Movie Title Story - In Theaters November 17, 2012

Lincoln never knew Flight. He could look up. He could reach for a Cloud Atlas or in the deepest of days, he might imagine a Skyfall. Those were The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Anna Karenina, on the other hand waited till the end of night for The Sessions… The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn when Wreck-It Ralph screamed Ar…go and headed off to work.   

My Favorites: (in order, from those I've seen)

• Lincoln (See the photos below)
• Perks of Being a Wall Flower
• Sessions
• Argo
• Flight
• Skyfall
• Cloud Atlas

I rearranged this list three times before I could live with it. Cloud Atlas remained at the bottom throughout my deliberations, but, after that, I have several firsts. Perks, because the pain of the characters still live in my head, Lincoln, because I cried watching soldiers, black soldiers recite the Gettysburg address, knowing it took us one hundred more years to give their children's children true equality under the law, and allow them to vote. Argo... because sitting on the edge of my seat for ninelty minutes is a fabulous movie experience. Sessions, because it makes a paraplegic man human and sexy and I've not felt that before. And, I loved Denzel in Flight. His acting stirred my thinking about drinking and about flying.  

This week, I feel compelled to list Lincoln first. It's what I want people to see. At once, it is then and now. 

Though the movie was ready for distribution prior to this month's election, it caught the events perfectly. Down to the last minute the President’s men maneuvered to get votes for the Thirteenth Amendment like we called Virginians to make sure they got in line and stayed in line at the polls. Like the Senator-characters who voted their hearts at cost to their politics, Americans re-elected President Obama, knowing it was the right thing to do for women, for people who are gay. 

No matter how powerful their story telling, Spielberg and Kushner can’t change history.  The next one hundred years were not easy. We must continue to seek and maintain civil rights. 

From my vantage, the fight now must shift to the people of the earth and climate change. We don’t have one hundred years for this. I hope Lincoln will embold legislators to do the right thing… to regulate for the greater good for the earth, so that one hundred years from now a scorched earth is not a reality.