MOVIE - Selma

PG-13 (2:07)

Wide release 1/9/2015

Monday 1/12/15 at El Con with Sheila and Gwen

RT Critic:  99  Audience:  87

Cag:  5/Liked it more-than a lot, and it was beautifully crafted

Directed by Ava DuVernay

Paramount Pictures

Based on a true event

David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, 

My comments:  Wow.  This is not just any old story...this is an incredibly important piece of history.  This happened when I was a freshman in high school in a suburb of Boston, and I don't recall knowing about it at the time.  Imagine!  What a wonderful way to learn about the details of Martin Luther King's brilliance, determination, and sensitivity. The acting, particularly by David Oyelowo, was amazing.  His portrayal of MLK was ... mesmerizing.  (And to think I probably wouldn't have gone to see this if it hadn't been chosen by Sheila as our monthly fare!)

RT Summary:  SELMA is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernays SELMA tells the real story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history,

Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend – Calvin Alexander Ramsey & Bettye Stroud

A Civil Rights Story
Illustrated by John Holyfield
Candlewick Press, 2011
HC $15.99
32 pages
Rating: Wonderful/5
Endpapers: Deep Cranberry
Author’s Note
Illustrations: Acrylics – no white (happy sigh) – most pages have one side full illustration, opposite are text on soft “sponged” colors. Some double pages are ¾ illustration, ¼ text and one is a double page illustration with text across the top
Title page: Blue sky framed with trees and the corner of the general store.
Setting: Contemporary Gees Bend, Alabama
OSS: A young boy, while waiting for his mom to purchase a famous quilt from Gee’s Bend, learns of how the mule he’s watching came to pull the wagon that pulled Dr. King’s body down the streets of Atlanta to his funeral.
1st line/s: “Alex sat on a bench outside the store. He wanted to go and play, but his mother had told him to wait for her. There was nothing to do on the porch but an old mule eating in the garden across the street. There was no breeze. Not a leaf moved in the chinaberry trees. It was so still that Alex could hear the mule munching on a row of bright collard greens."
This must be used for MLK Day in January, with a few days preceding it learning about Gee’s Bend!