In the trailer for Harriet, there is a tease of a visually arresting climactic scene showing abolitionist Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) cocking a rifle and firmly ordering, "Ready?" to the Union sold…
Spanish moss. Oak-lined plantation roads. Shimmering lazy heat. A white columned mansion. Genteel young Southern ladies in white dresses practicing their French verb conjugation. It seems idyllic, exc…
When Roots originally aired over 8 nights in January 1977, I was six years old. I remember being aware that it was on TV, because my brother and I were shunned from the rec room where my parents were …
The premise of the show is truly interesting, and should be ripe for an excellent drama, if in the right hands. It's 1862 Alexandria, Virginia, which is smack on the border of North and South. Mansion…
Told with an unflinching eye by director Steve McQueen (Shame, Hunger), the story centers on Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, in a riveting performance that has Best Actor written all over it), an …
Based on a book by Bill O'Reilly (yes, THAT Bill O'Reilly), Killing Lincoln focuses on the event that has been a pop culture obsession since 1865, and I'm not talking about the 13th Amendment.
Narrat…
I know plenty of people that consider Gone with the Wind a snooze-fest (for its almost four-hour running length), or find it unwatchable because Vivien Leigh's Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara is such a…
There are many enduring images of the Civil War--the siege of Vicksburg, Sherman's burning of Atlanta and his destructive march to the sea, the sickness and starvation, the pillaging of farms by soldi…
You need get no further than the opening scene in Lincoln to see a Spielbergism. Abe Lincoln sits on a throne of a chair, on a platform at a battlefield, not-subtly evoking the pose of the famous stat…
