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Cradle Will Rock

starring: Hank Azaria, Bob Balaban, Jack Black, Rubén Blades, Joan Cusack

: Cradle Will Rock
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780788818219
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 078881821X
Label: Buena Vista Home Video
Manufacturer: Buena Vista Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Publisher: Buena Vista Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 16, 2000
Running Time: 132 minutes
Sales Rank: 12656
Studio: Buena Vista Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1999



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Editorial Review:

Description:
Powerful and sweeping, the critically acclaimed CRADLE WILL ROCK, starring Hank Azaria, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Bill Murray, and Susan Sarandon, takes a kaleidoscopic look at the extraordinary events of 1930s America. From high society to life on the streets, director Tim Robbins (DEAD MAN WALKING) brings Depression-era New York City to vivid life. It's a time when DaVincis are given to millionaires who help fund the Mussolini war effort and Nelson Rockefeller commissions Mexican artist Diego Rivera to paint the lobby of Rockefeller Center. A time when a young Orson Welles and a troupe of passionate actors risk everything to perform the infamous musical 'The Cradle Will Rock.' As threats to their freedom and livelihood loom larger, they refuse to give into censorship. Based on actual events, CRADLE WILL ROCK will move you.

Amazon.com:
'Based on a (mostly) true story,' according to the opening titles, Tim Robbins's dazzling dramatization of one of the great stories in American theater indeed takes a few liberties with history. Ostensibly the story of the mayhem surrounding Marc Blitzstein's worker's opera The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles for the WPA at the height of the Depression, Robbins paints a veritable mural around this incident, a city alive with plotting industrialists (John Cusack as Nelson Rockefeller), radical artists (Ruben Blades's Diego Rivera), and struggling citizens (Bill Murray's frustrated vaudeville ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw). Lightning strikes when the government closes the show before it even opens and the cast marches 20 blocks to an empty theater and tosses the staging aside to perform in the aisles, the balconies, and the seats. It's a rare moment of cinema capturing the immediacy and charge of live theater on the screen and it's the heart of Robbins's often exhilarating film. His heroes are Blitzstein (a warm, gently impassioned Hank Azaria) and cheery WPA Theater director Hallie Flanagan (Broadway star Cherry Jones), but in the process he snidely turns Welles and producer John Houseman into sour, silly caricatures. The stew of artistic creation and political action gets murky and at times contradictory, but vivid performances and Robbins' driving pace and staccato crosscutting keep it humming through even the most didactic moments. The songs are by Blitzstein, and the character-rich cast also features Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, John Turturro, Emily Watson, and Philip Baker Hall. --Sean Axmaker



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - A play about the play
The Arts Retrospective students saw a clip from this movie, and immediately became passionate about ... Read More


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - NYC in 1930s
Tom Robbins' film is depicting time in US history that affected art in a big way. It is 1930s, country ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - A Bad Day at Black Rock - Unforgettable
Bad Day at Black RockA Masterpiece that should be rediscover for the screenplay, for the direction and this ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Love It or Hate It - I Think It's Brilliant!
I just saw this film for the first time and I thought it was brilliant.

I'm somewhat surprised ... Read More


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - i guess we wont be seeing a film version of "juno" or "reuben reuben" in the near future
tim robbins is oh so right in his political points of view; its a damn shame that hes such an amateurish actor ... Read More

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Copyright ©2003, Mark Carey.