Category: Emmy Nominee/Winner

In Nazi-occupied France, wealthy lawyer and accidental prisoner Anthony Hopkins offers his entire fortune to any of his fellow prisoners who will take his place on the firing squad. Many years later when he is release from prison, he returns to his former home under an assumed name and meets with the other prisoner’s family. It’s a rather slight made for television film about guilt and redemption that features compelling performances from Hopkins and a rather young Kristin Scott Thomas as the sister of the other prisoner.

Land developer George Newbern tries to force Georgian woodworker Sidney Poitier off of his land to build a shopping mall. Though not really explained, Poitier is covered by some sort of supernatural blessing that amongst other things makes him look many years younger than his supposed 91. It’s not bad for a made for television […]

This film follows the first year of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency from the assassination of Kennedy to his own election almost a year later. Much focus is spent on the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the pressure that MLK and other Black leaders placed in getting it passed. It’s a fairly standard biopic made much stronger by an embodying performance by Bryan Cranston. The film covers many of LBJ’s well-known quirks and also goes far in connecting the passage of the Act with the Democrats’ loss of their former Southern stronghold.

During the Civil Rights movement in a small town in Mississippi, young people join with other activists to register people to vote and protest other inequalities. Similarly to Deacons for Defense , parents of these students aren afraid to shake things up, being well aware of the retributions that have happened in the past. Unlike that other movie, the adults don’t step in to protect the teens. It’s a perfectly serviceable made for television version of the events of the time period. It’s possible I’ve just watched a few too many on the theme recently to appreciate it more.

In 1991 Clarence Thomas (played here by Wendall Pierce) was nominated to the Supreme Court. This follows the point in his hearings when lawyer and educator Anita Hill (in the film portrayed by Kerry Washington) was compelled to share her experiences of sexual harassment while working with him. I admittedly didn’t watch the hearings as they happened, but it is infuriating to watch them unfold in the film. It truly illustrates how broken the system, and perhaps all political systems, can be. While it’s difficult to know how accurate the behind the scenes parts are, the hearings come across realistically as do the portrayals of the various political figures.

During the days of the civil rights movement, reporters visit Cicely Tyson’s 110 year old title character to get her perspective on events. Cicely recounts from the history of her life, from her days as a slave and later sharecropping and the struggle for education advancement for people like her. It’s a TV movie, so the quality is a bit shoddy and it really jumps through all but a handful of events of the woman’s exceptionally long life. Tyson gives a great performance, convincingly aging herself almost 100 years through the film. The makeup department did a noteworthy job adding to extra believability to her aging.

It has been quite a while since I’ve seen the original Roots miniseries, so it seemed a good time to check out this newer rendition. In the heavily fictionalized account of his family history, Alex Haley laid out the tale of how his first ancestor, Kunta Kinte, came to America on a slave ship proceeding through the generations to Haley himself. While overall I think I like the earlier version of the story, there were some highlights to this series. The budget for this seemed much higher, resulting in a higher quality and more realistic looking product. The sets in Gambia were more extravagant and portrayed a people less uncivilized than previous. One big issue I had was with the torture porn aspects of the slavery chapters. It somehow overwhelms the more everyday degradations and cruelty of slavery by only showing the extremes.