Guest Review: Selma

by tryanmax

Selma is a Very Important Movie about Black History. You can tell because Oprah is in it. Also, because it stars a lot of other Serious Black Actors and a popular Rapper, and it is set in the Old South.

The main star is an English actor who portrays an Important Civil Rights Leader named “Doc.” His wife is also portrayed by an English actress. How this is not problematic is unclear.

You can tell the movie is set in the Old South because all the white people use the form of the N word that contains both an “a” and an “r.” Only the Bad White People use that word. The Good White People never use that word, but they are small and frail and easily defeated by the Bad White People. All the Black People are Good.

Sometimes, the Important Civil Rights Leader has Doubts. His wife is concerned. But the Fiery Youths convince Doc to keep going. There is a Fight on a Bridge that the Good Guys lose. Then, there is a Courtroom Scene. The Bad Guys bring lots of Anger and Yelling, but the Good Guys are calm and they win.

In the Climactic Scene, the movie took the Novel Approach of relating action from the perspective of The Media. In fact, one could say that The Media was the Real Hero of the story, as it was The Media that made the President change his mind and Do The Right Thing.

Where Selma really excels is in taking one of the most tumultuous moments of history and depicting it with all the intensity of an undergrad seminar. The dialogue really captured the passion of a 46 year old adjunct lecturing on the Civil Rights Movement. Watching it, I could almost feel the thrill of trying not to doze off in the lecture hall. (I snore really loud.)

One thing that made the movie fun was all of the “what’s his name” cameos that kept me checking IMDb throughout. There was Queen Vee, Dept. Raineesha, Henry Deaver, Radio, Mr. Orange, that guy from The Wire, that guy who looks like Steve Buscemi but isn’t, and Giovanni Ribisi.

The best part of the movie for me was seeing Tom Wilkinson do an impression of Lyndon Johnson doing an impression of Richard Nixon.