Anticipate "Cadillac Records" with me

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1042877/

Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Felix Leiter as Muddy Waters, Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, Eric Bogosian as Alan Freed.

Shows promise, I think. And I'm pretty sick of musical biopics.

Looks awesome. Times review.

Who the hell is Felix Leiter? It's Jeffrey Goddamn Wright as Muddy Waters.

Ah, google to the rescue. I don't know whether to be embarrassed at not seeing the last two Bond films or incensed (incensed!) that you would disrespect one of our finest actors so.

oh yeah, forget Basquiat and Powell, he was in a Bond film

Heh - he was under discussion in the QoS thread when I started this one. Anyway, I'm fondest of his performance (small though it be) in Broken Flowers.

also, Beyonce as Etta James is some kinda crazed genius move

Mos Def definitely stole this flick.

no one else seen?

Jeffrey Wright will always be Nurse Belize to me.

Not yet.

By the time Beyoncé is finished with “I’d Rather Go Blind,” she has achieved what neither Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles nor Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash could manage: a respectful embodiment as well an expansion of a mythic figure. She takes us across a curiously underexplored frontier, where the emotional and physical abandon of an R&B performance becomes both the means and the substance of great melodramatic acting.

http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2009/01/bliss-out-cadillac-records.html

This was a lot of fun, actually.

I saw it on the plane back from the US.

The guy who played Little Walter stole the film.

Howlin' Wolf was under-used.

Most everyone was great. Chuck Berry was just about OK, although one of the acts who did not mime to the originals and was not the better for it. (Beyonce did not mime and was great, although it was noticeable that her songs were played in full, or moreso than anyone else)

Just read on IMDB that all the tracks were re-recorded. So, wrong me!

The Rolling Stones were particularly silly.

Beyonce has no clue

Being run over and over right now on the FUSE channel right now. Just saw the second half and was pretty convinced. Recording the first half now

this is pretty good stuff iirc

Beyonce was far FAR better than I expected. The review Morbz quoted, OTM. But some of it was kinda simplistic (cf: "Muddy, they can't hear your acoustic guitar over all this traffic!")

Overall, though, as fun as it was, it felt like a first draft of a genuine Chess biopic.

Really? Felt like this was as good as it is gonna get.

Mmmmmaybe...there were some things, like the half-arsed guitar miming, that made me think otherwise.

How many times do you think Hollywood is going to tell this story in their attempt to get it right?

Oh, I have no doubt this won't be revisited. I just think it wouldn't have taken too much tweaking to make it more solid.