Sunday, February 01, 2015

Selma 2014.



I finally saw Selma the other day, and although I thought it a good film, I would not call it great. I'm not a big fan of historical recreations especially those that play around with facts as this one does. I much prefer documentaries then this sub genre of history as entertainment. I can't fault the direction even though I found myself drifting at times; maybe it was the murky dark cinematography.
              All the actors were as good as they could be, but I'm not a fan of this kind of acting, especially when contemporary famous people living or dead are imitated or impersonated and this year is filled with these “intimation” performances, just take a look at the list of best actor nominees. Then there are the controversies surrounding the film. There is the anger expressed by some over the omission of David Oyelowo and the director Ava DuVernay to get nominated for the Oscar blaming this oversight (to them anyway) to racism and misogyny. 
               Are there racists in the academy, I wouldn't be surprised if there were, just as there are homophobes and misogynists lurking in their membership. Remember the fuss made when Brokeback Mountain lost best picture to the dreadful "Crash" and many cried homophobia. One of the differences between the snubs with regards to the two films is that homophobes feel free to express their hatred in public. The gay community is the last minority where bigotry expressed verbally is still somewhat ok and accepted by some.  Please recall the garbage that Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis spewed over Brokeback, while racists usually keep their stupidity and hatred to themselves.
            That said there are of course moments in the film that moved me, and brought tears to my eyes. Seeing evil people do terrible things to innocents always brings me to the breaking point and there is plenty of evil in the film for us to get worked up over.  I'm glad the film was made, and that people who have no idea what happened here in our country not that long ago will hopefully get their worlds shaken up a bit and maybe learn something. That it failed to get more Oscar nominations is meaning less to me, after all this is the organization that gave a best picture Oscar to “Braveheart”.

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