that you can’t be sure whether to take any of this seriously. But as he talks and talks and talks, you stop considering the affect and start hearing the story.

If you can’t make that leap, you will stay on the outside of Elvis and never really engage.

If you can make that leap, you are in for 2 hours and 39 minutes of bouncing and bopping and displaying and hiding and lying and drugging and wondering - from the very beginning (January 8, 1935) to the very end (August 16, 1977) - whether Elvis was really lucky by nature or if he was wholly created. Or both. At the same time.

Luhrmann starts the movie (along with co-screenwriters Sam Bromell and Craig Pearce) …