It’s going to be good to rock tonight on HBO Max this awards season, as the streaming platform is ready to unleash a lot of Elvis Presley as the Oscars approach. On Wednesday, March 1, they will release Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” two documentaries, two concert films, and three Elvis films on the streaming site for a period of two weeks. Those two weeks begin on the eve of the final Oscar vote and run through the Academy Awards, where “Elvis” is nominated in eight categories, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Austin Butler.
In honor of those eight nominations, and to give voters a boost if they’re considering the film, Butler, cinematographer Mandy Walker, costume and production designer Catherine Martin, or any other “Elvis” nominee, HBO Max has picked eight. different Elvis Presley projects. , from movies with him to documentaries and a report about him. Those eight projects together comprise what the service has dubbed the Elvis Presley Collection.
“Having spent years researching Elvis’ life and life’s work, I then had the privilege of telling his remarkable story on the big screen, along with my wonderful craft teams, Tom Hanks and the phenomenal Austin Butler, who truly brought life to life. to this rebel. Luhrmann said in a statement announcing the two-week Elvis-a-thon. “That’s why it’s really exciting to see HBO Max embracing everything Elvis Presley had to offer and, in turn, offering it to his subscribers. Whether you love Elvis, the global music icon and incomparable stage actor, or Elvis, the actor who tried to take Hollywood by storm, or you want to know what a deeply spiritual, private and complex man he really was, we’ve got you covered. at your disposal. all in one place.”
Here are the details on what will appear on HBO Max.
“Elvis”
“I always thought, if you’re going to make a movie about a music icon, go bigsaid Luhrmann when he first spoke to TheWrap about Elvis. And the movie really goes big, even though the writer-director started with the idea of Elvis as a canvas or Elvis as a metaphor before realizing that the man was pretty interesting too, especially when played by such an obsessive actor. like Butler, who was immersed in all things Elvis for years.
In TheWrap’s review of the film at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, I wrote: “The film is in part a spirited homage to a titanic force in American music, delivered with the verve and whimsy of Lurhmann’s riffing. like ‘Moulin Rouge!’ and ‘Romeo + Juliet’; part sad cautionary tale of rapid ascent and long slow decline; and part of the showcase for Austin Butler, who takes on an impossible role and does an excellent job even though he, like everyone else on the planet, doesn’t really look like Elvis.”
“Just a Kid from Tupelo: Bringing Elvis to the Big Screen”
This 30-minute feature on the making of “Elvis” is partly an expanded EPK that takes a behind-the-scenes look at Luhrmann’s film, but it’s also as much an Elvis tribute as it is a look at the making of the film. As he progresses chronologically through the events of the film, from Elvis discovering gospel and blues to the 1968 “return” special to Las Vegas shows and the long, slow decline that followed, Luhrmann keeps repeating what impossible that it is for us to realize how strange, how revolutionary and how dangerous the singer was in his time.
Naturally, “Just a Boy From Tupelo” also devotes a lot of time to the boy from Herons Creek in New South Wales, Australia. Speaking of Luhrmann, co-star Tom Hanks says, “At first I thought, ‘Is he going to drive us all crazy?’ And then I realized, ‘Yes, it is, and it’s going to be wonderful.’”
“Elvis Presley: The Seeker”
This 2017 two-part documentary was directed by Thom Zimny (“Springsteen on Broadway”) and produced by Jon Landau, complete with a mission statement they said was unknowingly provided by one of his final interview subjects. , the late Tom Petty. “(Elvis) didn’t have a road map and he forged a path of what to do and what not to do,” Petty says in the film. “And we shouldn’t make the mistake of writing off a great artist because of all the hoopla that followed. We should stop at what he did that was so beautiful and timeless, which was that great, great music.”
“The Searcher” tackles the biographical details, including the sad ones, but focuses on Elvis as a musical force. Priscilla Presley provides a consistent voice throughout the four hours, which comes very close to getting viewers to agree with what former rock critic turned rock manager Landau told TheWrap: “I think it was a genius through and through, even when it was recording the ‘Clambake’ soundtrack.”
“Elvis: That’s the Way It Goes”
Elvis’s first nonfiction film was filmed around a series of Las Vegas shows in 1970, shortly after his triumphant return to live performances in Las Vegas in 1969. The white jumpsuits are present at all six shows filmed. for this film, but the bloated Elvis of later Vegas years is nowhere to be seen: this is a lean, athletic, playful performer putting on a hit-packed show that’s a fascinating mix of the superficial (“Hound Dog” , “Love Me Tender”) and commitment (“You’ve lost that loving feeling”, “I can’t stop loving you”).
When initially released, the film mixed rehearsal footage and fan testimonials, but a reedit in 2001 removed the fan chats, added additional scenes from the Los Angeles and Las Vegas rehearsals, and turned the documentary into a 30-minute fun assembly and an hour of fun. performance from a star who is still trying to figure out what he wants her shows to look and feel like. (She hadn’t yet come up with her ritual of handing out scarves to the women in the audience; in 1970, she walked across the room kissing them.)
“Elvis on tour”
This documentary follows Elvis on a brief 1972 tour, with much of its runtime devoted to performances not of Elvis hits but of relatively recent era rock songs such as “Polk Salad Annie,” “Proud Mary “, “Never Been to Spain”. and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The King’s new hit, “Burning Love”, features him, along with some of the love ballads he turned to more and more after he ended his marriage to Priscilla. Even this early in his Vegas stint, Elvis was starting to look a bit heavy (he would slim down for the “Aloha From Hawaii” show the following year), but most of the performances are gripping, as are the gospel singing behind the scenes. scenery.
Bonus: Directors Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel made abundant use of split screens to capture Elvis in concert, and to oversee their montage sequences they hired a young filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, who had just released his second film, “Boxcar Bertha.” “. and was a year away from releasing “Mean Streets”.
“Jail Rock”
The 1957 musical drama “Jailhouse Rock” was Elvis’s third film and one of the most famous and best of his 31 films. In addition to giving him one of his signature songs and signature sequences with the title track, the film found Elvis singing gems like “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care” and “Treat Me Nice,” which along with ” Jailhouse Rock” and others were written in one four-hour session by the legendary rock ‘n’ roll songwriting team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. Meanwhile, the ballad “Young and Beautiful,” penned by Aaron Schroeder and Abner Silver , shows Elvis’s sensitive side in a film that mostly finds him working in a surly, Brando-esque persona.
The film was directed by Hollywood veteran Richard Thorpe, who, as trivia fans will know, was the original director of “The Wizard of Oz” before he was fired after two weeks.
“It happened at the Universal Exposition”
In 1963, Elvis movies were produced on an assembly line that didn’t allow much variation from the formula of a singing, romantic Elvis. Norman Taurog, who won his fourth Best Director Oscar for “Skippy” in 1931, made nine such movies, with “It Happened at the World’s Fair” two years after setting the Elvis film template with “Blue Hawaii.” .
The movie is passable (better than that by Elvis movie standards), with a few things to look for. Singer-actress Joan O’Brien plays Elvis’ love interest, a nurse named Diane Warren, who is no relation to the Oscar-nominated songwriter, who was just a child at the time. A preteen Kurt Russell made his film debut as a boy who kicks Elvis in the shins, 16 years before he played Elvis in a TV movie. “One Broken Heart for Sale” is the best song and it’s pretty good, while “Relax,” which Elvis sings during a seduction attempt by future TV Batgirl Yvonne Craig, seemed funny at the time, but now it may be a little creepy.
“Long Live Las Vegas”
Singing race car driver Lucky Jackson falls for Las Vegas swim instructor Rusty Martin, who initially wants nothing to do with him! Sure it’s a formula, but that doesn’t matter when you have Elvis and Ann-Margret, the only leading lady who could take him on for sheer dynamism. (Apologies to Nancy Sinatra, Shelly Fabares, and Mary Tyler Moore.) Obviously you have to rate Elvis movies on a curve, but this 1964 highlight is wildly entertaining and probably the last really good movie he ever made. (Also, if you look closely, you can spot Teri Garr as a backing vocalist.)
Director George Sidney said the script took 11 days to write, but this is an Elvis movie (like many) that works through songs and movement, not words. The title track is a classic, of course, but “C’mon Everybody” and Ray Charles’ supercharged version of “What’d I Say” rank among the best musical sequences from any Elvis movie, even if Elvis’ manager Elvis, Col. Tom Parker, complained that Ann-Margret was spending too much screen time.
