Rating: 
Summary: INTERESTING PASTICHE OF CHARACTERS, BUT TRIES TOO HARD
Review: Tim Robbins' ambitious attempt to blend the spirit of a screwball comedy with the conscience of a meaningful film with a message. A dazzling ensemble of characters who are seemingly separate from one another but all their loose ends are woven back together at the end, just like in Altman's movies. The subject I'd say is a bit cliche (Business = bad, Unions = good) but under proper direction could have been made interesting. Yet, Robbins chooses to apply such a hamfisted hand that it's difficult to get caught up in the story, despite the blistering pace at which he tells it. Plus, the protagonists seem shallowly defined. Either they're good, salt of the earth sort of people, or they're insecure, lonely and desperate whistle-blowers (like the character played by Bill Murray). At roughly 2.5 hours length, some judicious editing was in order, but despite the epic scale of the production and the calibre of the actors, this film ultimately winds up being little more than a overdrawn diatribe on the state of big businesses in the US. Recommended rental perhaps for some neat camerawork, or perhaps the last 20 minutes that were without a doubt the most clever and entertaining bit of the entire film.
Rating: 
Summary: A MUST for theatre fans!
Review: Tim Robbins brilliantly combines history with entertainment in Cradle Will Rock. At the beginning it says "A [Mostly] True Story." While some people may become weary of that, rest assured Robbins did NOT change history. The only fictional part are the characters of Grey Mathers and his wife, Carlo, and Margharita Serfatti (BRILLIANTLY played by Susan Sarandon; who would think that Janet Weiss and Marmee could also be an Italian fascist?!). However, they are all loosely based on masses of people who existed during the Great Depression. The story is delightfully interweaved, balancing acting, writing and art as well as their counterparts, criticism and downfalls. I learned so much about The Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration and the rise of Fascist Italy and I honestly didn't realize it at first! It was not until I bought the book Cradle Will Rock: The Movie and the Moment that I learned 99% of that movie was true, including the ultimate performance of Cradle Will Rock, the dispute between Diego Rivera and Nelson Rockerfeller, and the Federal Theatre Project trial. There is an excellent script and score in Cradle Will Rock. I was also pleased with the acting, Hank Azaria plays a wonderful Marc Blitzstein, Emily Watson a wonderful Olive Stanton, and Angus MacFadden was a PHENOMENAL Orson Welles. I was completely enchanted by his character and he commanded the screen every time he entered. However the best part is that you gain so much appreciation for theatre today. The government doesn't censor shows like Rent or The Vagina Monologues and we take that for granted so many times. But shows as harmless as Revolt of the Beavers or Cradle Will Rock were censored and restricted, and the government even sent armed guards to prevent Cradle Will Rock from opening! Imagine if they did that now if some minute detail was found offensive, we would have practically no Broadway! Wonderful wit, fabulous actors, a great script, story, and score blend together to make a great movie not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Exploration of Art and American History
Review: The only thing one can say after watching this film is WOW. Tim Robbins takes on such a wide range of issues and does it well. The cast is amazing. The subject matter -- Art/Censorship/Wartime Politics/Patriotism - is so relevant today. I wish the studios would re-release this and soon, before we wind up with an Ashcroft/Rumsfeld witch hunt related to Iraq and 9/11. Even without thinking of these larger issues, the movie is simply great entertainment. There's romance, drama, comedy, rags to riches sub-plots and history. Characters include Nelson Rockerfeller, WR Hearst, Diego Rivera, and Orson Wells. I mean this is ambitious stuff. If I taught high school or college American History, I would show this film as a teaching tool. Enjoy this film and hope that hollywood makes more like it.
Rating:
Summary: No Lenin -- Rather, Lennon...
Review: This is a brisk, fun film in many ways, because director Tim Robbins understands that it is very difficult to be didactic and entertain. But, as Oliver Stone uses fast cuts and snappy dialogue so as to "keep it moving," Robbins does just that too; and -- also like Stone -- he employs an exemplary cast to great result. Ramon Blades portrays Diego Rivera as a wryly perceptive charmer; John Cusack is a superficially sophisticated Nelson Rockefeller; Emily Watson is a poignant portrait in sadness as the actress actually "off the streets," Olive Stanton; Bill Murray is equally impressive as the melancholic, resentful vaudeville ventriloquist, Tommy Crickshaw; John Turturro is powerful and inspiring as the principled Italian immigrant who plays the union organizer in the radical Federal Theatre project musical that gives its title to this film. (And I must add an accolade for Corina Katt, who is Frida Kahlo: she takes a small part with only a few lines -- in Spanish, already! -- and you literally can not take your eyes off her when she is on screen.) As I say, there is a great deal of "fun" in this film, yet its essential story is serious and sad. It chronicles the erosion of politically potent (meaning "radical") popular theatre into the (generally) escapist entertainment that pervades most American arts today. From "Lenin" (who does not "stay" -- as Rivera's Rockefeller Center mural attacking imperial capitalism is destroyed by a self-righteously indignant Nelson) we have declined to "Lennon" -- i. e., a song like John Lennon's "Imagine" is as "radical" as pop culture is likely to allow. And note especially the masquerade ball sequence in which Nelson Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst, and "Gray Mathers" (a fictional but representative steel magnate) discuss their scheme to exalt "individualistic" (i. e., ego-centered) abstract, scenic and erotic art at the expense of art with social purpose and a social conscience. If you wonder why there are so few good films that seriously critique our society and system (and so much silly, adolescent-oriented soft pornography), here is an explanation worth pondering -- as well as a movie worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: WE WILL ROCK YOU
Review: In time of crisis, nothing is better than the `Panis et Circenses' politics. And the US government kwnew it for sure. So, in the late 20's, early 30's was created the Federal Theatre Project. Many treatre groups nation wide were sponsored by the government, as long as they staged plays that cheer the audience, which, by the way, was formed mostly by unemployed people. Later on, the Congress investigated the FT due to some accusasion of comunism. After a 20% cut in the sponsor, many plays had to close and many artists increased the number of unemployment. One of the plays most affected by it was "Cradle Will Rock", a pro-union musical directed by Orson Wells that is prohibited of being released. Tim Robbins's movie uses the Wells's production as an `excuse' to show us how art and politics can affect each other in many levels. The film is a wonderful American quilt with many tiny stories that little by little get togheter and creat a huge power over the audience. Besides "Cradle..." story, there is also the fight between Nelson Rockefeller and Diego Rivera over a mural painted by the artist in the lobby of The Rockfeller Center, in NY. The magnate went mad when he saw displayed in the painting Lenin's face. Another important pole of the movie is an ex-Mussolini's lover, who is in the US selling works by Italian geniuses, like Leonardo and Michelangelo, in order to get money to help Facism in Italy. All there plots look a bit distant from each other in the beginning, but as the movies grows, one can notice how all of them are showing the power of the art and the artists over a society that is changing. Robbin's direction is very effective and touching. He shows how much he loves the artistic class and arts in genneral. But it is nothing new coming from one of the most political actors in Hollywood. The script mixes comedy, with musical and drama in perfect doses. Although the film takes some Artistic licences, they do not ccpromise the accuracy of the facts. By the way, as it is said in the beginning, it is `based on a mostly true story'. The cast is a huge who-is-who, and every actor seem to be perfectly fit in his/her part. Joan Cusack has never been so deliciously hateful. Susan Sarando has a wonderful Italian accent and we can notice how sad her charater is because she has to sell works from masters to get money. Vanessa Redgrave is wonderful as a theatre enthusiast. She shines every scene she is in. The most importat female role belongs to Emily Watson, who perfectly plays an unemplyed-turn-to-actress singer who has to deal with lack of money in order to survive. The male cast is also exceptional. Hank Azaria is wonderful as the composer Mark Blitzstein, and it is amazing to watch his creation process of the show. John Cusack is as hateful as his sister, playing Nelson Rockefeller. Bill Muray is perfectly melancholic as a ventriloquist. If Karl Marx had written musicals instead of essays, he probably would have written something very close to " Cradle Will Rock", the play. It has an extremely polical tune. Once I read in an interview Tim Robbins saying that Emily Watson's character was the hero of the movie. But I'm not sure of it. I think she may be the most important, but it seems to me that the hero -- if it happens to be one-- is the ART, which is portrayed as having a power to transform society. It is a wonderful smart and touching movie, that needs be discovered. Another thing, how do you understand the ending? I could not come up with a conclusion. It is very open.
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