Colin Hanks – Memphis Flyer

In the deep recesses of Elvis lore, there is one image that stands out as particularly surreal: Elvis in full 70s regalia shaking hands with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office. As the prologue of Elvis and Nixon reminds us, it is by far the most requested image from the National Archive, more popular than the Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi or the Apollo 17 “Blue Marble” shot. As the image stares at us from the walls of countless dorm rooms and t shirts, it poses the inscrutable question, “What the hell was going on here?”

Elvis and Nixon meet in December, 1970

Director Liza Johnson tries to answer that question with Elvis and Nixon, with mixed success. One of the best choices from her and a trio of screenwriters (Joey Sagal, Hanna Sagal, and Cary Elews of Princess Bride fame) is beginning with the morning meeting where advisors Egil Keogh (Colin Hanks) and Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) try to blithely slip in that the President’s nap time will be curtailed in favor of meeting with Mr. Presley. Kevin Spacey, used to playing a president in House Of Cards, absolutely nails Nixon, all hunched shoulders, quivering jowls, and indignation.

When we meet Elvis (Michael Shannon), he’s restless and irritable, trapped in Graceland’s TV room like a panther in a cage. In this telling, it’s the images of the military flailing around in Southeast Asia and the anti-war movement that drive him to seek an audience with the president. No longer a conduit of youthful rebellion, but an early middle aged, wealthy member of the establishment, he’s disturbed by the direction of the country, and thinks the best way he can help is to become an undercover narc. The alternate theory, long entertained by druggies everywhere, that Elvis, buoyed by the finest formulations from Dr. Nick’s pharmacopeia, was pulling Nixon’s leg, is not entertained here.

Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon star in Elvis and Nixon.

The truth is, the story of this weird picture of two of the most recognizable figures of the twentieth century is pretty thin gruel for a movie. Johnson treats it as a light comedy, which is appropriate, and is at her most interesting when she’s drawing parallels between the isolation and delusions of the President and the King. Both have two henchmen—Elvis’ are Jerry Shilling (Alex Pettyfer) and Sonny West (Johnny Knoxville)—who dictate the exact terms on which anyone can communicate with their boss. The climactic meeting is like watching two silverback gorillas trade dominance displays in the jungle, and it’s pretty fun.

The film’s weak link is Michael Shannon, but it’s not entirely his fault. There have been many attempts to portray Elvis onscreen, with varying degrees of success. For my money, the best was still Kurt Russell in the John Carpenter-directed Elvis TV movie from 1979. Shannon’s not a bad actor, and he gets Elvis’ body language right for the most part. But the voice is all wrong, and the look is just…well, Elvis was one of if not the best looking man of his century and Michael Shannon is not. He suffers especially when put up against Spacey’s uncanny Nixon.

Despite that glaring flaw, Elvis and Nixon is a good view for Memphis audiences and Elvis fans. It’s understatedly, and sometimes surreally, funny, and Johnson has some genuine insights on the isolating nature of fame. But the definitive film document of Elvis remains to be made.

Fargo (Season One) (2014; dirs. Randall Einhorn, Adam Bernstein, Colin Bucksey, Matt Shakman, and Scott Winant)—Last year, HBO’s True Detective introduced millions of TV viewers to the pleasures of well-constructed, stand-alone crime serials and Matthew McConaughey’s drawling, freshman-year gibberish about What It All Means. So if you’re looking to kill some time between now and True Detective’s Season Two premiere this Sunday, might I suggest that you binge-watch FX’s ten-episode riff on one of the most overrated Coen brothers movies? Trust me, it will be worth your while.

I’m a film guy first and foremost, but it’s pretty much indisputable that Fargo the series is visually richer and more imaginative than Fargo the movie. For once, the tight, slick, mostly motionless close-ups that caulk most TV dramas conjure menace and mystery instead of underscoring their bland, plot-driven functionality and expediency. The episode directors can do flashy and tricky, too: there’s a two-minute massacre shot from the exterior of a building that simultaneously recalls Robert Bresson’s sound-over-image primacy and an extended joke in a Droopy Dog cartoon.

But executive producer and head writer Noah Hawley’s debt to recent, much better Coen brothers films like No Country For Old Men, True Grit, Burn After Reading and especially A Serious Man is apparent. Like those films, Hawley’s Fargo cultivates an atmosphere of spiritual exhaustion and existential resignation. The good people in his show also struggle mightily with perhaps the key question of human existence: in a world where crime, violence and general human venality are without measure, what’s the point of trying to fight it?

Although stubborn, resourceful Bemidji police deputy Molly Solverson (the miraculous Alison Tolman) is less concerned with this dilemma than bumbling Duluth police officer Gus Grimley (the seldom-better Colin Hanks), both of them bond over their numerous frightening run-ins with the snakes and predators at large in their respective necks of the woods. Solverson’s chief nemesis is the insurance salesman-turned-murderer Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman, wondrously furtive and unlikeable), while Grimley’s boogeyman is the sadistic, sardonic Anton Chigurgh clone Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton, wondrously terrifying and unstoppable). Realism is shown the door after the first episode, which makes the series’ fabulist elements go down easier and makes the opening-shot assertion that “THIS IS A TRUE STORY” funnier every time it appears.

Most importantly, Hawley’s storytelling and characterization actually dignifies the aw-shirr folks of the upper Midwest instead of setting them up for cheap, you-talk-funny laughs. His dialogue reveals both the heroic stoicism of the expression “Aw, geez” and the hidden poetry of monosyllabic dialogue. (Some examples: “Here it is. You’re screwed”; “I don’t want to die in this way”; “You know what wolves do. They hunt; “God told you not to park here?” ; “You live in the world. What do you think?”) How good is this show, then? So darn good I watched the whole thing straight through twice.

Grade: A