Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Lawbolisted Powerful

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Antonio Nimertis ...and not 'Nixon and Elvis' or something like that. Let's keep this in mind... and let us not hurry to express strong protest about Michael Shannon: But this man is not Elvis! He is not talking like him, he is not walking like him, he is not even singing! If we want to find the ideal Elvis, one ride in Vegas is enough to have a dozen. Here we have the man behind the fringe, and the sideburns. The man with the divine voice and southern gentle accent flooded with hyper-patriotic feelings and worries! 1970 expires and Elvis watches television from his luxurious mansion and resents! These Communists will eventually f... everything up! And drugs have been rotting the minds of young people! Go crap! Something we must do. Rather, something I have to do myself! Country is in desperate need! And I, the King will offer my service! But who should I contact? The King cannot be conversing with the inferiors. The King should come into contact with the Boss... and where is the Boss? In the White House of course! But will the President accept me? Will he be available for me? Silly question... For a moment I forgot that I am the King... and who can deny anything to a crowned?

Bill Slocum When the surviving Three-atles got together for a 16-minute conversation featured in The Beatles Anthology in 1995, they spent much of the time talking about another icon: Elvis. Like which of them met him last (George) and what he was like.So it figures that when Elvis himself met another icon, Richard Nixon, in the Oval Office in December 1970, they wound up talking about the Beatles, finding common ground on how much the two men disliked them."They may not actually be in the employ of the Communists, but if encouraging revolution doesn't sound like subversive behavior, I don't know what is," the King (Michael Shannon) tells a nodding 37 (Kevin Spacey).Whether this was the actual spark that transformed a trivial historical footnote into the stuff of legend is hard to say. But director Liza Johnson and the writers do what they can to make sure the viewer is amused and engaged.Two things lift this film out of its curious anecdotal substance: Sharp editing by Michael Taylor and Sabine Hoffman that pops off the screen with the help of a fine vintage Memphis-soul-infused score; and Shannon's solid performance as "E."It's true he doesn't look the part, or sound that much like Presley, but Shannon grounds his performance in Elvis's well-known sensitivity. He knows he's a star and will get the big treatment wherever he goes, and you can see he's uncomfortable with that, as well as the responsibility of being gracious to the people he meets even when they are acting like idiots. He may not remember this moment, but he knows they will, and wants to do right by them."When I walk into a room, everybody remembers their first kiss with one of my songs playing in the background," Elvis explains, in between dabbing his eye sockets with Preparation H to conceal the bags. "But they never see me."Spacey is more of a caricature, but a good one. He's not the subject but the object of the piece, and plays his few scenes for comedy and some surprising moments of empathy. For all his bigness, it appears Nixon is a little star-struck, too."Elvis & Nixon" is a deliberately minor effort, weighing in at well under 90 minutes. It features some tangents about one of the people behind that meeting, future manager Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), and his anxieties about meeting his prospective parents-in-law, which feels belabored and concocted in the direction of serving Schilling's ego. (He was a producer of this project.)In the end, though, the takeaway I got from this was pleasure, particularly a final section where Elvis and Nixon finally meet, and discuss the miracle that is America for both of them. It reminds me of the HBO films they used to make in the 1990s, before it became about big ratings and "Game Of Thrones" and the idea was to give a platform to a film that wasn't likely to draw big box-office. I just hope Amazon keeps it up with this kind of original programming. "Elvis & Nixon" is a promising start.

lavatch On December 21, 1970, an improbable meeting occurred in the Oval Office of the White House. Elvis Presley, the "King" of rock-and-roll met the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. It was Elvis himself who instigated the meeting for what appears to be the sincere purpose of assisting the government on the war on drugs. The outlandish request of the pop singer was to be made an "agent-at-large" for the investigation of drug abuse, wherein the singer would go undercover in the interests of justice. Astonishingly, Nixon and the White House staff went along with Presley's request in return for a signed photo for Nixon's daughter Julie, as well as a promotional photo with Elvis shaking hands with Nixon that was released at a later time. According to the film, the photo of Nixon and Elvis is the most requested photograph in the National Archives.Ironically, at the time of the White House visit, Elvis was already under the influence of drugs that would eventually take his life in 1977. One of the flaws of the film is that it was not made clear that Elvis was a drug user at the time. One need only to look at the Nixon-Presley photo and focus on Elvis's eyes to see that he was on the way to becoming a junkie.Despite its shortcomings, the film was light entertainment that included two good performances from Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon. The actors both delivered understated interpretations and avoided over-the-top caricature. In perhaps the most memorable moment of the Oval Office conversation between the two titans, Nixon describes how he and Elvis share the common background of coming from humble origins to rise to the top of the ladder in their respective fields of politics and entertainment. Only in America!!!

TxMike I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. My wife skipped, her loss because this is a very good and entertaining movie.Today we can read about it in the archives, in December of 1970 Elvis and a couple of his friends went to D.C., gave a letter that Elvis had written, for the White House guards to have delivered to President 'Tricky Dickie' Nixon (who a few years later resigned in a scandal). It seems that Elvis collected badges and he wanted one from the USA's Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. What started out as Nixon requesting that the meeting, during his lunch hour, be limited to 5 minutes he found Elvis so fascinating that they met for much longer. Michael Shannon, superb actor in a variety of roles, is Elvis. As he said in the DVD extra he wasn't trying to do an impression of Elvis, instead he wanted to portray him in a way that was authentic to the character.And one of my personal favorites, Kevin Spacey is Nixon and from the voice and the mannerisms it was almost like seeing the real Richard Nixon.The movie is very interesting and entertaining, much more than I expected going into it. What may seem like a rather dry topic for a movie turns out to be much, much more than that.