Maxed Elvis Standing!
It’s a meetings-and-deadlines shit show at work for the next few days, so it’s bite-sized content until I can get my breath, but until then…
Maxed Out doesn’t break much ground as far as the documentary format goes, but it did make me want to cut up all my credit cards.It’s a solid 90 minutes, shocking in parts and snarky in others, and it got good reviews; give it a look.
I went through a sordid-Elvis-bio reading phase back in high school, and I’m ashamed to say that, like a bad penny, it’s turned up again.I just power-re-read the Guralnick books, and I could sit here and tell you that the insights into Elvis’s music amazed and delighted at every turn, but I would be lying; I want more dirt.Not that the Guralnick books suck or anything; just the opposite — the fact that he relies mostly on his sources to talk about Elvis’s ridiculous, avoidable decline, his way of standing back from the egregiousness of it and not really speaking strongly to it, makes it stand out even more starkly.And it’s just so sad, when he crosses over into that land where reality — regular people, regular hours, the satisfaction of simple things — is inaccessible to him, and you know what’s going to happen.Guralnick is very good at not juicing that up at all.
But I do want some juice, so if anyone can recommend…let’s speak plainly: sleazy Elvis bios.I want dish.I want autopsy reports.I am not proud of this but it is what it is.I already read Priscilla’s book, and the Goldman book: what else you got?
Also not proud of still watching Last Comic Standing, but someone’s got to do it, and it repaid my loyalty by ejecting Dante last week.Sweet!I mean, good luck to him, but after the Nicholson impersonation, dude had to go.
Tags: books movies music TV
Every time I think about my finance charges, I want to vomit. I’ll definitely add Maxed Out to my Netflix.
If Doug Benson does not win this season of Last Comic Standing, then God must have drowned in the tub. Just looking at his face makes me giggle. I’ve already gotten tired of the comics with no depth to their repertoire– Lavell is fat and can’t breathe, Matt is a fetus, blah blah blah. Get some new material. Also, someone please tell Deb to stop smiling like that. It scares me.
Sars–check out “Elvis: What Happened?” by Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler, as told to…wait for it…Steve Dunleavy. Published a month before Elvis’s death, after Elvis had fired the Wests and Hebler. I haven’t read it in years, but I remember it being pretty sensational. It’s out of print but readily available used.
Not proud of watching this either, but … I loved Doug Benson’s “Who do I want to be voted off? I CANTE answer that.” Very stupid, but very awesome. That guy has a good delivery style of making kind of stupid comments sound like they’re funny.
And, at least my faith in “America’s” taste was confirmed when lame Dante and lame that-British-woman had lame acts that seemed like bizarre not trying so hard when the stakes were so high for a contest comprised of THE BEST COMICS IN THE WORLD!!!. Dante seemed waaaay too proud of his bizarre “punchline” to his daughter’s …what, reporting his wife’s infidelity? … Whatever his thing was with the weird lispy pronunciation of “Daddy”, then dropping the mic and walking off like a badass.
Hmm. Whatever, Cante.
It’s not a book, but from memory the “E! True Hollywood Story Last Days of Elvis” is two hours of sensationalism and is bound to pop up on rotation as we approach August 16. The Guralnick books were depressing enough for me.
I’m loving the Benson also. I thought he’d bug me at the beginning, but he’s awesome.
Soylent: mmm, sensationalism. Thanks for the rec!
Anyone planning to watch the Elvis-a-thon on AMC on the 16th?
I don’t watch LCS, but I think Nicholson impersonations — any Nicholson impersonation, whether “good” or bad — should be rewarded with a swift clop in the chops of the impersonator. Second offenders, I’d pretty much like to see shot where they stand.
I would recommend “Elvis: What Happened?” as well. In fact, I may have to re-read it myself. I’ll probably be watching the marathon, too…my Elvis love knows no bounds (need proof? I’ve seen the made for TV biopic “Elvis & The Beauty Queen”–starring Don Johnson–way too many times.)
If you’re not too concerned about fair and balanced, the editorial review of this book uses the words “lurid” and “detailed”, and frankly the title and cover alone make me want to hole up in a closet with the damn thing and tell people I’m studying at the library for a while.
http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Elvis-Psychological-Biography-Presley/
dp/0786882484/ref=sr_1_4/102-1982161-8581717?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid
=1186612171&sr=1-4
Well, I share the shame of watching LCS. I actually didn’t feel too bad about it. Until tonight. Jesus Christ, the medieval thing was painful. At least they kept the right person in at the end. I’m a big Doug fan, too. I think because I’m already familiar with him (from VH1) and he has such odd timing. I start laughing before he even speaks.
Sorry, but I can’t help on the Elvis issue.
Sars,
I’m gonna join the chorus here-read “Elvis:What Happened?”. Above all, you owe it to yourself to read the chapter on Scatter, Elvis’ beloved (and completely out-of-control) chimpanzee. Yep.
There’s so much crap-reality TV on Wednesdays, I have to tape LCS to make sure I get my Benson fix. I’m still giggling about the segueways he was working on last season.
LibraryJournal.com has a list from 8/13/2007 called “Reading Graceland.” Don’t know anything about Elvis books myself and the list isn’t annotated, but at least this gives you some more titles to check out. It actually includes Guralnick’s titles. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6468350.html
Hey, here’s something wierd.
My habits regarding credit-card spending (to wit: don’t) were formed at an early age when I “Mission: Earth” by L. Ron Hubbard.
No, seriously.
See, for some reason I was reading this when I was about ten years old, so of course all the social satire went right over my head, and I read it dead flat straight-on. And there’s a sequence where the main character finds himself in debt to every credit-card company on Earth, and they nurn his house down, chase him across the entire city of New York, and it ends with him faking his own death and fleeing the country.
As I said: I’d been taking this whole series completely seriously. And, for some reason, every time after that, whenever I thought of using a credit card, I thought of an angry mob burning my house down and chasing me off the end of a pier.
Thanks, L. Ron Hubbard! For the “saving me from a life of debt” thing, that is. Not so much for the “starting a crazy brainwashing cult” thing.