SELMA!

++Selma was a nice way to spend New Year's day. My friend Bayard Rustin makes three appearances. The most notable when organizers say that Bayard could get a series of name entertainers and Harry Belafante would fly them down.

++The American civil rights movement inspired the world's pro-democracy movements. People misjudge why President Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. The academy made frequent and pointed references to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and that President Obama's election was the logical extension of that tradition.

++For all the myths surrounding the civil rights movement,we have to remember Dr.King was assassinated at the young age of 39. The power of that legacy is enormous but is threatened today.

++Selma could have ended with the Supreme Court's ruling last year to gut the Voting Rights Act and a montage at the end of all the voter suppression efforts in each state.

++The film portrays the divisions among the civil rights organizers and the disputes with SNCC. John Lewis said that he cried watching himself being beaten on Pettis Bridge. The character John Lewis seemed to appear the next day with just some bandages. Look at a YOUTUBE of the actually beating that shattered John Lewis skull. The young John Lewis  joined Martin for the march from Selma to Montgomery against his the wishes of his SNCC colleagues. 

++The most poignant moments of the film show Martin with his doubts and the struggles of a charismatic leader urging people to follow him when violence looked like their certain end.

++In Washington, the film has drawn criticism from former secretary Califano, who believes the film is too critical of LBJ. The LBJ figure was a little weak and doesn't capture the efforts of LBJ to King to tone down the movement, while he was working to introduce the Voter Rights Act. The actor was all wrong for the earthy figure. The only moment he shined was his one-to-one confrontations with George Wallace. 

++J.Edgar didn't disappoint as the sinister figure placing disinformation about King and the movement.

++Oprah Winfrey is outstanding as an African-American woman trying to vote. The film actually portrays the difficulties of the African American community to register to vote--the poll tax, that you needed a registered voter to vouch for you, the crazy civics questions you had to answer. Most of this has been forgotten but has resurfaced in the last few years in different ways.

++The end music tries to tie the civil rights movement into Ferguson and make the film an anthem for the African-American community. It's difficult to find the right tone. Otherwise,the film was outstanding.