Selma

I saw it this afternoon with perhaps 10 other people in the theater--not bad for 1:00 pm on a Tuesday in an industrial park.  

Some random reactions:

1.  I thought the movie was a little wooden, but it got points for sticking to the story (more or less) and avoiding the feelgood, we-can-make-even-the-Holocaust-into-a-happy-story feel.    The acting was generally good, and it brought in a lot of people, like Diane Nash and Viola Luzzo, who had not obvious star appeal.    It was also a good decision to keep a narrow focus on Selma rather than trying to tell the whole Civil Rights story.

2.  I wasn't as bothered by the LBJ characterization as some others.    The details may be inaccurate, but the overall idea--that Johnson was trying to play both ends off against the middle, and had to be pushed by the civil rights movement into moving faster than he otherwise would have--is more or less true.   The actor didn't look much like Johnson, but that's probably just as well.

3.  Speaking of actors--the guy who played Andrew Young must have been either Andrew Young or his grandson.   There was a scene with about a half dozen people and you could tell it was him in about a second.   I didn't recognize Opra Winfrey until the credits, so I guess that's good acting, too.

Overall you would probably be better off seeing the "Eyes on the Prize" series than this movie, but you'd also be better off watching Shoah than Schindler's List, and so forth.   The fact is that about a zillion times more people watch Hollywood movies than historical documentaries.   So a movie like this does more good than harm, and that's worth celebrating.

Note: I'm writing a book on law, history and memory, so no snide comments about "how come you get to to a movie on a weekday afternoon."   I'm even planning to deduct it!