Film Review | Selma
★★★★★
In some ways, the absence of “I Have a Dream” from Selma, incredibly only the first feature film to give the biopic treatment to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, is symbolic of the film as a whole. It’s the four words the civil right leader is most known for, but director Ava DuVernay is interested in far more than just compelling oratory.
Selma focuses its gaze on a three-month period in 1965 when King (David Oyelowo) led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights for African-American citizens. The first act sets up the shrewd tactics necessary to induce change; Having campaigned in Albany for nine months with no results, it’s decided that Selma is the place to stage the protest, the county already a fervent breeding ground of racial inequality and therefore more likely to garner media attention. While the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) work diligently to force President Lyndon B. Johnson (an effective Tom Wilkinson) into action, the film also offers up an examination of how the civil rights movement affected its leader, both at home and as a man.
Film Review | The Armstrong Lie
★★★★☆
Easily the biggest sports scandal of recent times, the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong was bound to attract attention from the filmmaking community. There are currently three biopics on the disgraced cyclist in development, but first up is The Armstrong Lie. Directed by prolific documentarian Alex Gibney, the film examines both the how and the why of Armstrong’s contemptible actions.
Read the rest of this review at Flicks and the City here. The Armstrong Lie was screened at the 2013 London Film Festival.
AMONymous 