Reply to Go see Selma!

Forum Index » Entertainment and Pop Culture

Reply to "Go see Selma!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I liked it right up until the third march where suddenly they felt the need to add what sounded like a Dave Matthews song.  (I can't find any info about the soundtrack on imdb or anywhere other than the Common/John Legend song on the closing credits.)  Those two songs were jarring to me.  It had been a really accurate period piece until then, with period music, and then being jolted to "now" music felt like a gimmick.  I bet that part feels really dated in a few years.

I get that Common was great in the movie, and that Hollywood feels the need to add a new song or two to move sound units and add to the revenue stream.  I also get that the movie speaks powerfully to present-day issues.  But that felt more powerful with the simple in-period depictions in the movie (like everyone kneeling with their hands up, or the lack of accountability for police who beat and killed the unarmed), without a modern-day rap to spoon-feed it to me.

I agree that Eyes on the Prize was great and I need to watch it again, but this was a good two-hour distillation, and it's good to have some historical awareness up on the screen.  It's an important American story that hasn't been told by Hollywood.

I loved Wendell Pierce as Hosea Williams.  It was too bad there wasn't time/room to flesh out the roles of others.  Other than "oh, Common is James Bevel, and that guy with the glasses is Ralph Abernathy, and they called that guy James Orange," there wasn't much reference to their roles and interactions.  Lorraine Toussaint was great just with her face, even though she barely had any lines and it wasn't really clear who she was playing.

The portrayals of MLK and CSK were of course outstanding.  The meeting with Malcolm X was a nice piece.  The awful episode at the beginning (trying not to insert a spoiler) was appropriately jarring.  It felt like, "got your attention now, MF?"  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics