Cadillac Records
by Darnell Martin
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DVD details
Actor: Adrien Brody, Beyonc? Knowles, Columbus Short, Jeffrey Wright, Mos DefDirector: Darnell Martin
Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
Producer: Beyonc? Knowles
Cinematographer: Anastas N. Michos
Writer: Darnell Martin
Producer: Andrew Lack
Producer: Marc Levin
Producer: Petra Hoebel
Producer: Sofia Sondervan
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 109 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-03-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures
DVD Reviews of Cadillac Records
DVD Review: Epic. If You Mean Epically Bad.
Summary: 2 Stars
I hated Cadillac Records but I stayed with it for the soundtrack and the hope that it would get better. Len Chess isn't the only paternalistic thing about this film. A mishmash timeline of race cliches and lazy storytelling, Cadillac Records can't even be bothered to get it's facts straight. Saving it from one star are the performances of Columbus Short, Mos Def and Eamonn Walker, all of whom are far better than the material deserves. The film provides about as much context as a 1950's Looney Tunes featuring celebrities of the day. Even if one allows for the need to condense a large story into a short time frame, have some continuity of character inside the abbreviated version. Disjointed, relying on race role tropes instead of characterization, Cadillac Records is a lazy film that does a disservice to all whom it portrays. DVD Review: Classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love these kind of movies that have history about music. You will love this movie it's an instant classic!DVD Review: Great film. What were the critics thinking about?
Summary: 4 Stars
I, like most everyone assumed that this film sucked because the critics said so and because this film flopped at the box office with comparisons to Dream Girls. I JUST got around to watching this and I must say that it was great. Jeffry Wright is indeed a GREAT actor - I WILL say better than Denzel or whoever is the best male actor out. Whatever role he plays, you are thinking of that character, not the actor. Too many 'actors' play a role, but you are thinking, "that's Will Smith" or "that's Brad Pitt." Wright is Wright on!
First, I heard of Muddy Waters, Little Walter Etta James and of course Chuck Berry, but Chuck is the only one who's songs I was aware of. I knew next to nothing about the others except that British rock groups always paid homage to Muddy Waters as influence. So if nothing else, movies like these helped to shine a light on these acts and make those of us not in the know aware of their music.
I watched, and as I always do, I like to research to see how much was true and what the people actually looked like. I knew what Etta and Chuck looked like before hand, but not the rest. I can say that for once a film got people who actually looked like the people! People say that Beyonce cannot act, but she did a respectable job. Mos-Def as Chuck Berry was good as they have similar features. Mos Def did a great job. Remember - he was an actor BEFORE he became a rapper!
One thing I noticed, but was not surprised about was the Chess brothers and the film referring to him as white, but not noting that he (they) were Jewish, which they seem to dominate the music business and were instrumental in ripping off black artist - which they did show, just not in the name of Jews. They also showed how white artists stole from them which is good. As years continue to go by, history keeps being change so that Rock starts with Elvis and is further refined by The Beatles. It appears as if only the British artist acknowledge the source - black America, while white America likes to take and dismiss black creativity. I suppose this is why British artist are better at rock than most white Americans.
Great film, truer to real life than many films and if nothing else, is great for the historical record for where rock and other musics came from. Without black America, there would be no unique American culture. We would be like Australia - without the American influence.
DVD Review: Cadillac Records
Summary: 4 Stars
The rise and fall of Chess Records, which launched the careers of Muddy Waters, Etta James and Chuck Berry. Leonard Chess scoured the South, checking out the various blues scenes and selling records from the back of his Cadillac. The soundtrack, more than anything else, is what makes this movie so enjoyable.
DVD Review: Spinning Blues Into Gold!
Summary: 4 Stars
CADILLAC RECORDS(2008)---Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union, Cedric The Entertainer, Beyonce Knowles, Columbus Short, Emmanuel Chriqui, Eamonn Walker.
A film that tells the story of the legendary blues record label, Chess/Checker Records. As with most films of this kind, there is some blending of "artistic license" and the historical facts. However, as a devoted "blues freak", whose first album purchase was by a Chess/Checker artist, I found that, for the most part, the story is told with a great deal of factual accuracy and a minimum of "dramatic enhancement". The label was started by Leonard Chess(nee,Czyz) and his brother Phil, two immigrant Polish Jews. The unifying theme of the film is the relationship that developed between Leonard and Muddy Waters(aka, McKinley Morganfield). Leonard owned a bar called the Macomba Lounge on Chicago's South Side that catered predominantly to blacks and featured black musicians. As a result of owning the nightclub, Leonard began to realize that the real money was to be made by recording the artists who played the blues music that his customers came to hear. From the insurance money he got as a result of an "unfortunate" fire that burned down the Macomba, Chess started his record label. Chess became the home of a virtual, "Who's Who", of Chicago blues artists, many of whom had migrated north from the cotton fields of their native south. By "plugging in" and amplifying the blues music they had brought with them, they effected a revolution in the genre. In addition to Muddy Waters, who was perhaps the single most important figure in that revolution, artists who recorded for Chess included: Etta James; Howlin' Wolf(aka, Chester Burnett); Little Walter Jacobs, who was one of the first to amplify his blues harmonica playing, and is generally regarded as the greatest blues harpist ever; Bo Diddley(aka, Ellas McDaniel); and, the Father of Rock & Roll Guitar, Chuck Berry. In addition to these performers, Chess was blessed by having on board a gentleman by the name of Willie Dixon, who was the "house bass player" and, much more importantly, wrote the bulk of the songs recorded by Waters, Wolf, Jacobs, et. al.---his list of writing credits is simply stunning---and far too lengthy to list here. Suffice it to say that the bulk of what became the basic "blues canon" was written by two men: Willie Dixon and Robert Johnson. The time frame of the story is compressed, but the story is told accurately and it doesn't gloss over some of the uglier aspects of the story. It is well-known that Chess took a "paternalistic" approach to his artists---he "took care of them", doling out money whenever they needed to pay the rent or buy a home or needed bail money to get out of jail. He also was in the habit of buying his artists a new Cadillac when they had a #1 record, hence the title of the film. But, he also cheated many of them when it came to paying the artist's royalties they were entitled to, and the film depicts that aspect of the "Chess story" candidly. With the rise of rock & roll, and the so-called "British Invasion" of the 60's, Chess was eventually forced to sell the label and died of a heart attack shortly thereafter, which is where the film ends. Some of the Chess artists experienced "career revivals" when the British blues musicians who worshiped them, and grew up listening to their records, brought them to Europe to tour and hired them to open their shows in the U.S. The various actors portraying the principals all give effective, convincing portrayals. Adrien Brody is quite good as Chess, and Jeffrey Wright and Beyonce Knowles are particularly good as Muddy Waters and Etta James, respectively. The only real criticisms I have of the film are: 1)Instead of using the actual recordings of the various artists, the actors portraying them do the singing and, while they all do a credible job, given their historical importance, I think it would have been better to have them "lip-synch" the original recordings; and 2)no mention whatsoever is made of Bo Diddley, who was one of the seminal figures of early rock&roll---he also wrote many songs that became "blues standards", e.g., "Who Do You Love"; "Mona"; "I'm a Man"; etc. This seemed to me an incredible omission. But, those cavils aside, this is a "must-see" film for any fan of the blues or for anyone who might like to know more about the genre and the performers who put "the blues" on the musical map.
Description of Cadillac Records
Cadillac Records chronicles the rise of Leonard Chess' (Adrien Brody) Chess Records and its recording artists including Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), Willie Dixon (Cedric The Entertainer) and the great Etta James (Beyonce Knowles). In this tale of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in Chicago of the 1950s and 60s, the film follows the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's greatest musical legends.An energized and passionate, if selective, telling of the story of Chess Records, Cadillac Records is a worthy entry in the niche genre of movies about rock and roll roots. Adrien Brody plays Leonard Chess, who started Chess Records in Chicago in 1947 and turned the label into an important force for blues, rhythm and blues, gospel and, in time, early rock and roll. Cadillac Records focuses on Chess' relationship with his first significant artist, Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), and the label's rise and expansion with the addition of such talents as Little Walter (Columbus Short), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker), Chuck Berry (Mos Def) and Etta James (Beyonce Knowles). Written and directed by Darnell Martin, Cadillac Records captures the scrappy beginnings of an enterprise, and a sound, inventing itself as it goes along. Particularly fun are scenes set in clubs or at Chess' recording facility, where electrified blues never stop pushing the envelope of creative possibility. All the while, danger lurks in shadows or in rivalries between artists; also in the self-destructive streaks of Walter and James, and the sexual fetishes of Berry. But the drama largely centers on the potent connections between all these people, who don't always know where their contribution to a cultural phenomenon is going. One of the film's delights is the way Chess and Waters don't really see rock coming until Berry steps through the door, fusing country music with blues. The film skips over a lot of facts: there's no sign of Leonard Chess' brother, Phil, who co-owned the company, nor is there much hint of Chess' expansion into a lot of other areas of music. None of that is any big deal. But what Cadillac Records is missing is more of a unifying point of view. The story is told as a recollection by Willie Dixon, but in a scattershot way that doesn't tell us who Leonard Chess or Waters really are. Aside from that, the film is well worth seeing. --Tom Keogh
Stills from Cadillac Records (click for larger image)
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