Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, hello everybody and welcome back. Wow. We are going to be wrapping up this weekend with a surprise. Now, <laugh>, if you caught my last couple episodes for the movies that came out this weekend, you've noticed how they have been less than what we were promised in the trailers, and I am very excited to tell you that we are going to end the weekend on a high note. So happy Sunday. I hope that you are having a glorious day and just having a lot of fun, spend the day making memories and do all sorts. And you know what, maybe you could even include this movie as part of those memories because there was just something special here, <laugh>, that you were probably wondering, oh, what movie I'm talking about. But first, if this is your first time listening in, you're probably wondering who this is.
Speaker 0 00:00:53 Well, I'm the deputy of movie Deputy Podcasts <laugh>, and I have been the deputy of movie deputy for just shy of nine and a half years. Wow. It's been that long. Wow. <laugh>. But I absolutely love what I do. I eat, sleep and breathe movies, the good, bad, and the ones that ended up somewhere in between. And I am excited. I'm actually gonna tell you the score before I even tell you the movie. I gave this movie a 7.5 out of 10 on the deputy scale, and you all know how harsh I can be on my rating system. So the fact that I went to a 7.5 on this really says a lot. And what else says a lot is I wasn't even part of this generation that really kind of got caught up in all of this. Now, you know, that might have been a little bit of a hint for what movie we're talking about.
Speaker 0 00:01:44 As I did mention this one, I don't remember if this one just came out this week or last week, but I know I mentioned this in one of my upcoming movies episodes. And honestly, I mentioned it more of just as a footnote, just 'cause I didn't, I didn't expect much of it to be honest. I mean, like I said, I've never really been a fan, so I came into it with very low expectations and was really surprised. I love it when that happens because sometimes I'll set up high expectations for a movie and then be so disappointed. And then there's so many times I walk into a low expectation movie and it ends up being worse than what my expectations were. And I'm like, okay, I wasn't expecting much and it did me get close to that. But this one, I came into this with such low expectations and it just really blew me away.
Speaker 0 00:02:30 I was like, wow. And so I'd spend a little bit of time looking some information now that I'm actually gonna be sharing some of that with you as well. So <laugh>, you're, I'm finally gonna get around to tell you what movie this was, and you're probably wondering guilty or innocent, believe it or not, I'm giving this one innocent rating. I don't know how many kids would be interested in this one, but there definitely wasn't anything that wasn't kid appropriate in the movie. So I am definitely giving this an innocent rating. And who knows, it may be an opening a door
Speaker 1 00:02:59 For you to share this with your kids, grandkids. Who knows? Maybe you're a fan, maybe you're, you've never been a fan, but who knows, you might wanna check this out. And best yet, it's free because, oh, okay. That, I guess Paramount Plus does have a subscription, but I know they have like a free trial thing too. But if you have Paramount Plus, this is complete. This is one of the ones that's available to watch on there. This actually is a Paramount Plus exclusive. So I don't know if that gives you any more hint. Yes. I'm finally gonna get around to tell you what it is. If you've ever been a fan of Elvis Presley at any point in his career, you're gonna wanna check this out because this movie is called Reinventing Elvis, the 68 Comeback. Now the whole thing is roughly centered around a 1968 Christmas special that he did, which really wasn't a Christmas special.
Speaker 1 00:03:52 It was more of the very first episode of M T V Unplugged. And it's also kind of interesting because M t V is the primary producer of this movie and the fact that they really did this justice, uh, the, the whole thing with the Christmas special is it wasn't really a Christmas special. Like I said, it was more an the one of the first episodes of M T V Unplugged because it was just Elvis being Elvis and that that's not the, just what this story focuses on. This story really kind of delves into his life outside of the making of this crystal special and his life as everything happened with his career from the beginning on up. And it didn't really touch on the whole end of his life a whole lot. It didn't really go into anything past 1968. It touched a little bit on the whole J f K thing and things like that a little bit and some of the historical stuff that was going on in the time.
Speaker 1 00:04:46 But, and believe it or not, amazingly enough, it's not woke. I think that was the biggest surprise to me because I'm like, okay, how, how are they going to find a way to work all of this in and all of this, so much of what they were trying to do, it's like, I'm thinking there's no way they're gonna put all this in this movie and do it. Well, like I said, I was really surprised. It does kind of focus a little bit on his relationship with the Colonel. Like I said, if you've ever followed Elvis's career, you know who the colonel is. And if not, I'm just gonna kind of give you a quick explanation. He was basically Elvis's manager. There were some things with his life that just, he was basically a bully. I mean, he, he got it. He opened a lot of doors for Elvis, but he also kept his thumb on top of Elvis and nothing happened without his approval.
Speaker 1 00:05:38 And honestly, he was a bit of an ass, forgive my language, <laugh> on that, but let's just say, I mean, just even the way the movie described him, I think that's actually a compliment to this guy. It was he, as bad as it was portrayed in this, I don't know. I really don't. I mean, this was before my time. I mean, Elvis died when I was three years old. So yeah, I'm old <laugh> and I've, like I said, I've never really been a fan of his music, but I do know that he was basically the father of rock and roll, and this movie refers to him as the godfather of rock and roll. And <laugh> just kind of played out in his, like I said, his whole career. This just, I know I just keep coming back to that, but I, this just, this touched on everything, the movies that he did and his military career and how he was discovered and what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1 00:06:28 And his, it briefly touched on his marriage to Priscilla. And then when Lisa Maria was born, it didn't touch a whole lot on that. And we don't really see them much in the movie except for some still shots and some photos. So that's not really the focus of this. Like I said, the focus was the 68 Christmas special, but like, but like I said, it wasn't a Christmas special. The funny thing was, is the Colonel would not allow it to be aired without a Christmas song. They actually took the Christmas song from another show that he had done and inserted it to this to technically make it a Christmas special. And it was his recording of Blue Christmas. And that is probably one of my favorite like Christmas songs that just kind of tugs on your heartstrings a little bit. So if you haven't heard that, please be sure to look it up on YouTube or anything.
Speaker 1 00:07:15 But the Elvis' version of Blue Christmas, and it really is a touching song, but like I said, this just his career had been big in the fifties and early sixties, but it was waning already in the early sixties. And he was just kind of looked at his old hat. So many things had happened in the sixties and he was getting older and people didn't really think of him the way that they used to think of him in that, except he was getting older and his voice was maturing, so he didn't necessarily sound the same. And he truly went from a cultural icon to being absolutely irrelevant or ir ire irrelevant. I can't talk <laugh>, but basically, um, he was almost forgotten except for the fact of these really cheesy movies that he was doing. And honestly, they were all bad. There was not <laugh>, I'm not saying the movie as a whole is a bad, but he didn't really ever get a chance to open up and show what he was capable of.
Speaker 1 00:08:15 There was one movie that kind of gave him a little bit of a chance to, to kinda explore his acting talent, but at the same time it was squashed because that wasn't the focus. And then you've got The Beatles coming out, and you've got the Vietnam War, and you've got the death of J F K, and you've got Malcolm X and you've got the death of Martin Luther King, and you've got all of this that is foreshadowing everything with his career. And I'm not saying that Elvis's career was more important than any of those historical moments. No, not in the least, just because of everything happening. He just kind of slipped into the category of like, oh, it's just that, and this Christmas special, his, the colonel actually controlled all the tickets for this. And it, it's kind of a funny story that's shared in this.
Speaker 1 00:09:01 I I honestly would not classify this as a spoiler because it's, it's an interesting point in this documentary and to really understand that you need to watch this documentary and, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like a documentary. You feel like you're entertained. You feel like the king is singing directly to you. And I have never been an Elvis fan. There's been a few of his songs I've liked, like Blue Christmas and a few of the other ones. And when I was a kid, I used to think that his whole like snarling of the lip was kind of cool. And so I actually trained myself to do that. So I'm debating whether or not I should put that picture out there or not, or just take a picture of me just kind of doing the whole lip snarl thing. And just because <laugh>, it kind of looks cool and it's silly, but <laugh>, it's this hi.
Speaker 1 00:09:45 What he did for the music industry is it was basically the big bang of the music industry back in the day. And that was just so unheard of. And even Elvis' own mom, Gladys, she said, the colonel, he's the devil himself, just this guy, he just controlled so much of Elvis and he just controlled so much of everything. But the story that I wanna share from this is this like 68 Christmas special. The colonel was controlling all the tickets. And so when it was time, they were all, they were like, nobody's showing up. They were expecting these huge lines. The studio had put extra security out. They were everything they were expecting. People lined up for blocks to get to see Elvis Presley live, and nobody was there. Like literally nobody <laugh>, if you can even imagine. So these studio employees and everybody, they're like, get your wives, get your daughters, get your sisters, get your moms, get 'em all here, bring 'em here.
Speaker 1 00:10:39 They reached out to local radio stations and DJs and said, Hey, if you guys wanna come see Elvis for free, you come here. Just this, this is the day of. So you can imagine the chaos that's going on with this. And it was quite comical. I mean, it wasn't funny at the time, but it was quite comical. So all these people show up and they look, they get like, they get to sit like within feet of the king. I mean, <laugh>, even the bad seats were like just 10, 12 feet from him. And he was just completely surrounded with all of these fans. And some of these fans that even came, didn't even tell their friends and loved ones where they were going, because being a fan of Elvis kind of became a little bit of a joke. It's like, oh, you still like his music <laugh>?
Speaker 1 00:11:23 It's like, oh, you're outta touch. That's not the cool stuff anymore, <laugh>. It's just, as you can tell, I had a lot of fun watching this. This just, it really blew me away. And it had interviews and talks to so many different people during this, but the focus is the, it is the focus is Elvis. It really is. And like I said, I looked up some stuff on this and just knowing how well he did in this 68 performance just really blew me away. I learned that, that he had actually suffered a life altering traumatic brain injury in 1967, so before this. And that alone had changed him and caused a lot of health problems from there forward. I guess we know historically it's like all the deaths of those icons. And then in 69 we went to the moon. That's just, wow. And it's hard to believe just, I mean, nine years after this was made and Elvis dying alone in his bathroom, and I won't go into the details on that, but it's just so much that he shaped with his music and he didn't just shape it for, I mean, the generation then, it's like the impact of his music is still touching generations today and is touching artists today.
Speaker 1 00:12:39 His was a mix of country and gospel and soul music. And what's really sad, and the movie doesn't even touch on this, which I was really surprised, but he was basically doing black music back then <laugh>, and that's what a lot of people thought. But if, if you took hi, the, like, if we had never had, if we'd never been introduced to rock and roll and then we had come this far with society and we were in today's day and age, and if Elvis came out with this kind of music, he would be canceled today. It would be cultural appropriation or it would be just something else. But he was it, this, it was controversial back then, but it was controversial for different reasons. Uh, he was appreciated for the fact that he was busting down these stereotypes and he was going across all these different genres of music.
Speaker 1 00:13:33 And he had such a wide variety of fans and of listeners, his music is timeless. I mean, some of the stuff is just plain corny, but we can say that about even musicians today. I mean, they have hits and they have misses <laugh> and that that was even the same for him. There was a time in history where people hung Elvis effigies, yes, I'm completely serious. There was such a boycott to his music because he was so controversial at the time that people hung Elvis effigies in some parts of the country. Now I'm not even exaggerating that. Feel free to look it up. I mean, the information's out there, and I just was like, wow, I had no idea. It's like I knew he had just been like really huge in his day. And then, okay, my, my father-in-law is a big fan of his, and I think my dad was a big fan of his and my grandparents.
Speaker 1 00:14:24 I mean, just, they were like, okay, it's decent music. And I always kind of thought it's his music of aiming more like the boomer generation, just that kind of generation type thing. And okay, I'm barely outta that myself. I'm Gen X. There's just like, I never looked at his story as even being remotely relatable. It was like, okay, he's an old time musician. He did this back in the day, big deal. But it was a big deal. And yes, I realize how long this review is going, but there, like I said, there was just something about this. If you've never been a big fan of Elvis Presley, watch this. If you have been a big fan of Elvis Presley, watch this. If you know somebody who's ever been a big fan of Elvis Presley, watch this. It's not, I can't go so far as to say it's a must see, but there, but there's something special here that if you've ever loved music, any genre of music along the way, you will appreciate this movie.
Speaker 1 00:15:23 So <laugh>, I don't know what else I can say on that. I know that, like I said, I've never really been a big fan of his, and after watching this, I can say that I would actually consider myself an Elvis fan. I'm not gonna be like a super fan. I don't think I have, I'm, I don't think I'm a super fan of any artist, but <laugh> just, oh, I might be a super fan of movie deputy, but I'm a little biased on that <laugh>. But like I said, this one just, it was something special because it wasn't just one thing. This isn't just one person's perspective. This isn't just one person's take on this. This takes a bunch of different people, a bunch of different perspectives and a bunch of different stories of his life and just how this all came together. Like I said, it focuses on the 68 comeback special, but that's not all that it's about because the, the real focus is reinventing Elvis.
Speaker 1 00:16:19 And the thing is, they didn't just reinvent it for 1968. They reinvented it for this generation too. Like I said, take a risk, take a chance, check it out. I, I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I am pretty certain. So I hope that this leaves you on a high note. Like I said, maybe you can spend part of the day sharing and watching this with somebody, you know. But overall, I just hope you have fun. I hope you make lots of memories, and I will be back tomorrow with some more movies for you. Bye-bye.
