We've been to the movies again!

So we've been to our local theater establishments again a couple times this week and we've seen a couple dandy movies. The first one, The Great Debaters is based on a true story of a wildly successful debate team from the small black school, Wiley College of Marshall, Texas. The story revolves around the debate coach and teacher, professor Melvin Tolsen, played by Denzel Washington and his efforts to instill the power of words and clear thinking into a mismatched group of semi-eager debaters. Tolsen's a powerful character and acive in political wranglings and organizing of the local sharecroppers which gets him in trouble with the local law enforcement in addition to his debate coaching duties. But he trains his team, a 15 year old son of a scholarly pastor, played by another Academy Award winner, Forrest Whitaker, a whiskey and music loving older student with a jail record and the first woman to become a debate team member.

But the team works hard, wins their matches, including one against an all white college and eventually wrangles a prized match against the national debate champions, Harvard University. On the way through their debate schedule, one member drops out due to Professor Tolsen's politics, they witness a lynching and learn a little bit about love and lust and hard work.

The Great Debaters is a terrific movie. Its maybe one of the best movies I've ever seen. It is powerful reminder of how bigotry and racial prejudice are not so far behind us in history and its moving as a story of hard work, perseverence, motivation and success, both in the short term as a debate team and long term as the skills of the team are applied to life outside academics. This movie gets two thumbs up from me and the spouse and I recommend you get out to see it immediately.

During our next trip to the muliplex we picked a bigger blockbuster movie, I am Legend. This is a adventure-thriller type movie I suppose as Will Smith plays the last man alive in Manhattan after a mutant virus has killed off nearly everyone, leaving behind only mutated, zombie-like cratures that hide in the dark and only come out when the sun sets. Smith is an Army research doctor that was working on the virus program when it when awry and for whatever reason was not affected by the deadly strain. He has a well equipped laboratory, weapons and a trusty dog to keep him company.

The story wraps around Smith's daily hunting efforts for food- somebody should have taght him how to treestand hunt, searching out and capturing a dark seeker for experimental research and all the things that can go wrong when you are the only man left alive. The movie's good. Its scary in all the right places and makes for a really good movie. Smith plays a guy struggling to keep his sanity in spite of overwhelming odds and does a fine job with this challenging part.

So this film also gets a thumbs up from both the spouse and I even if its no Academy Award challenger. Its a good story and worthy of your popcorn money.