Showing posts with label Empty Mansions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Empty Mansions. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

"Elvis" and The Week in Reviews

[I review the new "Elvis" biopic as well as the movie "Stillwater" and the documentary series "Bad Vegan." The Book of the Week is "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of an American Fortune"]


Elvis (2022)



Director Baz Luhrmann's two hour and 39 minute take on the life of Elvis Presley.

This movie could also have been called "Colonel Parker" or "Colonel Parker and Elvis," because it is as much, if not more, about Colonel Parker as Elvis.  He was Elvis's manager, almost a Svengali, and is the narrator of the film as he tries to prove that he wasn't a crook and didn't abuse Elvis.  

Or the film could have been called "The Baz Luhrmann Show" because Luhrmann throws everything he's got at this long, long film - split screens, animation, film footage, flashbacks, flash forwards, ominous music, and an epilogue of footage of the real Elvis from his early days to the end, in case you weren't paying attention during the first two and a half hours. It's frantic, over-the-top and A LOT! But there is a lot that's good.   

The film follows Elvis from his early days as a boy living in a mostly black neighborhood, attending black tent revivals and being filled with the holy spirit, which Luhrmann attributes to Elvis's wild, hip swinging movements when he performed. And it was Elvis's love of rhythm and blues that popularized him with white folks.  But it was that very same thing that got him in trouble in the segregated South.  The white girls loved Elvis but their white Daddy's did not. They didn't like Elvis the Pelvis singing that devil music. Supposedly Colonel Parker made him join the Army to clean up his image. Was that really true?  Who knows?  

After the army, Elvis's story is fairly well known.  He married Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), they had little Lisa Marie, he became a movie star and then when his star began to fade he had a famous comeback.  You know the one - the black leather Elvis period.  And then there was the residency in Las Vegas, that also according to Luhrmann, is what killed him because Colonel Parker just would not let him stop.  Elvis was Colonel Parker's meal ticket to cancel his debts and allow him to gamble at will.

And it's Parker's story that is probably unfamiliar to the general public.  He was always there with Elvis and guided his career (taking 50% of everything), but he was a shadowy figure.  Here we learn he was an ex-carny who was known as The Snowman because he could "snow" anyone and that's what he sold to Elvis. He was also not a colonel, nor was his name Tom Parker.  He was born Andreas Cornelis (Dries) van Kuijk, was from Holland and his American citizenship was dubious.  Hence the plot line where Elvis wanted to tour abroad but Parker did everything he could be prevent it, probably because he had no passport. Yes, he made Elvis a star, but according to this film he also contributed to Elvis's death. Luhrmann made sure we knew he was a bad guy because whenever Parker was around or made a trenchant statement, ominous music played. 

Tom Hanks chews the proverbial scenery as Parker.  He's all padded and pancaked up and if the make-up team that did what they did to make him look like Parker doesn't get an Oscar nod, I will be surprised. I enjoyed Hanks' performance and I will also be surprised if he doesn't get an Oscar nod as well.

But the real kudos go to Austin Butler who plays Elvis.  

He embodies Elvis at all stages of his career, from the hip-swiveling 50's to his stint in the army to his film roles to his TV specials to his Las Vegas residency to his last bloated appearance.  He is believable at every turn.  He supposedly studied Elvis for two years, read every book about him and watched every movie and special and it paid off.  I thought I was watching Elvis. This guy is going to go far and I see an Oscar in his future as well. 

But speaking of bloated. The unhealthy, aging, drug-addicted Elvis is given less than 30 minutes of this bloated film, and before I go on, let me rant a bit. No movie should be two hours and 39 minutes unless it's "Gone With the Wind," and I am even having second thoughts about that one.  Movies seem to be getting longer and longer and directors more and more long-winded.  They can't seem to edit themselves. Luhrmann could have pulled this film in at two hours and he would have still been able to say what he wanted to say.  And he had a lot to say about the influence of blues and gospel music on Elvis, about racism, segregation, capitalism, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and more. Maybe he tried to say too much.  

Despite my wondering if everything in this film was true about Elvis (I think Luhrmann used some dramatic license here and there), the film, written by Luhrmann, Sam Bromell and Craig Pearce has the blessing of Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley and I see why.  Priscilla is shown in the best possible light and as the real love of Elvis's life. No marital fights and no mention that she was only 14 when they met. Elvis is shown in the best possible light too. There was no mention of Elvis's obsession with Nixon or his really bad eating habits which led to his weight gain and bad health, and his womanizing, shooting up TV screens and drugs are given short shrift. It's Parker who is not portrayed in a good light.  In fact, he is portrayed as the villain. 

Despite some of my reservations, if you loved Elvis and you don't mind really long films, Butler does him proud and the music and performances are wonderful.  The film is also beautiful to look at though at times frantic.

Rosy the Reviewer says...wait, let me catch my breath...I was kind of out of breath after seeing this film because it was A LOT.  It was stylish and beautiful to look at, the kind of epic experience that only Baz Luhrmann can deliver. If you like A LOT and you love Elvis, you will enjoy this. Just don't have too much to drink before you go! It's a loooong movie! (In theatres)


Stillwater (2021)


An Oklahoma father moves to France to try to help his imprisoned daughter.

Matt Damon is Everyman because he can play every man.  Here he plays Bill Baker, a sometime oil worker, a sometime construction worker, a sometime handyman from Stillwater, Oklahoma.  He has had a tough past with drinking and drugs and has been estranged from his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), but now he's clean and he wants to help her.  She is in prison in France for murdering her girlfriend but claims she didn't do it.  She also says she has new evidence that will clear her if only her lawyer would reopen her case. Supposedly there is prison gossip that a guy named Akim did it, so Bill travels to Marseilles to talk to her lawyer. When her lawyer says she can't help, Bill takes the case into his own hands.

Bill is a religious good old boy who not only doesn't speak French, he doesn't have much concept of European culture. The first thing he does when he gets to Marseilles is get a Subway sandwich to eat in his Best Western hotel room. But he's a good guy who fortunately meets Virginie (Camille Cottin) and her precocious young daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), who help him navigate Marseille and the French legal system.  And let's just say, Marseille isn't a charming French village.  It has its rough edges and there are people who don't like nosy Americans asking about a guy named Akim.

And then there is the whole murky issue of Allison's guilt or innocence that hangs over the film.  Did she do it?

Written by Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Noe Debre and Thomas Bidegain and directed by McCarthy (who also directed the Oscar winning "Spotlight"), one can't help but draw a comparison here to Amanda Knox, the American girl studying in Italy, who was convicted of killing her roommate, despite her protestations of innocence. 

But there is more to this film than the guilt or innocence of Bill's daughter.  This is also a story of family relationships, a clash of cultures including those within France itself, a fish out of water, and second chances with some vigilantism thrown in. Bill may be from Stillwater, Oklahoma, but "still waters run deep."  Get it?  With that said, perhaps this film tried to do too much, and as the film wrapped up, there were several unbelievable plot twists that left me saying "Huh?"

But Matt Damon's performance saves the day.  He is one of those actors who is believable no matter what he plays.  He can play an astronaut marooned on Mars ("The Martian"), a zookeeper ("We Bought a Zoo") or an ex-CIA assassin on the run (the Bourne series) and you believe him.  French Actress Cottin is also believable.  You may recognize her from "Killing Eve" and "House of Gucci." And Abigail Breslin is all grown up.  I didn't recognize her at first but she has matured into a fine actress, though she doesn't have very much to do here.

Rosy the Reviewer says...though there are a few "Huh?" moments, all-in-all this is a satisfying, though perhaps overlong, film experience thanks to the wonderful performance by Damon.
(On DVD, Showtime, and for rent on most platforms)
 


Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives (2022)


A successful NYC vegan restauranteur meets a guy who says he can make her dog immortal and then everything goes to hell.

Sarma Melngailis seemingly had it all.  She was beautiful, smart and had a popular New York City vegan restaurant called "Pure Food and Wine."  Celebrities like Alec Baldwin were regulars and he actually met his wife, Hilaria, there (after actually flirting a bit with Sarma). Both Forbes and New York Magazine named it one of the top restaurants in New York City.  Everything was going along smoothly until Anthony Strangis AKA Shane Fox slid into Sarma's DM's.  

Anthony or Shane was a con man and gambler who used elaborate mind games on Sarma and convinced her that he could make them both immortal, including her beloved dog, Leon. She just had to believe him. So she married the guy, they stole money from her own restaurant and went on the run. You can't make this stuff up, people.  

As crazy as all of this sounds, director Chris Smith (who also brought us "Tiger King") does a good job of telling this story, how someone as smart as Sarma could be lured into the nutty world Anthony created. This four-part docuseries follows Sarma through her meeting Anthony or Shane or whomever he was, marrying him, embezzling money from her own restaurant, ($1.6 million) and going on the run, leaving the restaurant and her employees high and dry.  The story is told through a series of interviews with past employees, investors and celebrities. 

Sarma herself cooperated with this docuseries and tells her story without the help of Anthony, who wasn't happy about it. She claims it was all him, he brainwashed her and just wore her out so much she couldn't think. Turns out, in the end, Sarma wasn't happy with the docuseries either.  Check out how it ends. You will have to decide just how culpable she was.

Rosy the Reviewer says...this series shows that reality really is so much stranger than fiction and why it's so much fun. And here's the most fun part. The two were eventually caught after using a credit card to buy a pizza from Dominoes! I wonder if it was vegan!
(Netflix)


***The Book of the Week***


Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of an American Fortune by Bill Dedman


Who was Huguette Clark and why did she have so many empty mansions?

F. Scott Fitzgerald said "...the very rich...are different from you and me."  You got that right, F. Scott.  They have more money.  Though actually, I don't think they are that different. They just have enough money to allow themselves to give into their personal craziness.

And here is just such a story.

This is the fascinating story of Huguette Clark, a woman who inherited millions of dollars when her father W.A. Clark died.  It's strange that W.A. Clark is unknown today because in his day he was probably richer than Rockefeller.  During the late 1800s, he was one of the "Copper Kings."  He was also a politician, was involved in banking and railroads and was one of the founders of Las Vegas.  He built a "palace" in New York City, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Seventh, right in the middle of Millionaire's Row, "up the avenue from Vanderbilt and Astor, down from Carnegie. By the time it was finished in 1911,...it was 'without doubt the most costly and, perhaps, the most beautiful private residence in America" and was estimated to have cost the equivalent of $250 million in today's dollars. It was nine stories high and consisted of 121 rooms - 26 bedrooms, 31 bathrooms, five art galleries, a Turkish bath, swimming pool, a storage room for furs and more, with 17 servants in attendance and that is where Huguette lived from the age of five to eighteen. Yes, the very rich are different from you and me.

Huguette was one of two daughters that Clark had later in life when he married his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle.  He was 62 and she was 23. The first daughter, Andree, died at 17 of meningitis, leaving Huguette as the only child of that marriage. 

  

Huguette spent her early years in France but eventually moved to New York and after a marriage and divorce and inheriting millions when her father died, became a recluse, collecting dolls, watching "The Smurfs," and spending the most of her later years in a hospital, even though she wasn't sick. Why?

Despite owning estates in New Canaan, Connecticut ("Le Beau Chateau") and Santa Barbara ("Bellosguardo" which will soon be open to the public) and several floors in an apartment building on Fifth Avenue in New York, in later life, Huguette never lived in any of them, though she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain those residences as if she would return at any moment. But she never did. They remained empty. Why?

Huguette lived to be 105 and left $300 million and two wills, one that shared her fortune among relatives, the second left most of it to charity, but $30 million to her nurse and $12 million to her goddaughter.  Mmmm.  Needless to say, the second will was contested. Was she coerced by those closest to her at the end to change her will?

With the help of one of Huguette's cousins, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few people to be in contact with Huguette through the years, Dedman attempts to answer those questions and shed light on this very rich and eccentric but practically unknown heiress. But this is not just the story of Huguette. It's also the stories of her father, W.A. Clark, her mother, those who surrounded her...and those empty mansions.  It's a piece of little known history.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you are interested in The Gilded Age, enjoy historical biographies about eccentric people with architecture as a theme or you just like a fascinating story, this is for you.  And it's not surprising that the film version of this book has been optioned by Ryan Murphy!
(Check it out from your local library)

Thanks for reading!

See you again soon!

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