A lot of fun.

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

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This film depicts the true story of a communist play staged by Orson Welles and Jon Houseman (anyone familiar with the Mercury Theater, Citizen Kane, or the Oscar-winning Paper Chase performance will know of these two historic figures) that ran afoul of the government for its Communist leanings. Stories about Diego Rivera's controversial mural at New York's Rockefeller Center (home of Saturday Night Live/The Today Show) and a ventriloquist played by Bill Murray are juxtaposed alongside the main storyline though they don't exactly intersect. It's kind of curious.The film's main accomplishments are it's frenetic pace and it's juggling of multiple story lines. There's a lot of energy from scene to scene even as the focus jumps. As (what I presume is) a homage to Orson Welles himself, Robbins introduces characters with long and graceful tracking shots and never lets the camera get bored. His film covers a wide tapestry of struggling artists in the Great Depression (even moving history a little to allow Rivera and Welles/Houseman to collide) and shines a light on the forces that drive them. Some are hungry to make a statement, some are hungry to be creative, some are hungry for social standing and many are literally hungry.The film boasts a great number of top-name actors including the Tenacious (Kyle Gass and Jack Black) before they were famous, both Cusack siblings, great character actors Philip Baker Hall and Paul Giamatti, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, Hank Azaria, Cary Elwes and Emily Watson.Emily Watson, in particular, is a diamond in the rough here. Oozing pathos and emotion, she's a modern-day Ruby Keillor in 42nd Street. She's at the center of the movie's most impressive tracking shot: A woman in poverty who squats in a movie theater wakes up in the morning as the newsreel runs through a projecter and runs out of the theater before she gets in trouble. Similar, Hank Azaria as the songwriter behind the play displays a lot of nuance. Bill Murray does a typical deadpan Bill Murray but it feels oddly appropriate. If anything, Tim Robbis deserves credit for catering to his star's strengths.

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.

Tim and Susan have been on the forefront of our political and artistic landscape for many years, regardless of the personal or artistic costs. They are Hollywood players, and as such, I do not always stand and cheer when I see one of their films. It's taken some time for me to recognize their excellent aspirations. Not to say I haven't embraced their intentions in a general way. With this film, "Cradle Will Rock," however, I embrace them unconditionally.I have deep theatrical roots, and was simply enchanted by the frame of this story inside Roosevelt's WPA theatre project of the early '30s. As deeply embedded in the theatre as I am, I had no idea, I blush to admit, that I owed so much to the extraordinary legacy of the artists and managers from that era. So, for this alone, I am grateful to the filmmakers.Within my personal history in the theatre, I have long struggled with the zeal in needing to produce "theatre in defense of civil and human liberties," and reconciling that with the ongoing pressures of making a buck. Not that I insist all artistic need be "liberty" oriented. But I am uneasy in choosing a work to produce or to witness, if I cannot find a pillar of social justice within it. The earth is far too fragile, and the threats to her and her inhabitants are far too imminent, to waste time otherwise.Back to the film: Not only was I unaware of the WPA theatre project, I was unaware there was a McCarthy-Era-like-witch hunt to dismember the artists and producers and administrators. I kept thinking as I watched the Senate interrogations, "Is that Senator McCarthy? That can't be--that doesn't happen for 30 years!" The parallel is unmistakable (uncanny), and one can't help but ponder its legacy: The McCarthy Era; Senator Jesse Helms' vicious, relentless attacks on public funded arts, media and humanities; the Bush Doctrine, and so on. And as I watched, there was this small voice telling me what we all know: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I was shocked to learn that this hideous bureaucracy has been using every weapon at hand to demolish the arts in the US for at least 80 years. For this revelation alone, I honor these filmmakers.The history and political science are presented excellently here, and might be subjects for good documentaries. Believe it or not, I do like entertainment, and it's likely I would've missed the lessons had they been presented as documentaries. Instead, Tim has written one of the most compelling screenplays with very diverse human stories interwoven in what must've been a pitch to studio execs that was unwieldy and impossible to track. Not so in the execution. I write screenplays, and I am many times undone by the weight of my convictions. Not so with "Cradle." The writing here is superb.To climax with a performance of the musical "Cradle Will Rock" booked in a vaudeville house in a last ditch effort after the Feds close down the original venue is divinely inspired. The "show-must-go-on" mentality produced with a pianist and piano on an empty stage, before a standing room only crowd of recently fired performers and technicians, their families, friends, and supporters is just bloody brilliant. When the performers stand up in the house to join the performance--Equity Union rules they cannot step on stage--when these performers step into their roles, rising up from the audience itself, and in spite of very real threats of being black balled--the effect is sublime. It's as though the observers become the observed--that alchemical magic every sincere performer strives to achieve. To accomplish this on film is rare. Sure, you often identify with a character in a film, but you often do it in a kind of hypnotic escapist state. This film achieves something more particular, more active in the way of audience/performer union."Cradle Will Rock" is one of the best film arts arguments for democracy. It is a gift to all of us. Let us honor and treasure the filmmakers.

An all-star production, CRADLE WILL ROCK chronicles the events leading up to the debut of Mark Blitzstein's "The Cradle Will Rock," a labor-oriented drama with music, written in the turbulent 1930s. It is to be performed at the WPA Federal Theater, but the government gets cold feet at the last minute and closes the theater. So the players take their production to a private theater and perform before an SRO crowd. Oddly enough, the performance turns out to be the least interesting part of the film, done up in a "Let's fix up the old barn and put on a show" routine seen in countless Andy Hardy and Little Rascals films. It is what happens before that is fascinating, as we shift back and forth between New York and Washington and are exposed to the "isms" of this post Depression/pre-WWII time: communism and fascism. One supposes most of what writer/director Tim Robbins portrays here is real enough, but keep in mind Robbins is an avowed leftist and so the film is probably best taken with a large dose of salt. But what a cast: John and Joan Cusack, Susan (Mrs. Tim Robbins) Sarandon, Cary Elwes, John Turturro, Jack Black, Bill Murray, Vanessa Redgrave, Ruben Blades and Hank Azaria. All play real-life figures of the era, including Orson Welles and John Rockefeller. A must-see for art-house film lovers and those interested in the period. All others, beware.