Elvis & Nixon

Director: Liza Johnson
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Michael Shannon, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Knoxville, Colin Hanks, Evan Peters, Tate Donovan, Sky Ferreira, Tracy Letts, Ahna O' Reilly, Ashley Benson, Dylan Penn
Running Time: 86 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

On the morning of December 21, 1970, a meeting took place at the White House between two of the most important and controversial public figures of the 20th century. It created a moment immortalized in a legendary photograph that became the the National Archives' most requested image. Thankfully, Liza Johnson's Elvis & Nixon isn't exactly a movie about that, at least in the strictest sense. If it was, there's a chance we'd be exposed to a reality that's nowhere near as funny or subversively entertaining as what ends up on screen. And while we all probably could have lived without the disturbing knowledge that "The King" and the disgraced 37th President of the United States share an alarming amount in common, isn't it kind of strangely unsurprising? The casting would imply the film's a big joke, and while that's true to an extent, it's at least a really funny joke that also works as a deep dive into the complicated personalities of these two eccentric figures.

Clocking in at a breezy 86 minutes, the film never overstays its welcome, focusing tightly on the immediate events leading up to this infamous meeting and the actual event itself, which definitely doesn't disappoint, thanks largely to the two immersive performances carrying it. This is one of those little footnotes in history that upon reflection signifies much more than it did at the time, with the film's strongest aspect being how well it conveys that. Everyone involved is so blissfully unaware of how simultaneously important and ridiculous this all this. It's hard watching without drawing parallels to current events, contemplating just how thin the line separating politics and celebrity has become. For better or worse, you could easily argue that this rarely discussed encounter helped pave the way, its implications still reverberating through the culture. 

It's 1970 and singer Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon) is enjoying somewhat of a career resurgence off the heels of his late '60's comeback special, his fame and public recognizability at an apex. But despite this enormous success, the problems currently facing America heavily weigh on him as he lounges in his palatial Graceland estate, joined at the hip by best friend and "Memphis Mafia" cohort Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer) and bodyguard Sonny West (Johnny Knoxville). Disturbed by the hippie movement and worried the drug culture is rapidly eating away at the minds of the era's youth, Elvis makes it his mission to get sworn in by President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey) as an undercover "agent-at-large" in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

To accomplish his lofty goal, Presley will have to find a way to reach Nixon, and after showing up at the gates of the White House with a handwritten letter, his request eventually makes it into the hands of top administrative officials Egil Krogh (Colin Hanks), Evan Peters and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, After initially brushing it off as a ridiculous joke, they soon recognize the obvious, very real opportunity the meeting presents for Nixon to overhaul his out-of-touch, old fashioned image, particularly with young southern voters. But getting the President on board is full of an entirely new set of challenges, culminating in an encounter for the ages as Elvis meets Nixon.

There's a reason the film is titled Elvis & Nixon and not Nixon & Elvis, as the script devotes a considerably larger amount of time to Presley. He's the one on the journey, he's the mind we're granted access to, and at times, it's a fairly strange place to be. Torn between his loyalty to and love for a profession that's afforded him so much and the discomfort of having strangers viewing him as "Elvis" 24/7, he sees a lot of himself in Nixon, who also came from humble beginnings and shares similar conservative values.

The casting of Michael Shannon, known for playing psychotic creeps and menacing weirdos, is unusual not only due to him lacking any physical resemblance to The King, but because the choice seems like it could be some kind of inside joke on audiences. If this were an all-out mindless comedy that might be true, but anyone truly familiar with Shannon knows just how much more he's capable of bringing to it. And he does.

Shannon really gets under Presley's skin during a period of his life where he really did come across as a disturbed eccentric, albeit a likable, well-meaning one. When Elvis is at first informed that the President has no desire to meet him, Presley's not insulted that Nixon doesn't want to meet the one and only "King of Rock n' Roll," but rather sad and disappointed as an American because he has some ideas to share and thinks and they'd be friends. The deflated look on Shannon's face is more akin to an overgrown child being told they won't be meeting Santa Claus than a spoiled celebrity not getting what he wants. It's a small but crucial example of one of many nuances the movie gets right.

Much of the comedy comes from those closest to the two men trying to control uncontrollable personalities since no one really has any idea what will happen when they meet. Nixon is portrayed as an insulated old man, so stubbornly grasping to traditional values it comes as little surprise he has no idea who Elvis Presley even is. That he may have in reality has no baring on the fact that this movie believably theorizing that he didn't is just perfect. It isn't even until his team have to use his daughter to get through to him that they're able to finally set the wheels in motion.

No stranger to playing the Commander-in-Chief on House of Cards, Kevin Spacey now gets to tackle a real one and his physical embodiment of Nixon's mannerisms, posture and way of speaking are frighteningly on point, even taking into account the great actors who have previously tackled the role. While he doesn't get the screen time Shannon does, he makes the absolute most of it, conveying the type of defiant personality that would eventually lead to his downfall. He definitely lived and worked in a bubble, and there's no getting around the distracting fact that Spacey's portrayal will draw inescapable comparisons to our current President.

Finding plenty of common ground in their mutual disdain of hippies, The Beatles, and communism, it was inevitable Elvis and Nixon would hit it off, their discussion as off-the-wall as you'd expect and then some. The rest of the characters are mere window dressing, as they should be, attempting and often failing to keep their bosses' worst tendencies in check. Like how Presley basically tries to sneak an arsenal of firearms into the Oval Office and the person most perplexed as to why that's not  permitted is Nixon himself.

While all the characters' quirks are on full display in the eventual encounter, this semi-biographical account still somehow avoids feeling like a parody because it has genuine affection for two otherwise good men who each had their personality flaws magnified by the pressures of the spotlight. Under different circumstances, maybe both would have been regarded a bit differently, and perhaps even deserve to be. Elvis & Nixon zeroes in on that to become a fun, engaging trip back in time that's as straightforward and direct as the meeting itself.              

Spring Breakers

Director: Harmony Korine
Starring: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, Gucci Mane, Heather Morris, Jeff Jarrett
Running Time: 94 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

What starts out looking like it's going to be Project X meets Girls Gone Wild, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers quickly evolves into a visual ballet of debaucherous hedonism dripping in violence and scathing social commentary. Gorgeously shot and masterfully edited, it's the first film of 2013 that deserves to be remembered come awards time, especially in key technical categories. But the bigger question is how Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Ashley Benson will explain this to their parents. Hopefully, they'll do it by telling them they actually participated in the creation of art. Their casting isn't a stunt, as within minutes you completely forget who you're watching and are transported down a sadistic hellhole you know from the beginning can't end in a real victory for anyone.

For those like me who are only mildly aware of these actresses by the their squeaky reputations, the film accomplishes its goal of temporarily minimizing (if not outright eliminating) the eye rolling that usually accompanies the mere mention of their names. When you make serious choices you get taken seriously. At least for 90 minutes. But the most pleasant surprise is how no concessions are made to make this more mainstream or commercial because of who's in it and what it's about. And it isn't just "about" a spring break gone very bad. It feels bigger than that. And badder. The notion that youth is wasted on the young has never rang as true as it does here.

Longing to escape their boring, small-town existence, friends and college students Faith (Gomez), Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) aim to earn enough to go on spring break. Falling short on funds, but armed with squirt guns and a hammer, a ski-masked Brit and Candy end up robbing a fast-food restaurant with Cotty as their getaway driver. As the youngest and most inexperienced, the naive, religious Faith is like a baby deer caught in headlights, but agrees to go on the trip anyway for the experience. It's an experience that goes south in a hurry as the girls drink, do drugs and engage in wild sexual behavior before being arrested and falling in with a drug dealing, murderous rapper named Alien (James Franco) who crosses the wrong people. The girls came for the memories and they'll get them, provided that they're able to live long enough to tell anybody about it.

The exact moment when the movie starts to really become something is when the girls are bailed out of prison and step outside to meet the man responsible for it. They now belong to Alien. Brit, Candy and Cotty, who enjoyed robbing the restaurant entirely too much, are already ripe for the picking by the time this thug gets his claws into them, and they're more than willing to give his dangerous and exciting criminal lifestyle a test drive. Faith is a far different story, and much of that is laid out in the film's opening minutes when she's lectured by her youth pastor (pro wrestler Jeff Jarrett, surprisingly believable) about the sins she's unknowingly about to engage in with her delinquent friends.

Casting Gomez as a girl torn between a religious upbringing and desperately wanting to fit in was probably an easy call, but an inspired one nonetheless. She also looks all of about 12, which makes the seemingly angelic and uncorruptable Faith's potential descent into hedonism all the more shocking and disturbing when it arrives. While her heart's really not into it, the other three are clearly further along the path to amorality and one of the film's biggest questions is who decides to take the bus home and who stays back to play the odds that they'll survive when the bullets start flying.

Calling a group of actresses are interchangeable is usually considered insulting but here it's a compliment since each of them perfectly fulfills their specific requirement for the story. Korine moves them as game pieces across his board with none upstaging any of the others as they work in synchronized harmony right up until the end, which comes sooner for some than others. By the time we get to that point, it's clear who the standouts are. Of the four, Hudgens and Benson stand to get the biggest career bump from this while Gomez will likely revert back to being Selena Gomez, and the largely unknown but shockingly good Rachel Korine already has a great gig appearing in her husband's movies. In a perfect world, these actresses would make choices as captivating as this every time out but the reality remains that true risk taking roles don't come along often enough. Hopefully, it's not just a one-off.

But it's the unrecognizably grilled-out, cornrowed James Franco steals the whole thing out from under all of them with his craziest, most immersive performance yet, which says a lot considering his career trajectory both on and off the screen. Looking like a cross between rapper Riff Raff and Kevin Federline, his Scarface-obsessed Alien alternates between being completely terrifying and downright hilarious. It combines the best of all Francos, proving that when he gets serious about disappearing into a role, few are more interesting or as far-reaching as a performer. You can't even believe it's him, and as uphill a battle as it seems to be, a supporting nomination definitely seems worth fighting for.

Alien's arrival marks the picture's transition into a hallucinatory dream, or more accurately, a feverish nightmare. Much of this can also be attributed to Korine's editing, which  seamlessly interweaves flashbacks and flashforwards into key scenes, culminating in the film's most visually stunning sequence, as an oceanfront piano singalong to Britney Spears' "Everytime" is intercut with a blood-soaked killing spree. When people talk about this movie, it'll be that montage and these sun-drenched images they're referring to. Credit cinematographer Benoit Debie for lensing the best looking film of the year, as well as composer Cliff Martinez and Skillrex for providing the hypnotic score. But the only thing more exhilarating than watching that scene might be imagining Spears watching it, with all the satiric nuance behind its usage flying right over her head. She should pay Korine for using it. When Alien calls Spears a "great girl" we have no doubt he absolutely means it, even as we're certain the movie does not.

The biggest hurdle facing the film is figuring out the audience it's supposed to be for.  But does that even matter? Teen girls naturally gravitate toward these actresses while only serious adult film buffs would be interested in the latest directed by Harmony Korine, whose work is legitimately eccentric and inaccessible to put it lightly. He cleverly negotiates his way around this, tricking the former into watching a highbrow arthouse film, while still reassuring the latter that, despite its cast and plot, they've come to the right place. The casting is less a stunt than a brilliantly controlled experiment, placing actresses who are hard to take seriously under normal circumstances into the hands of a filmmaker who forces us to at gunpoint.

Asking how far as a culture we're willing to go while also questioning just how much America's parameters have changed, the biggest argument against the film is that despite its highly stylized aesthetic, it's still just about what it's about: spring break. And that's exactly it, as the closing voiceover disturbingly reminds us. Spring Breakers pushes Ebert's famous theory that a movie's not what it's about, but how, to its breaking point. And then it dares to push some more.