While this is the start of the collaboration between Kurt Russell and John Carpenter, I WISH deep down in my heart of hearts that this was the start of a collaboration between John Carpenter and Shelley Winters.

Elvis was an enjoyable biopic [is it really the only biopic on Elvis Presley?] but in the safest sense, obviously taking liberties with the truth to make for a more interesting, filmic [and wholesome, made-for-TV] experience. I couldn't help but laugh because this is the ONE instance where I think an actress hired to portray a role was too old, because Priscilla Presley was only 14-years-old when she met Elvis.

Richard and I were actually in Graceland/Memphis this past year and it was…

"Listen to them. Man, they love him. He's gonna go on forever".

Time for a quiz! Am I giving Elvis the benefit of the doubt because:

a) The current landscape of bio-pics has been horrendously dry, formulaic, and frankly disrespectful to the legends they’re tackling. So this was a breath of fresh air.

b) This is by the far the best made-for-television film I’ve ever seen, and could *almost* pass as a film deserving of a theatrical run; with the ridiculously small budget it’s so impressive. 

c) My perpetual love for John Carpenter — especially his collaborations with Kurt Russel — is clouding the nerves in my brain that typically process films. 

d) All of the above.

Answer Key: with…

After the remarkable success of Halloween, John Carpenter returned to the small screen to try his hand at a new genre, this time a biopic. Bringing the life of the King of Rock & Roll in splendid detail, Elvis is Carpenter’s second & final TV film, and is also notable for marking his first collaboration with actor Kurt Russell.

Elvis chronicles the life & career of one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, Elvis Presley. The film explores his early childhood, his close bonding with his mother, swift rise to fame & fortune, military service, marriage, decline in popularity, and ultimately concludes with his return to stage in 1970.

Directed by John Carpenter, the film marks his first stint with…

This was way better than I thought it would be, I'll say that right off the bat. I love John Carpenter, but he's not perfect, and the thought of him directing a 3 hour TV movie about Elvis immediately following his death was... not something I was looking forward to watching. And while it may not be a great movie, this definitely has its moments.

It also has the best performance of Kurt Russell's career, and it makes the movie. Yeah, there are some rough edges, like some lip-syncing that doesn't quite match up, but either I got used to this or the performances got better as the movie went on. Either way, by the end of the movie I…

- A 3-hour late '70s John Carpenter movie I hadn't seen as of 2020

- Kurt "John Ruth" "Stuntman Mike" "Wyatt Earp" "Snake Plissken" "R.J. MacReady" "Jack Burton" "Dean Proffitt"(yes) "Ego the Living Planet" "Santa Claus" "Mr. Goldie Hawn" “Wyatt’s dad” motherfucking Russell in one of the only roles that has ever garnered him major awards recognition (I mean, an Emmy, but, y'know)

- the life and times of rock 'n' roll grandaddy Elvis Presley

= cinema immortality somehow, surely, right?

It's a TV movie, airing one night on a 4-hour block for ABC, so tone everything down to PG-rated serenity and time the movie for little synthetic cliffhangers to punctuate those commercial breaks. It's a hagiography, so cut out…

Original Title: Elvis
Year of Release: 1979
Genres: Drama; Biopic; TV Movie
Director: John Carpenter
Writer: Anthony Lawrence
Main Cast: Kurt Russell, Shelley Winters, Bing Russell, Robert Grayson, Season Hubley

Ironic that Carpenter's most unconventional film is a rather conventional biopic. Its made-for-TV length seemed daunting at first, but the film actually flows at a pretty decent pace. It definitely helps that Kurt Russell is perfect as the King of Rock, and there are plenty of his great songs that are played in their entirety throughout the entire film.

Carpenter tackles the real-life story in an effective way: some thing are romanticized, some time jumps are a bit jarring, but it's nonetheless quite interesting to see Elvis being portrayed in…

MOVIE KING ALBUM REVIEW: "ELVIS' CHRISTMAS ALBUM"- ELVS PRESLEY

The King of Rock and Roll is here to brighten the Christmas spirit, and it delivers on all accounts!

Even on a holiday album can Elvis brighten smiles and lift spirits. He clearly loved Christmas in his short life, and puts his love in every track.

The first half of the album are the Christmas songs you most often hear on Christmas radio, as they're so beloved each and every season. There's the raunchy, bluesy, but utterly clever "Santa Claus is Back in Town", the soulful rendition of "White Christmas" influenced by The Drifters (another amazing version, by the way), his perky fun take of "Here Comes Santa Claus", his heartfelt…

Work-for-hire dilemma: the man who had just made a haunted-car movie critiquing rock-n-roll/teen-culture as a rebellious, acting-out way of expressing the same negative values that are embedded in the dominant culture has to make a movie that won't piss off Elvis fans. Does he succeed in having it both ways?

At least intermittently, he does. There's a Sirkian double perspective at play here that invites reading against-the-grain, and it becomes more visible as the movie builds up steam; the most obvious example is at the very end, the career-spanning montage set to an Elvis-sound arrangement of Battle Hymn Of The Republic: the Pilgrimage-to-Graceland audience can understand that as "(Elvis'es) truth is marching on," and Elvis agnostics can read it as…

This was really hard to find online so I sought out a used DVD copy. The thought of Kurt Russell as Elvis directed by Carpenter was just way too intriguing to me. Even if it was a train wreck, it had to be a brilliant one.

My search was worth the effort, and this was far better than I expected it to be. I’m happy to report it’s not a train wreck. In fact, it’s a superb film. I’ve seen many movies an hour shorter that felt ten times longer than this. It runs 170 minutes, and I was hooked for every single one of those minutes. At certain points I’d check to see how much time had passed. Entire…