Selma (2014)

[Claire of Themyscira]

Needed more fake babies.

(but actually I loved this and DuVernay is a *phenomenal* director)

Tell it, ma.

 

[Sam]

Tight direction, wonderful lead performance, simple yet powerful movie.

I love it, easily the best biopic from the 2014 bunch.

Looking forward to DuVernay's future movies (you can say it's PC or whatever, but she deserved that BD nods over both Miller and whatshisname that directed TIG)

Well, I hope she'll have a long and successful career ahead.

A

[TalismanRing]

I Have a Dream actually was delivered in 1963, before the Selma to Montgomery March.

 

One thing I thought was stunning about this was it showed how amazing a speechwriter MLK was, even when none of his most famous speeches were done during the time period of Selma. Every single one sent chills down my spine.

 

Beyond that, I think that deciding not to delve into what happened to King before (and after, except for the credit note), was very deliberate but also very smart. This wasn't a biopic of King's life, but a story about one event in the whole Civil Rights Movement. It might have been easier and more palatable to go over all of King's life, but in this case, they chose Selma because it has a very direct and immediate parallel to what has been going on recently in Oakland or Ferguson or elsewhere.

 

Everything about the framing of the first day of the march was to reinforce that parallel. What happened then is still happening right now. The given reasons have changed, but the tactics really haven't. The fight is not over.

 

And maybe, in order to understand how to win, we need to take full stock of what MLK did and who he was as a person, and not just view the highlights of his life. Including "I Have a Dream" would have undermined that entirely.

 

Agree on everything.  Where most biopics fail is that they try to tell a whole life in 2 hours and wind up just doing a greatest hits tape instead of giving real insight it to the human being.

 

Taking this one slice of his campaign we get to see King the man as well as the icon.  We get to see the tactician as well as the reverend.  We see him pleading his case to the President of the United States and we see him plead it to two college kid local organizers. You see him with colleagues, friends and enemies.  We see him with confidence and purpose and we see him with doubts and despair.  We see him make choices for peaceful demonstration that he knows will end in violence and cost lives.  We see him make the hard decisions to march and to retreat on that bridge.

 

Some favorite MLK moments

 

MLK calls Mahalia Jackson in the middle of the night for her to sing to him because he needs to hear the Lord's voice

 

MLK revealing he chose Selma because it was a town with a hot head racist Sheriff that he knew would make mistakes that would lead to widely covered news that would lead to their success

 

MLK in jail doubting if he was making a difference.  For what good does it do a man to sit at the lunch counter if he can't read the menu and can't afford to buy the sandwich because gov't policies have stripped him of a decent education and economic opportunity.

 

MLK still angry and hurt and not ready to forgive Malcolm X for calling him an Uncle Tom

 

MLK talking to the 82 year man in the morgue near his grandson's murdered body - feeling grief and guilt and renewed purpose that this man who was born in 1883 (15 years after the 14th Amendment gave him the right to vote) would one day finally get to vote (and he did at age 84)

 

MLK up at night alone - going over his speeches

Edited January 22, 2015 by TalismanRing

[Rorschach]

After the first five minutes and that ONE particular scene happens (those who have seen it know what I'm talking about), I turned to my friend and told him, "Well that escalated quickly".

[MovieMan89]

I mean if it came out in 2015, a proper campaign could've taken place instead the shitshow Paramount has done. Besides, I really don't think it was ever gonna beat Boyhood for direction, even though Ava does a phenomenal job here as well.

 

I certainly liked it more than 12 Years personally

It's so much more affecting than 12YAS to me it's almost comical how much 12YAS feels like a "movie" and Selma actually feels like something very real. More importantly, Selma is a truly imperative film for the times we live in and speaks on a profound level in a past and modern context. Unlike 12YAS which can never seem to get its roots firmly out of the past and speak on a modern level. Been meaning to write a proper review since I saw this a few weeks ago, will have to get to it soon.

[CoolioD1]

I think they're hugely different movies, beyond 'cos black people' I don't think they're immediately comparable. That said 12 Years is sooooo much better, and I really dug this.

[75Live]

I really enjoyed the movie.  Glad I was finally able to see it today.

 

Overall, there wasn't much I didn't like, there are things here and there, but nothing to really hurt the movie for me.

 

It's one of the better movies last year, but wouldn't be my #1 movie.

 

A-

[The Panda]

I have to say 12YAS is definitely better than Selma, much more impacting and emotional.

[JohnnyGossamer]

Hmm... Didn't think nearly as much of 12YAS as most did. Think I graded it a B/B-. Not sure though. Maybe even a C+. Still, quite a movie in spurts. Curious to see if Selma's worth the hubbub.

Edited January 27, 2015 by JohnnyGossamer

[ladyevenstar22]

so selma is ok  ,better than ok but lacked a certain extra  ooomph

 

duvernay chose selma but maybe his asssasination or i have a dream moment would have been a better dramatic pinnacle , more rousing dunno! 

 

for sure they could have included oyelowo for best actor , didnt particularly feel other performances stood out !

 

give it an A as it is well done film, but much like with lincoln i couldnt find fault with technically but it left me a bit wanting ...

 

for sure the scenes where blacks get beaten during marches were brutal but i already expected that , i know the history !

 

maybe its a case of me expecting something that just wasnt there, i dunno ,i felt 12YAS deeply this film not so much !

 

maybe next movie can be about his childhood ? still a good movie is a good movie , alas good isnt always enough...

[ladyevenstar22]

The fact that someone can watch a movie like Imitation Game and then watch this and somehow believe that Imitation Game is a higher artistic achievement and more powerful and well-made film literally defies comprehension for me. The Academy got this so wrong. It's unbelievable. 

i do ! 

i got an emotional connection out of the imitation game so that movie did something right but at any rate that's a very subjective stance , individualistic at that...

 

like i said it probably has to do with fact that MLK is a very well known historical figure who did a lot for the civil rights of blacks movement , people might not know all the details but they've heard of the cliff notes version at some point in their lives whereas alan turing is an unsung hero and his collaborators 

 

i don't know if its right to compare these two majors events in human history , the only difference is one couldnt be hidden no matter how much the fbi seem to wanna dust him under the rug (amazing feat of free will by the way) and the other effectively was hidden  in the name of national security and left to be scorned into an horrible ending 

 

kinda reminds me of Snape in harry potter , hated or disliked for most of the series until you find out otherwise , dies a horrible death and if not for the pensieve no one would know what he had done , what he had sacrifice for the cause and so harry rightly restores his name and dignity to their world 

 

i don't disagree though that the film should have been more present in the awards circuit different noms , its a shame for sure !

 

by the way did anyone else get a vibe that the fbi or cia were killing people off,hoover give off vibe he was saying to the president if you want me to whack him it can be arrange ?

.

Edited January 29, 2015 by LadyEvenstar22

[Avatree]

One thing I thought was stunning about this was it showed how amazing a speechwriter MLK was, even when none of his most famous speeches were done during the time period of Selma. Every single one sent chills down my spine.

This is the brilliance of the film - those speeches were so powerful and utterly believable... but you wanna know something? MLK didn't say any of those things. Steven Spielberg owns the movie rights to MLK's speeches, so the writers of Selma had to study the composition of his speeches and craft convincing ones from scratch.

 

I've heard a lot of people praise the speeches but it's the writer's responsibility, not MLKs.

 

Exceptional writing combined with Oyelowo's terrific performance = a great on-screen depiction of MLK. I also really appreciated the movie's efforts to display his more human side. We usually think of him as a moral crusader, a speaker, a peaceful activist. But he was also a strategist and a pragmatist, as shown in the film.

I don't know why people are complaining about Johnson. I don't know anything about the man irl but in the film he clearly agrees with MLK in terms of ideology, from beginning to end.

 

Great performances by Wilkinson and Tim Roth too, but I really disliked the sheer number of cast members. Very few of the supporting characters had any real relevance, and they were almost all very underdeveloped. Speaking of which, it would be hard to argue that this really explored MLK's life, because it didn't. I don't know if I was expecting it to be more of a biopic than it was - maybe I was just expecting something else.

 

Bradford Young shot the movie beautifully, with a light mix of browns and reds (symbolising racism and blood?) plastered crisply across the film.

 

That being said - the film doesn't actually feel very special. Remove David Oyelowo from the picture and you have a fairly standard, generic, solid film about activism. There were plenty of powerful moments but it felt almost childlike in its blatant attempts to make you feel guilty and sympathetic. Either way, I did cry a little at the end, when Lyndon B. Johnson was giving his speech.

 

Overall a decent but not amazing film, with some truly impressive accomplishments but not much else.

 

7/10 - B

[mattmav45]

Simply put..........got biopic'ed as fuck Sunday afternoon and lived to tell about it.

 

Enough said.

[Jack Nevada]

This is really, really fucking good. The dialogue is a bit clunky at times in a historical biopic sort of way (the scene with Malcolm X particularly), but Ava DuVernay directed the shit out this. The scenes of protestors being assaulted by cops were about as terrifying as anything I've seen in a film, and I did have about four shaking-and-blubbering cries during this. Some of the stuff in this movie just destroyed me emotionally.

 

Not one bad performance in the stellar ensemble but David Oyelowo simply blew me away. He gets MLK down so perfectly that it's almost uncanny. Oyelowo conveys just what a charismatic figure MLK was but he also shows other sides of him. While Oyelowo is obviously the star of the movie you also have a ton of great supporting performances from people like Andre Holland, Carmen Ejogo, Wendell Pierce, Henry G. Sanders and Stephan Lewis. 

 

 

 

5/5

Edited July 30, 2015 by toxic male opinions guy

[Lordmandeep]

The premise and mlk makes this a default b+ but left underwhelmed.

[RobinHood26]

B (84)