Selma

And we start with the Biopics, that for me is some kind of lazy writing because you have the characters and story you just have to trim it a little to make it interesting, but at the same time if you don’t do it right you get all the hate from people who actually like that person or what that person did, so the first one will be:

I was looking forward to this movie because being somebody who didn’t grow up in the US and didn’t have Martin Luther King shoved in history class I know squat about the guy or what did he do to be so important, I knew about the march in Selma but only what I heard once on Pawn Stars so I thought it would be good to go a little deeper and see people behind it and the speeches and reactions. But oh cruel reality and lazy writers, why do you have to mess up this year? We were going great! Don’t get me wrong the movie is fine but is not at the same level of the other ones.

The movie follows the life of the Dr King during the time of the Selma problems (I’ll call it like that because is more than marches and are not riots) but is not the story of the town for which the movie is named, but as I said the life of Dr King that is almost the end of his story, and there is no footing to see what he did before. I know that all the people in the US know what he did because they students from grade school got the lesson during all “Black History Month” but in the rest of the world we need to get involved reading or watching the movies, and I never did. So the movie feels like the third act of a movie I just arrived really late.

So we watch what the Dr King is doing his team and his family but there are parts where you want to go back to the town, to see what is happening, learn about the people, the government, there is even one scene with Malcom X (character from who I know nothing, I only know he was important) and say that he is going to speak to the town but is all he appears in the movie, no more than 2 minutes, and his speech is not in the movie, just then they say he died. That felt like Poochie in the Simpsons at the end of the show. You don’t give me someone important reduced to just a couple of sentences. But of course we have a 5 minutes scene of Dr King eating dinner with his family where nobody talks, because or reasons.

The idea is there you learn what happened and why the government reacted the way they did, but you feel that the movie needs more, is called Selma so the town should have been the main story, see what happened and how everybody reacted, but is the life of Dr King during that period of time, we don’t see the end or beginning of him, we read it at the end but that’s it because it was after the time in Selma, so let’s skip that part.

The message of the film I looked at it in a modern way, with what’s happening in the US with the police killing people just because they are the wrong color, and that is not cool at all, and yes you look that there are still a lot to work on in the US, but then I look at it not so much as rights and social liberties but more as how could be applied in the modern world, internationally, beyond color or race. And applies perfect to the terrorism against the papers and media, the terrorist are the ones using violence and fear to try to make them quit like the police and the government in the movie. And then in a personal way, about all the people who attacks you for speaking your mind, not only the trolls but also the self-righteous, finger wagers, so called “defenders or free speech” that will call you a bigot just because they don’t like what they read. But that is the history not work of the movie.

This movie raised a lot of dust because they didn’t nominated the Director because it was going to be the first time the Academy awarded a black female director but being honest this movie is not one of the greats of the year. Yes last year this movie would be at the level of 12 years slave but now they left out Nightcrawler that is totally awesome. The reason that “would have been the first black female director to win” is the worst for me, I think that should not guide nobody’s decision to award something. The only to considerate should be “was the movie one of the best of the year?” sadly this wasn’t, yes the message is good and if you take it in a modern context is even better, but that is looking to into it, more that the director wanted to do.

So, should I recommend this movie? Yes, but I recommend that you first watch the movie of Martin Luther King and the one of Malcom X or read their bios, I mean get informed about them because then you would not care for what they do in in the movie, as I said we are arriving to late in the story.

So sad, is a good story but the execution has some problems, from the script. As I said I could be one of the best last year.