Movie: Crazy In Alabama (contains spoilers)

This week's Netflix offering was Crazy In Alabama, which was recommended by a guy at church. And I like about my church that, during service, someone can say "there's this woman who cuts off her abusive husband's head and carries it around, and it talks to her like he would -- but it's really good, you should see it." (Services are very informal, and half the "sermon" is the very small congregation discussing what they think the reading meant. Sometimes, it gets a little off track.)

Anyway, good movie. If you haven't seen it, I think it's definitely worth borrowing and watching at least once. I wouldn't mind watching this one again.

First, big good things. It's one of those dramas with a big dose of comedic segments, similar in tone to Fried Green Tomatoes. While watching it, I often found myself thinking of Mississippi Burning, because the movies are nothing alike. They're both dealing with racism and murder in the South in the 1960s, and both have white primary characters, and that's about all they have in common; beyond that, everywhere Mississippi Burning failed, this movie succeeded.

I like that the black characters, although supporting cast, are actually characters, not just sheep-like props. They have motivations and feelings, they take action, they stage protests -- they're people. I like that the "dramatic" portion of the movie has a realistic ending, not a neatly tied-up happy one. The scene where David gets into the pool in memory of his brother while there's a mini-riot going on around him, although unrealistic and a bit overdone, is still very beautiful. Overall, I'd say that Antonio Banderas did a good job at his first time directing.
I also like the sort of play in the title. The officially crazy person is not in Alabama for most of the movie, so you gotta think the "crazy in Alabama" is the supposedly sane people involved in the racist crap. And that's kind of driven home at the end, when they fill in the swimming pool to get around the segregation order, and Willie announces "That's stupid."

Minor bad things: It is so painfully obvious that Lucille's black hair is a wig that it's actually VERY distracting. Melanie Griffith does not have black hair coloring. It's not even a matter of, say, her eyebrows not matching (Storm in X-Men, I'm looking at you), because they do, but she simply doesn't have the skintone. It's just very obvious looking at her that this is not this woman's real hair.
Second, anachronisms. Especially the women on the jury in Lucille's trial. In the 1960s in Alabama, the ACLU was suing to end the exclusion of women from juries. I don't know exactly what year that went through, but even if it was before 1965, somehow I'm thinking that in Alabama they weren't going to put four or more women on a murder trial jury. Delicate flowers of white womanhood and all that southern crap, ya know?
Third, as much as I enjoyed the judge's sentence, this is why we now (unfortunately) have minimum sentencing. I enjoyed it anyway.

Finally, minor good things.
Fanny Flagg (writer of Fried Green Tomatoes) cameo as the roadside dinner waitress. Cool.
Meat Loaf as the evil sheriff, scarily good job on that. I forgot I was watching my favorite singer (which is a good thing, or then I'd RTOT to the MST3K "Meat Loaf: Texas Ranger" bit, and I'd be done.)

And remember, kids. If the lawnmower gets jammed, make sure it is completely off and not moving before you try to fix it.

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I have to make on off-topic aside, though. Watching movies like this makes me really pisses off at the way the civil rights movement was taught to me in schools. This movie took place in 1965, during the peak of the movement and they repeatedly mention "what happened in Selma". One, I had to look up what happened in Selma (Bloody Sunday) because I had no freakin' idea.
Two, that's a mere 13 years before I was born. And I'm now old enough that that doesn't seem very long. Where the HELL did my teacher's get off teaching the problems of just 20ish years earlier, events they were old enough to clearly remember as recent, as though it was ancient history and all solved now?

I especially remember what I was taught, and not taught, about Rosa Parks. Her motivation for refusing to give her up seat was usually presented as she was too "tired" *coughlazycough* after a day working at a department store, and my teachers usually portrayed her arrest as though it were a surprise to her. Excuse me, but this was an intelligent black woman who had lived her whole life in the South. She knew exactly what was going to happen if she refused to give up her seat. In fact, she was warned that the police would be called if she didn't move. This was not a surprise, it was not an accident, she was not too physically tired/lazy/stupid/whatever. This was a conscious act of resistance. Furthermore, my classes NEVER mentioned that at the time, Rosa was the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, and very active in women's and minority rights. No, instead she was portrayed as a weak, perhaps even doddering, old lady. (She was 42! Since when is 42 elderly?)

OK, that's my little ranty addendum for the day.