Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Console best movie i've ever seen.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

he88 From the beginning I wasn't too sure I was going to watch the entire movie because it seemed a bit scattered, and sort of an almost musical, but not committed enough to be a full fledged musical. But the longer I watched the more I became fascinated with the many layers going on in the production. This is definitely one of those movies that you could watch a few times and come away with different information and perspectives than previously.The casting was totally a power house line up. I'm guessing the script along with Tim Robins fame probably got these powerful actors and actresses to work on this for lower than their usual price because this just wasn't a script that would make mega millions at the box office so there must have been some sacrificing to get that many great performers on here. I wont go over all the big stars because others on here already have done a good job of that. But the actor who played the young Orson Wells (From around the Citizen Kane era) was practically a ringer for Wells. So much that it was almost like they imported him back in time from the Citizen Kane movie.The only disappointment I actually had here was that in the beginning of the film this is listed as a "Mostly True Story," but then at the end there wasn't some post script that sort of tied up the loose ends to let us know what finally happened to the individual primary characters and the play production after the opening night. It would have been nice to have some mention....Otherwise this was a very interesting and thought provoking movie.

johnnyboyz In 1992, Tim Robbins played the lead role in a Robert Altman film called 'The Player', a film about an egotistical film producer in contemporary Hollywood; a man who was forced to face a reality check as a somewhat disgruntled situation closed in on him. With 1999's Cradle Will Rock, Robbins returns to the territory that sees people in the entertainment business struggling to lead the lives they would desperately like to. Only this time, he is directing a film about a group of people that do not so much need a reality check and to go through a blender of facing the repercussions one brings upon one's self, as much as he directs a bunch of characters trying to survive as the Great Depression consumes everything around it and desperation threatens creeps in.Like The Player, Cradle Will Rock opens up with a wonderful long take in a theatre, detailing the necessary surroundings; the sorts of people the film will be spending time with and gets across a general feel for the era in which it's set by having a news reel play in the background. It's a slow and deliberate opening, hovering and focusing on one individual as they lie there, back stage; capturing what will follow: a hovering and a focusing on people within an industry the stereotypical image of which might be glitz, glamour and riches. These people are just trying to get by.Cradle Will Rock is set amongst those in the theatrical business in 1930s America, as opposed to the film industry in the 1990s. While systematically looking at art-forms and the want for some to censor art within this world, director Robbins paints a wonderful canvas of the class system within this time and how different struggles affect each and every one of the different layers of life. The film is often quite funny, even surrealistic in its gags, but it never trivialises the bigger picture of the situation and nor does it exploit those struggling for means of entertainment even though they are working within the boundaries of an entertainment medium.Amongst the all star cast is Marc Blitzstein (Azaria), a deep thinking and spiritual piano player desperately looking for inspiration and a tune to nail to his upcoming musical entitled Cradle Will Rock, the very piece everyone will come together and find solace with. We also get a steady turn from Bill Murray, as he plays Tommy Crickshaw, an ageing puppeteer who is tied to two young protégés. Then there is Angus Macfadyen's wonderfully eccentric portrayal of Orson Welles, as a young and energetic director so desperately trying to succeed in completing a play with his producer John Houseman (Elwes). On another equilibrium, John Cusak's Nelson Rockefeller gets into all sorts of bother with a Mexican artist that paints a wonderful mosaic on the wall of Rockefeller's theatre only to refuse removing Lenin's face he has included. Robbins effortlessly taps into the growing fears of Communism at the time but additionally finds time to present an argument on censorship without taking sides.Cradle Will Rock is essentially a feel-good piece. Its title suggests potential disaster, an ominous event about to occur, particularly if we think back to what follows 'cradle will rock' in the popular rhyme. To give away whether things come crashing down or not is a spoiler of sorts if you're not familiar with how the real 1937 events eventually transpired. Each character is given enough time for us to be able to resonate with them. The film is concerned with different aspects of certain artists and their fields. Blitzstein's face and hands as he plays the piano are given more attention than anything else as he goes through all the emotions in trying to write his musical. This is accompanied by the very sporadic and energetic Welles, whose body language and hand all-over-the-place-hand-gestures gets across most of the urgency in regards to his respective situation. Further still, the Mexican artist that paints Rockefeller's wall, as well as Tommy Crickshaw, use their tired and experienced hands to carve a living out of what are, essentially, art forms in themselves; those being painting and ventriloquy.The Mexican artist's painting forces the film to raise some interesting issues. Rockefeller wishes to censor the inclusion of Lenin so as not to confuse onlookers; so as not to force contextual analysis of why the head might be there. It is a tampering of art, something that echoes what drives the final third which is a cancellation of the show and the stopping of an art-form from playing out in its true form. This oppositional reading idea is hit upon a second time in the film when a newspaper reads what seems to be a harmless children's play about beavers, in an entirely different fashion. Thankfully, common sense prevails and something transpires; an event that the old phrase 'the show must go on' could well have derived from.Cradle Will Rock is a brilliantly acted and wonderfully directed film, with a distinct energy and applied assurance on Tim Robbins' behalf – it is a shame he has only very few directing credits following this project. The film is an homage, of sorts, to theatre; set at a time when it was becoming second-fiddle to cinema barely years after the introduction of sound on screen. The rousing and affirming finale rounds off what is, essentially, a rousing and affirming film about a play depicting harsh realities of life, but never underplaying them.

Manal S. Never thought I'd be interested in a socio-political musical drama!! Somehow Time Robbins managed to make his cause common, and his theme universal. This is the first Robbins-directed movie that I see, but it's VERY enough to prove that he's such a brilliant director! He manages to keep actors perfectly attached to their roles and characters. Seriously, I've never seen such vivid direction, as if each shot speaks for itself and the underlying thematic meaning. When I first read this movie's synopsis, I thought that I'd be completely detached! But somehow, after watching it, I realized that art is a universal call that matters each and every one of us.

endymionng movie with an excellent outstanding all-star cast... Basically it tries to illustrate the traps and pitfalls in the never-ending war between art, politics and money. Art (as is usually the case) being the preferred hero, but realistically portrayed as being almost impossible to hold down - and if one does manage to curtail the "art", it usually is at a loss for society as a whole. However traditional union stubbornness is also frowned upon in the movie.The movie tries to see the events and the multitude of characters involved from a sort of detached perspective which makes it a little bit difficult to get close to any of the characters. Many of the side-stories (at least 8) could easily occupy an entire movie of its own, but I give credit for the effort in trying to tie it all together.For me the Rivera versus Rockefeller part is the most poignant - That Rockefeller could even think that hiring a well-known socialist sympathizer as Rivera without doing something subversive is just both hilariously funny and naive. One could argue that making the joke a little bit less obvious would have saved a great piece of art, but I guess thats very typical of many artists.All in all a very fascinating slice of a time-period, but a little bit too fragmented to really score a bullseye in my view.