I’m not up on makeup techniques. I don’t know the functional differences between foam latex, gelatin, silicone and gypsum cement. But I’m moderately impressed by the Elvis transformation of Tom Hanks into Colonel Tom Parker, at least as it appears in the below photo.

A guy who’s seen Baz Luhrmann‘s film says that Hanks’ bulky, big-nosed Tom didn’t strike him as wow-level, but sometimes this stuff is in the eye of the beholder. The ears might belong to Hanks or not — I can’t tell. Otherwise I’m impressed by the thinning gray hair, the spray-tan complexion and especially the schnozz.

I understand, by the way, that while the film doesn’t transform Austin Butler into classic “fat Elvis” proportions (which reportedly manifested during the last couple of years, sometime between ’75 and the singer’s death on 8.16.77), Vegas-jump-suit Butler does appear slightly bulkier, or so it seemed to this observer.

Parker died in January 1997, or nearly 20 years after Elvis ascended.