Kultur: (About) 100 Words on...Cadillac Records

Kultur: Songs, Scenes and Sunday School

A Blog on Culture by C. Michael Bailey

Kultur

Kultur is a Webblog primarily devoted to the discussion of music but often addressing movies, books, politics, religion, media and popular culture.

This blog offers me the opportunity to develop ideas and receive feedback in an effort to understand why King Solomon states in Ecclesiastes 1:17 (KJV):

Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

When not writing this blog, I serve as a Senior Reviewer for the online magazine All About Jazz. This blog is an outgrowth of and will eventually replace my previous blog: Kultur.

Kultur: (About) 100 Words on...Cadillac Records

(About) 100 Words on...Cadillac Records

Cadillac Records

Darnell Martin, Director

Tristar Pictures

2008

Darnell Martin's biopic of Leonard Chess and Chess Records absolutely blows with regard to historical accuracy and the use of every romantic cliche possible. As a movie it ranks with the worst one could waste his or her entertainment dollar on. As a vehicle for individual performances, like Kiss of the Spider Woman (Island Alive, 1985) before it, Cadillac Records shines. Adrien Brody is a serviceable Leonard Chess, but his performance quickly pales once the musical icons enter, introduced in a character crescendo. First is Jeffery Wright's Muddy Waters. Wright's Waters is a Mississippi Delta sharecropper cum city slicker with a fierce and corrosive dignity and pride. Columbus Short's Little Walter Jacobs captures that self-destructive genius savant self immolating during his personal Gotterdammerung. In the first of the three finest performances Eamonn Walker portrays Chester Burnett, AKA Howlin' Wolf. Where Wright's Muddy Waters was suavely sensual, Walker's Wolf is steaming animal sexual as seen in his studio serenade of Water's innamorata with a salacious "Smokestack Lightening." Rapper MC Mos Def presents a show-stopping Chuck Berry while Beyonce Knowles slays Etta James' "At Last." Forgive the film for being bad and wish there had been much, much more of Eamonn Walker' gigantic Wolf.