Cadillac Records
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Movie Reviews of Cadillac Records
Movie Review: Reality vs entertainment
Summary: 4 Stars
I happened to reach adolescence at the same time we moved to a virtually all Black pocket of poverty known as Marin City, CA. There, I heard a type of music that immediately addicted me. KDIA in Oakland, later KWBR broadcast an unending stream of genuine blues, R & B, and soul, not aimed at Whites, or caring what they thought. Big Don Barksdale and Bouncin' Bill Doubleday held court, filling me with a love for the music that I have never lost It was everywhere, in every home, every car, every place, and I couldn't get enough. Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Sun House and all the all Delta Blues and Chicago Blues were my gods. Not old enough, nor well-heeled enough for the club scene in SF, the radio was my connection that fed my addiction. I knew all about the difficulty of life for those men and women as they struggled just to survive and make their music heard, and seethed with fury when slick White boys like the Beach Boys and Pat Boone started to steal the real music and get air play while my heroes were seldom heard. I agree large parts of this movie are fictional, but the rough life and the hardship are not. I believe racism will blight this movie, and it will never get the play it deserves, just as the "race" music didn't. Yes, it is fictionalized, yes, it does leave out some great players, and yes, the music is not perfectly reproduced. How could it be, considering the actors aren't the originals? They do a pretty damn good job in my opinion. They also have not had to live the abject poverty and open violence of the virulent discrimination of the times that informs the original men. I think many of the Greats would be bemused to find that every great musician now pays tribute to their influence and true genius; I think even the incredible Keith Richards never fully understood why an angry and hostile Chuck Berry was so brusquely dismissive when he agreed to play with Keith. If you weren't there, if you didn't live through it, no amount of book larnin' and movies are going to truly make you understand just how bad it was, and just how hard it was. Or just what a miracle it is that the music still endures.
Accept Cadillac Records for the tribute it is, and absorb what you can.
Movie Review: Even your Blues ain't yours if I don't say so.
Summary: 4 Stars
As soon as I noticed Jeffrey Wright was on board to play Muddy Waters, I knew regardless of the other components of ensemble cast this film would be worth seeing. He is a standout but underrated actor of the current era and whenever he is presented quality material to work with, a stellar performance is a given. Unlike the phone' em in roles of the James Bond series, in this instance as with Syriana or Boycott, his understated elegance shines through. Beyonce, as Etta James, ain't bad either. In fact, most of the cast is commendable. Eamonn Walker is another actor who excels off the radar screen, but his portrayal of the intensity of Howling Wolf here immediately took me back to his strong characterization of Kareem Said from the HBO series, OZ. Mos Def (Chuck Berry) always seems to exceed my expectations which might indicate I need to re-assess my perceptions and it is refreshing to see Gabrielle Union in a role where more is asked of her than just being the prettiest woman on the planet.
The story is loosely based on the history of Chess Records, a Chicago based label started by Phillip and Leonard Chess - the latter played by Adrien Brody and the former nowhere to be found in this rendition. Writer/Director Darnell Martin, who has done a great deal of TV work including the film "Their Eyes were watching God," brushed upon most major aspects of the dynamics of the Chess enterprise, the Chess brothers' paternalistic and often exploitative treatment of signed artists and the influence of the label to the development of Rock and Roll but essentially the movie is a gloss-over job of another area of inequity currently relegated to the back pages of the annals of American musical history but deserving of more incisive treatment.
Yet, notwithstanding my reservations about how closely the film mirrors fact, it is worth seeing only to foment further investigation of the subject area via other resources.
Movie Review: The Music IS more compelling than the story!
Summary: 4 Stars
I finally got a chance to view Cadillac Records and I am very glad I did so.
Before I go any further, after all is said and done, Beyonce can just okay? To say she WORKED, "At Last" and "All I Could Do Was Cry" is a MASTERPIECE of understatement. Her singing those two songs alone were worth the price of admission.
Growing up, my biggest connection with Chess Records were the sermons of Rev. C.L.Franklin and choice cuts by his daughter, Aretha. Later, many stalwart gospel artists also constituted my biggest connection with Chess so seeing/hearing some of the history behind this very important label was indeed interesting. Of course, much of it was conjecture/supposition but related in a very comfortable way by the incomparable Cedric the Entertainer, who portrays Willie Dixon.
Quite honestly, the story itself is rather sketchy...moreover, I don't know if this is necessarily a detraction. It becomes infinitely more important to follow the beginnings of such stalwart artists as Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Etta James, and Chuck Berry. Jeffrey Wright is commanding and excellent as usual as Muddy Waters, Mos Def is just wonderful as Chuck Berry, Eammon Walker (have been a fan of his since "Oz")was most effective as Howling Wolf and yet, strangely enough, I found myself cringing when Beyonce started cussin'as Etta James. She and Columbus Short, who portrayed Little Walter, pretty much wallowed in self-pity resulting in, what else, self-destructive behavior and both gave solid performances. And finally, Adrian Brody was just excellent as Leonard Chess.
Notwithstanding, this is still a very worthy movie dealing with the evolution of rock and roll in America and its impact on the social fabric of the times. Highly recommend!!!
Movie Review: Blues hits Tinsel Town!
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie tells a good story and gets at many of the critical elements of the blues in Chicago in America in the 1950s, which is certainly worthy of motion picture treatment. So understand that.
But see that it does so without dealing with the fact that Chess was run by the Chess brothers. The film says `so long' to Phil Chess and focuses on Leonard Chess, who by most accounts was in fact the determined driving force behind Chess Records, the fabled label of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James and many others. Details subordinate to an attempt to achieve an overall truth.
For eample, there is a common story that holds that the great Muddy Waters was in a do-rag white-painting the Chess studios at the time the Rolling Stones appeared to record there; that is not how things are depicted in this film. That story may not be true either - in any case, it might not have helped this film, which is a fairy successful music biopic, to have included such a detail.
The reason I write this is that I started out writing a book called `Sunnyland Blues' because, in a late night kitchen chat, Sunnyland Slim somewhat disgustedly described the Chess brothers' methods of ensnaring artists. The method had to do with `giving' artists Cadillacs [clearly something at the center of `Cadillac Records'] in lieu of true royalties. Sunnyland actually introduced Mudy Waters to the Chess bros..but the film depicts things differently.
Slim seemed to hold a respect for Chess's accomplishments. From a long-view historical perspective, what the Chess brothers did is something like a blessing - it could have been more, and it could have been more equitable. You decide. Check out this flick.
Movie Review: well worth a watch or three
Summary: 4 Stars
Read the other reviews, which are going to be better than this one. I was blown away by the music in the film until Beyonce showed up. Okay, she's doing an acting job, playing Etta James. But, she doesn't sing like Etta James, she sings like Beyonce, which is unforgivable; she is not playing herself and should not be singing in her style. Jeffrey Wright is not, by profession, a singer, but he does a stand up job as Muddy Waters. Actually, he is pretty amazing. But Beyonce is no Etta James and doesn't even try to be, which she should have.
Other than her flawed performance as one of the greatest jazz singers in history, I loved the film. Granted, as others have pointed out, it is a history written in highpoints. But, ya know, it's a film and can't include everything. Leonard Chess and Sam Phillips were probably the most important pioneers in the recording of indigenous music in the United States. Maybe somebody will do a good film about Sam Phillips.
Oh boy, I probably shouldn't have said all that, but, as Jerry Lee said in one of his songs, It Just came out. Listen, guys. Good film. Jeffrey Wright is a terrific actor who doesn't do enough, and man, the guy can really sing. The film at least gives an overview of how that great blues sound came to be recorded. You get a taste of how things were back then, and how guys like Muddy Waters started out. Back then, without TV and internet, all these guys had to occupy their time were their guitars and harps and angst and voices.