![]() ![]() Three years before the debut of The Ben Stiller Show, Mr. The peculiar encounter spawned this amusing 1997 Showtime original movie, with Shawshank Redemption’s Bob Gunton as Nixon and Rick Peters as Elvis another dramatization of the event, directed by Cary Elwes, is currently in development. To do so, he scribbled a note to President Nixon, offering up his services as an undercover agent Nixon took a meeting with the King and got him the badge (seemingly unaware of what kind of substances were regularly working their way through Presley’s system). One of the oddest stories from the King’s later years concerns his spontaneous 1970 trip to Washington, DC, which Presley - obsessed with acquiring badges from the full spectrum of law enforcement agencies - made primarily to get his hands on a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It’s a movie “so bad in so many different and endearing ways that I’m damned if I don’t feel genuine affection for it,” Roger Ebert wrote, while noting that the bedside scenes between Presley and our hero’s little sister “are hard to watch with a straight face, especially if you’ve read Albert Goldman’s muckraking biography Elvis, with its revelations about the King’s taste in pubescent girls.” Columbus concocts the tale of a rock-and-rolling high school kid who conspires, circa 1972, to kidnap Elvis in order to cheer up his Presley-loving Mom - and wouldn’t ya know it, Elvis ends up taking a shine to the whole darn family. The Identical, and much of its ilk, fall into the bizarre realm of filmed Elvis fan-fiction, but the newest addition to that particular canon can’t hold a candle to this utterly bizarre 1988 comedy/drama from writer/director Chris Columbus (two years away from Home Alone). In other words, what if Elvis’ twin brother had lived, and then became an Elvis impersonator, and no one put two and two together? Based on The Identical’s reviews thus far, it’d result in a “ syrupy Christian-themed melodrama” that’s “ a folly largely unworthy of its hidden idol.” But both are played by Blake Rayne, an Elvis impersonator and spitting image of the King, and the character of Wade is, coincidentally enough, a professional Hemsley impersonator. First-time director Dustin Marcellino’s film isn’t technically about Elvis: it concerns Drexel “The Dream” Hemsley and his separated-at-birth twin Ryan Wade. This week’s entry into the bizarre Elvis-ish movie sweepstakes focuses (as several earlier works of Presley-esque fiction have) on his stillborn identical twin brother. It’s called The Identical, and it is kinda sorta weirdly about Elvis, except not! There’s a long tradition of this sort of thing - few pop culture figures have inspired more cinematic hypotheticals, dramatizations, and all-out fictions. Into the barren wasteland of late August and early September comes this week’s sole new wide movie release, and you’re forgiven for knowing nothing about it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |