Posted by Jim at May 29th, 2004

Last night Kristen and I watched “Bubba Hotep.” I liked it. Kristen didn’t. That’s not much of a surprise given our different tastes in movies. Kristen basically wants to watch something funny with the occasional drama mixed in. My interests range from action to drama to comedy to old movies to well… basically just about anything. In theory.

In practice, I tend to like movies with a certain minimal level of complication (or perhaps inaccessibility?). That could be in terms of plot, storytelling style, character motivations/relationships, or an interesting setting (science fiction/fantasy, historical…). This means (for example) that I tend to avoid your average comedy and like the movies of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma…).

I don’t claim this means I have good taste.

“Bubba Hotep,” however, is a movie that fits pretty well into what I like. Here’s the plot: Elvis Presley is still alive, having switched places with an Elvis impersonator. Unfortunately, he’s old and stuck in a rest home and has no way of proving who he really is.

Worse, there’s an evil supernatural entity loose that’s killing other people in the rest home. Helped by “Jack” (a black resident who believes himself to be John F. Kennedy), Elvis attempts to stop the killing and save the other residents from having their souls sucked from their bodies.

The movie also touches on our society’s attitude toward aging, casts an amused look at 50’s-60’s icons (including the Lone Ranger), and arranges all the material it has to convey (Elvis’ background & current emotional state, the evil being’s origin) in a way that’s not confusing. Better, it managed to be surprisingly funny at points along the way.

Run out and rent (or buy) it. The DVD came out this weekend.