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There are some fundamental problems with the movie Cadillac Records, which has been sold to audiences as a biopic about Etta James only because of the appearance of Beyonce Knowles of which this movie most definitely is not a biopic about Etta James or any of the other characters in this film. First off, not enough attention was paid to Etta James; Beyonce begins to deliver an interesting performance but never really gets to fully develop her character. We get a feel for her heroin addiction, which you can almost sense in the recording booth, but we aren’t totally convinced that she was truly in love with the owner of the recording label. Secondly, it would appear as though the real story is that Etta James was Amy Winehouse decades before Amy Winehouse was who she is; she has the swagger, the addiction, and the personality that precludes any shtick that Amy brought to the game years later.
So much of the film was about Muddy Waters, almost even more so than it was the record label itself that this film feels uneven. There was a great love story that could have developed between Leonard Chess and Etta James, or even an interesting story in how his obsession over Etta James affected his relationship with his wife or even a story about how Muddy Waters child affected his relationship with his girl or even more of a background on Chuck Berry’s contribution to Chess Records. Instead we are left to figure out how Leonard Chess’ amazing ability to find artists that are totally irrespective to the genre of music of which his last great artist excelled at worked together and kept from getting the best of each other.
When Howlin’ Wolf offered a rough, gritty, distinctive brand of blues things began to get interesting, at least from an artistic standpoint. But his work was perhaps ahead of it’s time and he wasn’t ready for mainstream acceptance. In the movie it was more interesting that he did not want to be indebted to Chess, who had a thing for paying artists in Cadillacs, instead of cash. This got underneath the skin of Muddy Waters, but instead of using that situation for a more intense dramatic narrative the only real confrontation we get to see if between Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf when Little Waters dies.
The only real strong performances we get to see in this film are from those of whom a more engaging plot could have been built around; Adrian Brody, Jefferey Wright and Columbus Short. Gabrielle Union was in the film but it isn’t entirely clear why as her presence is seemingly trivial and insignificant in this film. The same can almost be said for Mos Def, who typically gets to shine but does the best with the little bit of time that he has. To be totally honest it is unclear who the protagonists in this film even are, or maybe perhaps everyone is, which is a big part of the problem.
This was like Mos Def’s twenty-third film according to Wikipedia, his 37th production to date according to IMDB. His contribution as an actor amongst rappers is second to none only to Ice Cube, and this is perhaps only because Ice Cube has scored better movies that are more mainstream and not as artistic and that Cube does everything, writing, producing, directing, even composing as opposed to just acting. But if you are going to use him (Def) give him the screen time. In general, Cadillac Records plays upon the same archetypes that have defined movies about the African-American experience in the recording industry going all the way back to Sparkle. It doesn’t offer anything that different from Dreamgirls of The Five Heartbeats and is an endless string of missed opportunities. We can only hope that Etta James gets the true biopic that she deserves, and that the talent in this movie can shine elsewhere in the future …
Review of Factory Girl
Posted on: April 22, 2008
An Interesting Movie About Edie Sedgwick
If you want to know why Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas; a radical feminist writer in the late sixties then look no further than Factory Girl, a movie by director George Hickenlooper that gives a glimpse into the life of Edie Sedgwick. Legend has it that Solanas was never compensated for her script of Up Your A**, and demanded payment and more or less either never got over it and was simply letting Andy know that she wasn’t playing around when she shot him. What followed, was Andy’s book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, where he reflects upon his interactions with Solanas and other characters in the sixties.
What is striking is how Hickenloooper uses the film to show just how degenerate of an individual Andy must have been, rather than truly tell Edie Sedgwick’s story. We see how Sedgwick hooks up with Andy, the differences between the life she knew and that of being the consummate New Yorker in Gotham’s art scene of the sixties and the hedonistic lifestyle Andy and his counterparts were living in the The Factory.
She landed at the The Hotel Chelsea, which is now known for having various celebrities and artsy types and it’s rich contribution to the scene at that time. She also got strung out on barbiturates. The idea is that Bob Dylan knew about Edie’s problems and could always see through her and cut through her soul, which was empty, in part because of the drugs, but also because she was one of the few that honestly believed in the aura and anti-pop, anti-consumerist edict Andy tried to postulate. She felt that Andy was revolutionary for turning the iconography of consumerism on it’s ear; pornographic films that dubbed as early “reality” film work that truly were ahead of their time, the rubbish of pop bottles, soup cans and Brillo soap boxes used as art.
Andy refused to pay his people, and in a sense you were signing up to be a part of something bigger than what it really was. Dylan knew this, instinctively, and kept reminding Edie that Andy was using her and that she was disposable. Andy figured that Edie was trying to get her “15 Minutes of Fame” from him. But at the end of the day, the movie simply shows Edie as yet another socialite/heiress that was on the brink of alternative culture trying to find her own way in the world. The movie resonates too strongly with such movies as Cybil or Kathleen. The movie is also a very strong indicator of the backlash that Andy received from mainstream society at that time; indeed, much of his work is a precursor to hip-hop music and other artistic movements that would follow that showed an utter disrespect and lack of appreciation for the foundations of art and the institutions of capitalism. His 15 minutes of fame statement is a prophesy to the addiction of reality television and now media outlets like TMZ 30 years ahead of their time.
Yet at the end of the day Andy was just another hedonistic artist with issues suffering from the misogyny that is often associated with his flamboyant and aggressive brand of homosexuality. In one scene he suggests that sex is too “abstract” for him to understand. In another, Edie’s father, whom is the only individual that she had any sexual history with until Bob Dylan came along, told Andy that he had nothing to worry about because it was obvious that he was a queer within 2 minutes of talking to him. The sixties were an innocent time, and it was easy to see how Andy was able to get away with not paying the actors and keeping that entourage around him. Yet at the same time the sixties were revolutionary and controversial because prototypical American values were being thrown out the window, and Edie wanted to be a part of that and was wrapped up in it.
The movie makes you think about how, in every decade since the fifties there has been this great move by some aspect of the culture to transcend the boring American existence through the counter-cultural lifestyle exhibited by Andy Warhol and his pals in this film. We grow up, get old, rebel against the mainstream in our twenties and then fight to find a balance between those values and those of the mainstream as the overwhelming majority of us end up getting trapped in the concerns of working to survive and keep a roof over our heads. Then we often go back to those radical ideas again in our forties because we feel that we are too old and out of touch with America’s youth, which we often are. These days if you are over the age of like 25 it seems as though there isn’t any place for you in American society at all, if you are to see what has happened with pop culture since Andy’s day. But what isn’t told is that there are legions of individuals behind the scenes, of all ages, that are a huge part of making things work behind the veil of pop culture, where things are messy and everything is disheveled. You may have teenagers filming themselves and placing it on MySpace and You Tube, and on some level perhaps Chris Crocker is for today’s society is what Andy Warhol was then; both seem to exist outside of the mainstream in underground media and both have fans that either “get” what theyr’e saying or hate them vehemently.
Quite honestly I thought that Factory Girl was supposed to give me a glimpse of how fascinating a personality that Edie Sedgwick was, but unfortunately it left me to believe that it was innocent and naive spirit, transcendent as though it were Andre Hepburn herself, that was the real appeal. Andy used her up and spit her out, Bob Dylan could have rescued her from the pop machinery but she wasn’t ready to go, and her family had abused her mentally and sexually beyond all belief that she had lost her own artistry and belief in who she was as a person to deal with it all. A tragic ending to a promising life indeed …
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When a Movie is Sold One Way and Actually is Another, the Audience Should Throw Their Popcorn at the Screen
ATL, another interesting attempt by a movie video director to create a compelling storyline puts you in between a rock and a hard place. First off the movie was sold for mindless pop consumption assuming that those on the outside would want to get a better look at the machinery of the Atlanta pop machine that has sold millions of records and has spawned some of hip-hop’s hottest producers. ATL is supposed to be a fun nod to the emptiness of Roll Bounce and the fun of Car Wash and be a Black “Xanadu”.
Yet what follows is a very, very good movie that interweaves various story lines to create a coming of age story. Yes the movie does rip off “Honey”, “Electric Bugaloo”, “Boyz in the Hood” and many other urban films, but it does get across it’s message effectively. But the end result is a clean, high production valued movie that lacks any real soul and depth other than the message it brings. There is little artistic value or merit to the film and you’re forced to sit through a very long 45 minutes just to set the film up to even remotely begin to get interesting.
The movie takes itself rather seriously, and comes across as a conspicuous attempt at Chris Robinson to rival “Belly”, Hype Williams ghetto classic. None of the arresting scenes are in this movie, such as when DMX is in the club and the woman is like, really, seriously dancing and he just completely ignores her because he is in the zone, you don’t get to see anyone getting arrested wearing the latest Versace, none of that.
You’ve seen this movie a million times; a fine young black teenager wants to be in the hood and be the baddest girl out there rather than own up to her bourgeois roots. What’s worst is that her father is actually from the same ghetto that she is hanging out, yet made a name for himself as a prestigious businessman. Worlds collide when her boyfriends best friend finds out as much when he is introduced to her by his father. He wants to make it out of the hood, she wants to be in it. He tries to not to tell his friend, but it all comes out anyway when her best friend for life is called on the phone and her mother calls in to alert her father of what is going on.
The father shows up wearing what must be Prada sneakers pulling up to the skating rink in what could be mistaken for a Bentley and gets out to rescue his daughter from the hood. Her boyfriend is ticked because he is one of those hard, yet conscientious young men trying to figure out what to do with his life and doesn’t want any confusion. She made him feel special, laid with him and hung out trying to be that girl around the way and he realizes that everything he had loved about her was a lie.
But the signs were there all along; she wouldn’t let him take her home, she called herself “New New”, you know “because we always have the newest …” and she is trying too hard to be ghetto. So imagine her misery when the hardest girl at the club is called out and has to go home with Daddy to what would be Beverly Hills in LA or Westchester County or even the Hamptons in New York. Everything around him must be false, people are content in the state of life and I’m the only one trying to do anything, her boyfriend thinks. The other story line is about her boyfriends younger brother coming of age, because he wants to be recognized and is tired of being in his older brothers shadow, so he goes out selling dope and gets shot at.
What is sad about this movie is that everyone put in some serious work and delivered compelling performances but it just doesn’t stand the test of time. It also pales in comparison to any of the work that these other actors may have been in. The premise is good, but I would have much rather have known that such was the case instead of being sold the ghetto aspects of the Dirty South in this film, what that’s not what it is about. I didn’t mind it so much with Stomp The Yard, which really was an excellent, arresting film if you haven’t seen it that catches you off guard because it’s just that good. But I wasn’t supposed to learn anything off of this film, just have fun looking at Georgia peaches, and that’s not what happened here …
okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well ... 
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