Writes Maureen Dowd, about the blatant distortion of the LBJ-MLK relationship in the movie "Selma," which just got snubbed in the Oscar nominations.
[T]he truth is dramatic and fascinating enough. Why twist it? On matters of race — America’s original sin — there is an even higher responsibility to be accurate.One-on-one scenes with the President of the United States are dramatically different, and you can see why dramatists felt a need in spite of the church-burning and priest-kicking material they had. But the question of twisting history remains, and perhaps what's really galling is that many liberals would like to be using the 50-year anniversary of LBJ's inauguration to celebrate LBJ as a great hero.
["Selma" director Ava] DuVernay had plenty of vile white villains — including one who kicks a priest to death in the street — and they were no doubt shocking to the D.C. school kids. There was no need to create a faux one.
Perhaps it's not so much that there are other villains — plenty of vile white villains — but that there are so few heroes. The GOP got its "Lincoln" (though Spielberg deliberately withheld it from pre-election release in 2012). Where is the great movie-hero President for the Democrats? It could have been LBJ, and with "Selma," Democrats are stuck with the opposite extreme, the would-be hero appropriated as a villain to boost the heroism of MLK.
Dowd saw "Selma" in "a theater full of black teenagers," who'd received free tickets, "[t]hanks to donations" — from whom, Dowd never says. She expresses dismay that "a generation of young moviegoers would now see L.B.J.’s role in civil rights through DuVernay’s lens." So I wonder whether historical accuracy is Dowd's real concern or whether it's got more to do with the political interests of the Democratic Party.
And who did make those donations? If you look at who benefits, you might guess: Republicans.
The “Selma for Students” effort started in New York, where more than two dozen black business leaders raised money to ensure that 27,000 students in seventh, eighth and ninth grades would be able to see the film at no cost. The tickets were taken almost immediately. Now business leaders and nonprofit organizations in a dozen cities, including Philadelphia, Boston and New Orleans, are working together to underwrite students’ tickets to the movie. In the District, the March on Washington Film Festival has raised more than $75,000 toward a $100,000 goal. D.C. Public Schools is developing lesson plans to guide classroom discussions about the film.Any rehabilitation of the reputation of LBJ in those lesson plans?
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81 comments:
You can't have a great democrat hero president because there are none. From the trail of tears to obamacare, fascists, liars, racists, eugenicists, philanderers, rapists among them including CSA president Jeff Davis.
Just wait until you see the Obama movies!
Once, I came across my nieces watching the video of the 1952 movie "Hans Christian Andersen" starring Danny Kaye. The movie opened with the following disclaimer:
"Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about this great spinner of fairy tales."
I pointedly remarked, "In other words, this movie is a pack of lies!" My nieces laughed at that, but I'd like to think I made the point that movies do *not* equal reality. (They can be inspired by reality, but it's still not the same thing.)
From the perspective of the race cabal, there are no good whities out there. And that includes former democrat presidents.
The sweet irony here is they are going after a democrat president who shoveled more federal dollars into their pockets than any other (save maybe FDR).
The Oliver Stone Film School of History.
I am Laslo.
The Oliver Stone Film School of History.
My first thought as well.
I am not Laslo.
Althouse: "many liberals would like to be using the 50-year anniversary of LBJ's inauguration to celebrate LBJ as a great hero."
Really??
"Hey, hey, LBJ,
How many kids did you kill today?"
Remember what that was in reference to?
Liberals walked out on LBJ in 1968 and backed the candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.
Perhaps the reason that LBJ isn't portrayed favorably in this movie is that Hollywood liberals still can't forgive him for Vietnam.
Wasn't FDR at a hero level off the charts? Somebody elected him four times. And since when was the magnificent Harry S Truman's Presidency disappeared?
LBJ's claim to a hero persona can NEVER be rehabilitated until the Viet Nam War that he arrogantly directed every stupid step of the way is disappeared.
That said, MLK's leadership in the civil rights movement's history is so powerful and so real that hurting LBJ's feelings over his minor role is absurd. All he did was push the Voting Rights act past the usual Democrat filibusters to a vote so GOP leadership could pass it along with a few cross over Dems. The issue really was delay. And the movie version powerfully tells that story.
If you look at it from a Randian results oriented POV, blacks should consider LBJ the Pol Pot of the dem party.
Exiled to a life of endless poverty and want.
Celebrating LBJ will just open the door for Chris Christie.
I have to wonder how many of you commenters have seen the movie.
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson did more for black people in this country than the rest of our presidents put together, and they have both become non-persons in the Democrat pantheon.
I do not think it is coincidence.
I haven't seen the Selma - waiting for my free ticket.
Surely Ms. Dowd knows that we leave truth-telling to our pundits.
And the NYT.
I do believe one obstacle to LBJ adulation is his state of origin.
Is the problem, here, that it is a boring movie, and not worth watching, or that it's less than honest with the truth? Or that you have to effectively pay people to watch it? Or that it's supposed to force a ramrod down our throats that white people are different and evil?
"Really?? 'Hey, hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?" Remember what that was in reference to? Liberals walked out on LBJ in 1968 and backed the candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy."
Of course, I remember all that. We hated LBJ. It's quite vivid and had a huge impact on our lives.
What I'm saying is that with this new milestone of distance -- 50 years -- many liberals want to stress the good of the civil rights legislation and the war on poverty and to make a hero out of LBJ. Obviously, the Vietnam War has been an immense barrier to that goal, and LBJ deserves the dishonor that's brought him, but to take the civil rights legislation away from LBJ, that cuts against the present-day Democratic Party agenda, and I believe there is a desire to segment LBJ's legacy into foreign and domestic, acknowledge that the foreign part was terrible (and unfortunate), and to isolate the domestic part for proper adulation.
How sad that children from failing schools will be devoting this much of their scarce resources to fictionalized history.
"On matters of race — America’s original sin"
Wouldn't this be everybody's original sin?
Selma's box office is so miniscule I don't know if we should care.
On the other hand, "American Sniper" is a massive hit. Althouse should have a thread on the myth and reality of Chris Kyle.
So who's seen the film? Is it any good, or is it more like eating your vegetables?
And this snubbing of nonwhites, was there some specific performance that was snubbed? Or is this a more generalized resentment that, like we split the "best" category into male and female, it should likewise be split into White and Person of Color?
My observation is that the negative reaction to Selma from all sides does not come from it overplaying LBJ's craftiness. But it comes from the jarring reality of the clash of forces in the deep south over racial apartheid. Moderates and educated blacks were at war with KKK terrorists and their mean as snakes government enforcers of a hold over of semi-slavery. Selma the movie just lays it out there as it happened to Atlanta warriors Martin, Hosea, Ralph, John and Andy over in Alabama.
React to it as best you can. But that was the way it happened in the complex world of 1960-1965 American South. It is a powerful movie.
My favorite stories about LBJ are his close association with J. Edgar Hoover, including how that friendship and the dirt that JEH had on JFK may have allowed LBJ to blackmail JFK into making him vice president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cc31ZqQWUg
Dick Gregory, comedian and civil rights activist, told Imus the movie Selma was accurate in its depiction of LBJ-- not however in the church bombing which took place in Birmingham NOT Selma. Gregory knows this because he was there. Of course in the same interview he claimed to know that Lincoln was gay and Doris Kearns Goodwin refused to reveal this truth about Honest Abe.
Hagar said...
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson did more for black people in this country than the rest of our presidents put together,
Blinks
Yeah except that whole setting them free thing.
And LBJ only made it possible to re-enslave them. Machiavellian. Kill their babies like the good and right, founder of planned parenthood prophesied, live in masters house, eat masters food, take masters transportation to masters job and get the education that master approves. Then when you kill each other master doesn't care.
I swear the worst white supremacist couldn't have drawn it up better.
The “Selma for Students” effort started in New York, where more than two dozen black business leaders raised money to ensure that 27,000 students in seventh, eighth and ninth grades would be able to see the film at no cost.
This is the problem not the solution. Contributing to the dependency of the intended beneficiaries and helping guarantee they will never get out of poverty.
Hmmm...
"and I believe there is a desire to segment LBJ's legacy into foreign and domestic, acknowledge that the foreign part was terrible (and unfortunate), and to isolate the domestic part for proper adulation."
Reading at
"and I believe there is a desire to segment Obama's legacy into foreign and domestic, acknowledge that the foreign part was terrible (and unfortunate), and to isolate the domestic part for proper adulation."
So while Instapundit kept harping on Carter as the Ceiling for Obama, we got LBJ II.
"I'll have those niggers voting Democrat for 200 years."
What's not to like about LBJ?
Also, if Obamacare fixes our health care as well as LBJ's social and civil rights programs have fixed poverty and race/class divisions we are in for a rough next 50 years.
Historical films should only be used in classrooms as examples of propaganda and political manipulation. "Triumph of the Will" and "Ten Days That Shook The World" would provide good starting material, as well as being great works of art.
"So I wonder whether historical accuracy is Dowd's real concern or whether it's got more to do with the political interests of the Democratic Party. "
Of course. The real truth about LBJ is what Jupiter nailed. Freeing the leaves doesn't count, of course, because Shut Up !
Laslo Spatula said...
The Oliver Stone Film School of History.
I am Laslo.
1/18/15, 7:28 AM"
In the multiverse all possibilities exist. Ollie just needs to find the right universe for him.
There's a book devoted to this theme: Past Imperfect - History According to the Movies. You can buy it through the Althouse portal if you are so inclined.
It is one thing to use creative license to fill in the blanks. But to simply rewrite history to portray someone in a negative light is unfair, esp when the person trashed is not around to defend himself.
re: Ollie Stone, if you want to be depressed, try sitting through his Untold History of the United States
DuVernay had plenty of vile white villains — including one who kicks a priest to death in the street — and they were no doubt shocking to the D.C. school kids.
The black kids were shocked some white folks used to be as violent as they are now?
"Freeing the leaves"
Freeing the slaves !
God damn autocorrect.
Another LBJ quote:
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”—LBJ
Remember the Titans does not accurately depict race relations. It depicts racial conflict that wasn't there in real life on that team or in that school. Glory Road grossly exaggerates and invents racial incidents. It slanders a lot of innocent people.
As a general rule, movies are way too busy preaching to make any effort at accuracy. Movies about race are particularly bad about it.
@Althouse, outstanding analysis at 8:17.
"Of course, I remember all that. We hated LBJ. It's quite vivid and had a huge impact on our lives.
What I'm saying is that with this new milestone of distance -- 50 years -- many liberals want to stress the good of ...the war on poverty..."
Maybe you could point me in the general direction....
Huh, so many cliche's come to mind.. bite the hand that feeds -- blacks biting the Dem. party hands.
In this day and age of Al Sharpton and Obama, they have to go after even the Democratic president who worked with them to make things better. Hillary got an earful when she said that it took a Dem. president too. So are the Dem party bigwigs angry at the director who purposely made a decision to distort history?
I don't remember any priests killed in Selma, and, being in 1st grade in a Catholic school in Alabama, I think I would have heard about it.
Now, James Reeb, a Unitarian minister did die in the Selma protests after he and two other ministers were beaten by a white gang after leaving a black owned restaurant. Is this what the movie is referring to, but just messing with the facts? Or, are my memories lacking, and a priest did die at Selma & I just missed it?
I read most of the Caro books. LBJ, in point of fact, was quite villainous. Even when he was on the right side of history, he was right in the wrong kind of way. I lived through the Johnson years. A disastrous war, ever increasing inflation, burning cities. Surely there must have been some way of enacting civil rights legislation without so much sturm und drang.
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”—LBJ
I was reading a book of Roman-era literature (political proclamations, tomb texts, etc.) and this is pretty much what the emperors and other high-borns did and said.
Nothing.Has.Changed.
The movie never said the dead white man was a priest. That is an error by a writer who never watched it. In the movie that guy was a white preacher reminding another white preacher that MLKs strategic decision to stop the second march at the police line was like God revealing to a preacher words he never knew in the middle of a powerful sermon. So that was no Catholic priest. The Reformed Protestants preach.
Oh, yes, tradguy, because the RCC never had any involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, just the Protestants!
Sadly, that's about par for your warped understanding of history in general...
Jefferson used to be the Democrat counterweight to Lincoln. FDR built the Jefferson Monument so that the Democrats would have a presence on the Washington Mall to rival that of Lincoln. Since that time many scandalous facts about Jefferson, and not just the Sally Hemmings thing, have come to notice. So ixnay on Jefferson. Andrew Jackson was another founding father of the Democratic Party, but the judgment of history reveals that he was not great in the ways that we, nowadays, think great. Woodrow Wilson? Another Democratic icon whose image can no longer be carried in religious processions. He was an avowed white supremacist. I think FDR will at some point suffer a drastic revision downwards. Unlike Nixon his anti Semitism actually had a body count.. On the other hand, if you discount the rape allegations, Clinton had a fairly successful Presidency.
And one more note: when the second aborted march starts the theme of its being a trap by the Alabama State Troopers under Governor Wallace's orders is introduced by the Directer's playing a biting first stanza of Bob Dylan's Masters of War. And yes, that tactic was exactly what Dylan was singing about in 1964.
I was young. LBJ pulled his beagles ears. I judged him solely from a child who loved her dog.
Rae
@ Young Hegelian...This movie is not an official History of peace and harmony. It was a courageous fight that the movie hammers home.
The crowd scenes were full of priests and Nuns, but King and his band of brothers were Baptist preachers of the word. They were not Catholic. I am affirming to you that the reality did happen that way.
@tradguy,
No one is denying the denominational affiliation of MLK & his cohort.
It's just that your phrasing "So that was no Catholic priest. The Reformed Protestants preach." invites an interpretation that no other denomination "preached" during the Civil Rights struggle, when the actuality of that history, not just Selma, involved not only lots of other Christians "preaching" but many Jews, & even atheistic Communists & Socialists.
Remember, tradguy, the guys who were beating up the marchers & turning the fire hoses on them considered themselves good Southern Protestants, too. I know, because I grew up surrounded by those people.
Blogger Jupiter said...
"I'll have those niggers voting Democrat for 200 years."
What's not to like about LBJ?
LBJ managed a political miracle. Through massive welfare programs and buy outs, he got over 90% of the black vote for the party of slavery, segregation, the KKK, and Jim Crow.
Young Hegelian... You are correct. But see the movie to understand me. Good people from every Christian group came to King's aid once he stood up to the Masters of White Supremacy.
I find it really demeaning that people raised all that money for those kids to go see the movie. It seems awfully insulting to pat them on the heads and say, "Oh you poor dear; you're too dumb and helpless to A. know what's good for you in the infotainment department so we'll nudge you in that direction and B. come up with five or ten bucks for a movie ticket.
Rehabilitation of LBJ??
He was hounded out of office, with liberals saying his name with disgust, for a reason.
And despite what condescending white progressives -- who think that blacks are like children incapable of making it on their own and need white saviors to come and save them and provide for them -- are saying, a lot of people who said they supported MLK and his movement were also saying that he needed to go slow, that he was pushing things, that other things needed to come first. That was a major theme of a lot of MLK's speeches, as well as his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
And if you go and read the magazines and newspapers from 1965, rather than the revisionism of today, you'll read that LBJ did have his own priorities and things like the voting rights bill were, in fact, not proceeding as fast as they could have been.
And that is all that the movie Selma shows about LBJ. It doesn't show that he was a racist. It shows that he was an obnoxious, pushy politician. And you know what? HE WAS.
And, yes, these elites from the Plantation Party are not just a bit bigoted for holding these black filmmakers to a higher standard in making a historical drama. If white Spielberg had made this same movie, they'd be falling over themselves with praise.
Meanwhile -- news flash -- the movie wasn't about @#$% LBJ. And not everything has to have some white guy at the center of it, especially a movie about black people and their struggle.
"if you discount the rape allegations, Clinton had a fairly successful Presidency."
Clinton had the benefit of a Republican Congress that had not yet succumbed to the ruling class mentality. Look at a graph of the stock market. In 1995, it starts up and hasn't stopped.
So who's seen the film?
Yes, I have. It is an excellent film. And as historically accurate as any other historical drama.
Now, James Reeb, a Unitarian minister did die in the Selma protests after he and two other ministers were beaten by a white gang after leaving a black owned restaurant. Is this what the movie is referring to?
Yes.
They had to twist it to show that MLK and other blacks did it all themselves.
And the sad truth is that if it wasn't for white Christian people slavery would still exist in the modern world, just as it still does in countries that are controlled by Islam and blacks.
Jack Valenti was perhaps the most committed LBJ acolyte short of Joe Califano, and Valenti ran the Academy for decades. Its membership may be the most concentrated reservoir of LBJ love still surviving today, and the "Selma" people crossed them up. It's no wonder the voters showed so little love in return.
Even your name is a lie. You're not "unknown." People like you have been known all too well all throughout history.
No, the film does not say that MLK and blacks did it all themselves. In fact, whites were central to MLK's strategy. Everything about his civil rights ministry was an appeal to the consciences of whites, that whites do the right thing. MLK wasn't a violent revolutionary. He was not interested in a seizure of power, in blacks doing everything themselves. He was interested in justice, which means that whites themselves stop "hardening their hearts" and change.
Another person is angry at the inaccuracies of the movie: "Fresh Controversy Hits ‘Selma’: Daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel ‘Shocked’ by Exclusion of Her Father From Film"
Did the film director want to remove as many white people as possible from the story?
I remember when LBJ died how the MSM remained so critical of him in their obits. It seemed like no one liked him, and for good reason. Now they are going to rehab him?
I saw Selma at a little gathering to watch it on a "For Your Consideration" disc. A good friend of mind is a voting member of the Academy. My friend knows I have a tough time getting out to see movies, so goes out of the way to include me for viewings around that time of year. It was a very liberal and gay bunch. After a nice dinner, we all got comfortable in front of a huge screen HDTV, and let 'er rip.
My take was it was a good movie, but not Oscar worthy. It suffers from the disease that most historical dramas suffer from; we all know how it ends. That was my biggest problem with Lincoln. However, Lincoln Had a masterful actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, to carry the burden and overcome the historical issues. Selma didn't have that. David Oyelowo provided a competent performance as MLK, but he just didn't have the gravitas to pull off an Oscar worthy portrayal of a Great Man. There's looking right and putting in a sophisticated but animatronic performance, and then there's great acting. Oyelowo was the former.
Selma also felt like there was a running checklist running across the bottom along with the legal warnings from the Academy. The checklist hits all the highlights, which are predictable as hell. I laughed out loud at the big MLK/LBJ scene. I mean, I know LBJ was a total shit six ways to Sunday, but c'mon! Playing LBJ as Snidley Whiplash to MLK's Dudley Do-Right? I felt I was on a Disney tunnel ride, except more real and violent. And since I'd been on that ride before, I sort of rolled my eyes and muttered here comes suchlike-and-such.
The rest of the group had an interesting reaction. It was obvious that they felt compelled To proclaim Selma's Greatness, but as the wine flowed, they showed a lot of discomfort with their initial reaction. One described it as an overly sophisticated after-school special. We all predicted a best picture nomination and a best actor nod for Oyelowo, but we weren't especially comfortable with our predictions. We felt we were expected to make those predictions. My friend never says how he/she votes. As with all members, my friend votes within her/his professional category and for best picture.
Overall conclusion: Good movie, but not rising to the level of art. We all predicted it would sweep the nominations, but not for the right reasons.
I saw American Sniper with the same group, and they just about wet their pants over it. That was fun. Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. But...
Best quote from that showing: "Fucking Eastwood! I can't stand that BASTARD, but the sonofabitch makes great movies! I was with Kyle's character from start to finish! Cooper fucking rocked that roll! I can't stand it! This is a great movie, goddammit! Fucking Eastwood..." This from a 48 year old Hispanic gay retired military officer. Me? I loved American Sniper, and I'm really pleased it's crushing it at the box office.
There were white Nuns in the Selma protests. The KKK made a big deal about it and published pictures. They claimed the Nuns were there to have sex with the Negroes.
Most people in Alabama had never met a Roman Catholic. When I graduated high school, I had only met two--and that was because I lived in a University town.
The point is that many people probably believed the KKK.
But the point is that the civil rights marches did not end up the way Reconstruction did. Black people had gotten a lot savvier and better organized in the intervening years. And dare I say it--white people had grown a tad less racist. I know there were many instances of brutal violence during the civil right campaigns but they were not at the level and saturation that happened post Reconstruction years.....The best movie I saw last year was Guardians of the Galaxy. I try to avoid movies about slavery, genocide, and senile dementia. Romantic comedies are ok, if there's. A lot of nudity......Thanks for an interesting and thoughtful post, Mojo.
Never help ungrateful people.
other omissions in the film:
http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/18/fresh-controversy-hits-selma-daughter-of-rabbi-abraham-joshua-heschel-shocked-by-exclusion-of-her-father-from-film/
My take was it was a good movie, but not Oscar worthy.
Now, what is one to make of this observation?
I've seen some of the Oscar Best Picture nominees and winners over the last few recent years. And more than a few of them are quite bad, certainly nothing I would ever have any desire to ever see again.
So to say that a movie is not "Oscar worthy" isn't saying a whole hell of a lot.
I'll grant you guys this much. The paternalistic progressive plantation has done quiet well in poisoning the well, not only with respect to this film, but also the events of the Selma-Montgomery campaign and the other civil rights campaigns.
So it looks like that people are going to continue to wallow in their ignorance. And many here appear to be happy to do so.
Mark said...I've seen some of the Oscar Best Picture nominees and winners over the last few recent years. And more than a few of them are quite bad, certainly nothing I would ever have any desire to ever see again.
So to say that a movie is not "Oscar worthy" isn't saying a whole hell of a lot.
It's just his opinion, Mark, and you sound upset.
Why don't you share your opinion of the same? Tell us why it's Oscar worthy!
So it looks like that people are going to continue to wallow in their ignorance. And many here appear to be happy to do so.
What ignorance? Explain.
I haven't seen "Selma," but the charges of historical revisionism sound credible. Why can't you comment on that?
I did see "Lincoln" and thought its plot was cringe-worthy. As Chef Mojo said, DDL carried the movie. Why didn't Oprah bring some star power to "Selma"? Clint Eastwood made a very good movie called " Gran Torino" which also lacked stars and was snubbed at the Oscars. The Academy gave everything that year to a wretched (now forgotten) film called "MILK."
I haven't seen "Selma" . . .
So you're talking out of your ass then.
. . . but the charges of historical revisionism sound credible
Well, then, why don't you take your head out of your ass, go pick up a few books, and read about the history? Hell, you could even go to Wikipedia, which would tell you that LBJ had been slow walking voting rights legislation for nearly a decade, including allowing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to be watered down and made toothless when he was Senate Majority Leader so that certain voting rights protections were unenforceable.
Meanwhile, using Selma as an example, in 1961, the population of the county there was 57 percent black, but of the 15,000 blacks old enough to vote, only 130 were registered (fewer than 1 percent). And when they tried to register, they were refused.
If you can't vote, you can't "work within the system." If your not registered to vote, you can't serve on juries, so the entire justice system is corrupted in addition to not being able to change laws that allowed blacks to be locked out of the marketplace, jobs, schools, housing, etc.
The utter political powerlessness of blacks had been a major issue for decades, including during the Kennedy Administration, including during the 1964 presidential election, which LBJ won. But he didn't see voting rights as that big a priority. Other things came first.
But don't take my word for it. Again, why don't you take your head out of your ass and learn about the history yourself?
Or why don't you go read about the 1964 Democrat convention, where LBJ worked to obstruct efforts to seat a delegation of blacks from Mississippi. And then when one Fannie Lou Hamer was to give testimony before a convention committee on why the delegation should be seated, LBJ called an emergency press conference in an effort to divert press coverage.
The big emergency? The nine-month anniversary of the shooting of Texas governor, John Connally, during the JFK shooting.
So you're talking out of your ass then.
Why don't stop bitching and try to convince people of something
@Mark: Quit being such a boring scold.
@Mark: Again: Tell us why "Selma" is Oscar worthy!
Why are you holding back?
"movies are way too busy preaching to make any effort at accuracy"
Apparently they forgot Sam Goldwin's advice about using movies to send a message, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
Then again, so many MSM reviewers seem to review movies and books based on their politics and not on whether the work is actually well done.
I wonder if any schoolchildren are getting this assignment: "Contrast and compare LBJ with Pres. Obama." A similarity: both craved adulation. A difference: LBJ was a political master at working with Congress, Obama is about as bad at this as any president has ever been.
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