Donnie said, when I told him I had saved it for Amy, "Ugh, the reviews have been awful." We liked it, Donnie! And she, Jack, and I were glad we saw it on Christmas day. However, it was not what I expected. I thought it was a Beyoncé movie but she didn't appear until an hour had passed of the 1:49 running time.
Cedric the Entertainer, playing Willie Dixon, narrated this picture that followed the friendship and partnership of Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody, Oscar winner for The Pianist (2002), pivotal in Summer of Sam (1999), and, a favorite of mine, Liberty Heights (1999), playing a Jewish boy named Van--all 4 of these, coincidentally, are period pieces) and Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright, who was wonderful as Basquiat (1996) and as Colin Powell in W. (2008) with many other roles in between), and the rise of Chicago's Chess Records from "race records" to "cross-over." Wright, Brody, and Ms. Knowles as Etta James all turned in powerful performances, as did Columbus Short (he played the maligned bespectacled writer on the late great NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) as gold-toothed blues harp phenom Little Walter, Eamonn Walker (he was in HBO's Oz, which I didn't watch, and Duma (2005), which I loved) as Howlin' Wolf, and Gabrielle Union as Waters' wife Geneva. Mos Def played Chuck Berry and Emmanuelle Chriqui (Sloan on HBO's Entourage) was Mrs. Chess (we couldn't decide if she was also the blonde he was dating in the first scene. If you see it after reading this, let me know).
Apparently the historical accuracy is arguable, according to those that post on imdb, but we still had a great time with the music, the cigarettes, and, oh, the cars. Afterwards I told Amy I had a credit on Amazon and asked if I should get the soundtrack of new musicians covering the oldies as played on screen. She wants the oldies. They are goodies.
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