REVIEW: Elvis and The Offer

These reviews were originally intended for June 30, 2022, but were never published. I am posting them now though may later re-date them to place them in the proper chronology of the website.

Elvis

In Elvis, actor Austin Butler amazingly lives up to the bigger-than-life image of the legendary singer, uncannily capturing (or rather channeling) his electric stage presence and charisma down to the body movement, facial expressions and even his hand gestures, while also making him feel human. The film and Butler manage to strip away the campiness of the impersonators that have clouded the way the singer is perceived in our collective memory, and given us an Elvis who feels alive and vital. He’s ably supported, of course, by Luhrmann’s bravura filmmaking style that suits the subject.

Much of the film is told through the lens of a transparently unreliable and self-serving narrator—his notorious manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks. No, you don’t really quite forget that it’s Hanks beneath the prosthetics, but he gives a solid, sly performance, showing again his willingness to stretch as an actor.

This isn’t a “greatest hits” of Elvis’s life (there’s no meeting with Nixon and his film career is very quickly glossed over)—instead, the story’s arc focuses on the singer’s complex personal and business relationship with Parker, his parents, and the demons that led him to his drug dependence, as well as the tension between Parker’s commercial exploitation of the singer and Elvis’s desire to be true to his his roots and ambitions.

The film also leans hard into acknowledging the Black singers and musicians who Elvis emulated or appropriated, depending on who talk to (the film clearly falls into the former camp), name checking and portraying many of these artists during the film.

Most importantly, the film doesn’t skimp on the music and some of Presley’s most memorable iconic performances, which feel fresh and exuberant, showing modern day audiences what made the singer so revolutionary and electric. It’s an engaging and energetic piece of filmmaking, worth it even solely on Butler's performance.

The Offer
Since its release, the Offer, a 10-part limited series about the making of The Godfather film, has received mixed to lukewarm reviews. Now having seen it, I’m not sure why—I thought it was terrific and entertaining. It’s a rich, well told ensemble piece with great production values, solid writing, complex characters, and great performances.

The story is about the intersection of art and big business—and, of course, organized crime. Miles Teller plays producer Al Ruddy who, after making his mark creating and successfully getting to air the tv show Hogan’s Heroes, gets a job after cornering Evans. After Evans gets the rights to The Godfather, not thinking the film to be particularly high profile or big budget at the time, he throws it into Ruddy’s lap. (Ruddy lied about having read the novel.)

While the story is primarily told from the vantage point of Ruddy and his efforts behind the scenes to give director Francis Ford Coppola the resources and space to fulfill his vision for the movie while insulating him from studio meddling and politics (as well as the mob), it doesn’t feel particularly self-serving—in fact, the story is generous in giving arcs to the many people who were involved in the production, particularly legendary producer Robert Evans and Ruddy’s assistant Bettye McCartt who later became a legendary Hollywood agent. The story encompasses several “heavies,” including Paramount executives Charles Bluhdorn (known in his day as “the Mad Austrian of Wall Street”) and Barry Lapidus—the latter being a composite of Parmount bean counters (played by the always solid Colin Hanks), as well as the real-life mobsters who initially tried to stop the film fearing it would slander and insult Italian Americans—the sole exception being mobster Joe Gallo, who apparently was too irredeemable and too much of a psychopath for even his mob bosses to stomach. 

The series captures the chaos (and politics) of mounting a Hollywood film—after bringing a girl he’s trying to impress to set who is unclear what role a producer plays, she later observes that he’s a problem-solver. And indeed he is, often putting out fires unbeknownst to his director or the studio, which also includes having to deal with and become cozy with—for better or worse—mobsters like Joseph Colombo and others in the criminal underworld.

But the story doesn’t skimp on some great story arcs which lead to great performances—for example, Juno Temple’s McCartt is not only Ruddy’s Girl Friday but in many ways the brains of the outfit who shows brilliance in navigating the politics and eccentricities of Hollywood, which Ruddy comes to quickly recognize and depend on. Dan Fogler, who I’d always thought of as a poor man’s Josh Gad, is terrific as Coppola. Even some of the actors from the film are portrayed in the series, such as James Caan, with Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as characters relatively prominent in the series. (Evans’ relationship with Ali McGraw is also pivotal.)

And while Teller admirably anchors the show, for my money, actor Matthew Goode steals every scene he’s in as the bigger-than-life Robert Evans, with Burn Gorman as Paramount head Bluhdorn coming a close second. While I’ve always been a fan of Goode, he’s got a role to sink his teeth into and takes full advantage of it. Like the real-life Evans, he is, by turn, threatening, charming, vulnerable and very much a character, as he was in real life. It’s one of those performances that are a joy to watch. But there are also genuine revealing character moments and turn of character that give the story an emotional punch—and not just of Evans, but virtually everyone in this ensemble piece, even the suits at Gulf and Western.

Anyway, it’s a great series, entertainingly told—given the nature to some of the comments, the story might have been better served had it opened with the quote from Evans about memory: “There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.”