Darnell Martin Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: Cadillac Records
Filed under: Drama », Music & Musicals », New Releases », Sony », Theatrical Reviews », New in Theaters »
Etta James blasts her way through a sad song, but it's not good enough. Leonard Chess taunts her and claims she's not "woman enough" for such a song. Didn't anyone ever walk out on her and leave her heartbroken? Take that and put it in the song, he suggests. She steps up for another take, and -- although she has tears in her eyes now -- it sounds pretty much the same. The main trouble with Cadillac Records is that no one took aside writer/director Darnell Martin with the same advice. Scene after scene, Cadillac Records is thin, flat and rote.
Like all biopics, the new film skims over years and years of history in a brief fling. All the moments are historical; they describe what happened, but not who they happened to. Sometime in the 1940s -- the movie is rarely very clear as to what year it is -- Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) runs a junkyard and decides to get into "race music." He moves from a club to a record label and signs Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), a blues guitarist straight off the plantation. There are a few nice, early scenes showing these two men touring together, sharing meals and getting the stink-eye from local rednecks, but the movie shies away from developing this friendship.
Matt Dillon is Looking to Take on Leonard Chess
Filed under: Drama », Music & Musicals », Casting », Deals », Scripts », Newsstand »
Mozart. Loretta Lynn. Bobby Darin. Ray Charles. The list of musical biopics goes on and on, but they're usually about the voices, or fingers, that brought the music to life -- the faces on stage, not the faces behind the scenes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, we're about to dip behind the scenes for a biopic about Leonard Chess, the man behind Chess Records. The new project, Cadillac Records, was written by Darnell Martin, and she* will direct it as well. (She's the woman behind Prison Song, which she co-wrote with Q-Tip, and she also directed the real-time, eerie L-Word episode "Losing the Light.") To top that off, Matt Dillon is in final negotiations to star. I can only hope that the film wrenches Dillon out of his cycle -- crappy flick after crappy flick, with a small handful of good stuff mixed in so that we don't completely write him off. Usually, a decent actor at least tries to balance the two, if not only go to the crap once in a while for a big paycheck. I mean heck, both Michael Caine and Peter O'Toole are unforgettable actors who have headed schlock -- but they've also had enough good roles to sustain them. But maybe Dillon's tide is finally turning.
Chess, born Lejzor Czyz (changed, I'm sure, to offer vowels to the consonantly-challenged), grew up in Poland before moving to Illinois in the twenties. A few decades later, he and his brother were into the black nightclub scene of Chicago. They soon joined Aristocrat Records, which they later renamed Chess Records when they took control and flooded it with notable talent. The label took on names like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Etta James. Production will begin this January in New Jersey and Chicago. Can you see Dillon as the man behind such R&B greats?
*Edited to correct sex. Thanks to reader Diana!
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