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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Nota bene: the name of the film is Selma, not King. Sure, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (portrayed with careful dignity by David Oyelowo) serves as architect, engine, lightning rod, and general for the organization and execution of a march from Selma, Alabama to the State Capitol in Montgomery, seat of pro-segregation governor George Wallace. But director Ava DuVernay, working from a script by first-timer Paul Webb, wisely shifts the emphasis away from the person — it's hard to make a movie about a saint, even a secular one — and onto the process: what had to happen to make a march like this happen? Well, for one thing, King had to play several rounds of political chess with President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), here portrayed as a sympathetic soul who nevertheless was not about to be bullied into adopting someone else's timeline, church bombings or no church bombings. Their frank and flinty exchanges make for the most entertaining of the many "here's what you need to understand" conversations that fill the film; elsewhere, you may find yourself surprised that the character-cum-mouthpiece isn't simply lecturing to the camera. Still, the machinations do merit exposition, if only to understand the enormity of the moment. And they keep the piety at bay: throughout, these are people, figuring out how to fight a war without firing a shot, straining to stand together as their opposition seeks to knock them down and drive them apart. Speaking of the opposition: Tim Roth looks to be having a good time in his portrayal of the weaselly Wallace. (2014) — Matthew Lickona

Rated PG-13 | 2.0 hours, 7 minutes
View Trailer <em>"Selma</em> + gospel at the Central Library" Official Website

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