Twin Spin Blues Days
Who Do You Love
Unbroken Record On Repeat
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
Poor Jerry Zaks and his letting the good times roll Leonard Chess piece (chess piece!) biopic Who Do You Love. Apparently his take on the Chess Records saga couldn’t beat Cadillac Records to theaters, and so it sat shelved for two years before finally, and rightfully getting a release. While it’s certainly not on the same level of C Records, mostly in terms of star wattage and rawkin like Dokken songs, don’t discount WDYL for one second, or even two! It’s juss as fun, juss as in love with its subject, and pays juss as much attention to the period detail, even if it doesn’t exactly pay strict attention to fact
This Chess game (chess game!) delves a little bit more into the family matters, with Leonard (chameleon Alessandro Nivola), his wife (Lisa Goldstein), partner brother (Jon Abrahams), who was barely touched upon in Cadillac, getting about as much TLC as Muddy Waters (David Oyelowo), Bo Diddley (Robert Randolph) and Little Walter (Miko DeFoor) do. Also getting extra due diligence is multi-tasker and Chess right-hand man Willie Dixon (the always wise-cracking Chi McBride). One thing we didn’t really get, and kinda turned into a big distraction, was the character Ivy Mills (Megalyn Echikunwoke, see below). We say character, cause she isn’t a real person, and serves as a stand-in composite for Etta James. But why? WHY??? The only thing we won’t question is her hot naked body getting a few moments of glorious screen-time
Repeat movies released around the same time aren’t uncommon, but the world rarely needs two volcano movies. We see no issue with non-fictional subjects getting a double-dip, especially if each has its own identity. Such is the case here and was with the dueling Truman Capote pics, Capote and Infamous. Sadly, no one cared about Toby Jones’ leaps and bounds munch better work as the nasaly author, since Phil C Hoffs & Co. got to the finish line first, and the same will probably be true with WDYL. It’s all a game of who do you love, but why not embrace both?
aWoke The Sleeping Beauty: that name again is Megalyn Echikunwoke. this is what she looks like. YUM
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
Love knows no bounds in NY only today, and elsewhere elsewhen
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…