The complexities and subtleties of race relations in America and, specifically, the U.S. court system, are explored in Marc Silver’s riveting courtroom documentary 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets, which revolves around the 2012 Florida gas station shooting and murder of black teen Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn, a middle-aged white man. Citing “loud music” as the inciting factor in the crime, Dunn fired ten bullets at Davis and his unarmed friends as they fled the scene.

As a companion piece to our conversation with Jordan’s mother, Lucia McBath, we spoke to Silver about the filmmaking process and how he approached inserting himself into the lives of Jordan’s family and friends. 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets opens this week in limited release and will air on HBO in the fall.

I interviewed Lucia a couple of months ago. She said of you that…
…I was a bastard. [laughs]

No, not quite! [laughs] She said you were very shy when you two first met.
When you’re walking into someone’s life, particularly when they’re living through a death in the family, you don’t want to go in there like a bull in a china shop. I didn’t want it to seem like I was stealing her story for my own needs. I stepped very sensitively into that space and time they were in, which was weirdly a couple of weeks before the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin verdict. It was really inspiring meeting them and learning who they were as parents. They continue to parent children. They became great spokespeople.

She shared so many brilliant ideas with me when we met, and we were only together an hour. You must have had some fascinating conversations with her.
We didn’t really cover a lot of what Lucia became with her activism in the film. We felt like the power of spending time with her was audiences being able to empathize and have feelings for these kind of families who sit behind the news. We hear these stories all the time these days, and I think it’s hard, in a news context, to get underneath the skin of the people involved. We were keen to get as intimate as we could with the feelings Jordan’s parents were going through so that other parents could see what it would feel like if this were to happen to their children.

The murder stemmed from racial tension that was actually very subtle, when you break it down. Mr. Dunn was afraid of the loud music, of the color of the boys’ skin, because it was foreign to his isolated life.
Absolutely. The more we dive into who Michael Dunn is as a character, the more we realize how unaware he was of his own racism. He almost became this metaphor, in film terms, for a part of America that is also unaware of its own racism. The impact of that conditioning led to Jordan being killed, but I think it quietly invites audiences to reflect on their own unconscious biases. There are certain things he says that actually a lot of audience members would agree with. Hopefully they ask themselves, “Why do I fear blackness? How have I been conditioned to have that sense of fear?”

The film instills empathy, which is the most important thing. Mr. Dunn clearly had no empathy.
You know what? His family has never apologized or even commented on Jordan’s death. My hope is that the film is seductive in the way it invites you to consider issues that are hugely complex and subtle, like you said.

Someone tries sushi for the first time, and they hate it. They say, “I’m never going to try it again. I hate all sushi.” Elsewhere, a white person says, “I had a bad experience with a black person, so they’re all bad.” One is clearly more extreme than the other, but I think both of these dismissive, blanket statements actually come from the same place. It’s a matter of fearing the unfamiliar.
Absolutely. It basically boils down to this fear of the “other.” You have to question where that comes from. There are people who say that that’s what white supremacy has done, that the history of the U.S. is built on this fear of and destruction of the “other.” I think, in many ways, that’s what Michael Dunn, the shooter, came to represent. He was almost unable to handle these young black men who were talking back to him. He was angry that he was being spoken back to by these people he deemed to be inferior.

I spoke to David Oyelowo a while back about playing Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. He said he was a good fit for the role because he’s a Brit, and can therefore approach the material objectively. Would the same apply to you?
I’ve thought about that a lot. I wondered whether me being British was positive or negative or whether it would impact the way I told the story. In many ways I feel it gives me the luxury of having this bird’s eye view and see these invisible, systemic links in this country. On the other hand, I think this story has very universal themes of justice and parenting and race and power and inequality. Those issues are universal.

What was your approach to the story cinematically?
Funnily enough, I’d done a film previous to this which was shot in Honduras, Mexico, Arizona—every frame was gorgeous and there were these big, dramatic vistas. I got to Jacksonville for this movie, and it was winter. It felt very cold and grey. I was worried that there might be nothing to film there. I was stuck in a courtroom with no windows. Walking around Jacksonville, I realized that no one walks in Jacksonville. You go around in your car, go home to your gated community, receive information not from other people, but from the media. And you go to shopping malls. There didn’t seem to be a place where people cross paths with each other. That became a cinematic motif throughout the film. That’s what gave us the idea to film lots of freeways and traffic and listen to radio phone-ins.

That’s how we dealt with life outside the courtroom. Inside the courtroom was very fixed and limited. We were feeding mainstream media a live feed, so we couldn’t show any of the jurors. It was very restrictive. I think that led to the close-up photography. Tiny details on people’s faces became hugely revealing. People were thinking about things much deeper than what could actually be revealed in the courtroom.

You expect Jordan’s parents to leap out of their seats several times, but they just sit still. It’s chilling.
I really felt for them. They were told not to show emotion in the courtroom because it would affect the jury. Every day, the judge had to ask Michael Dunn if he was satisfied with the way the day had gone and how he was represented. You can see the frustration on Jordan’s parents’ faces. At the time, it felt like the rights of Michael Dunn were more important than the rights of Jordan, who wasn’t allowed to be referred to as “the victim.” Race wasn’t allowed to be discussed either. The defense attorney said, because Michael Dunn hadn’t been charged with a hate crime because he wasn’t heard using racist language at the time of the shooting. So race couldn’t be mentioned. Then, you step outside, and everyone’s talking about race on the streets and on the airwaves.

It’s a great time right now for documentaries, but it’s also harder than ever to stand out from the crowd and be unique. There are so many fundamental documentary tools that are now considered cliché. Going into the film, was there anything you were determined not to do?
I didn’t want to have any talking heads, and I didn’t want to have so-called “experts” who weren’t connected to the story. I had this unwritten law that we were only going to speak to people who were directly involved in the case. I guess I cut the film in the way you would cut a fiction film. There are people out there who make great talking-head films, but I prefer telling stories in a way that’s less about data, more about empathy. Ultimately, you can get data on Google. To get a sense of understanding you watch film.

Was there any footage that was painful to leave out?
Lots. I spent my first Thanksgiving with Ron’s family, which was obviously the anniversary of Jordan’s death. There’s a beautiful scene where they pray and toast Jordan. Also, there’s an amazing scene with Ron, who used to play baseball. He and Jordan used to practice and play catch together, but now he catches baseballs thrown by a machine. We talked to him about Jordan as he played with the machine. In Jordan’s absence, you got to learn a lot about who he was.

Talk to me about when you were in the process of shuffling your footage around and organizing the film’s structure. What was the most difficult thing about that?
I think there were two main things. One was the sheer amount of data there was when it came to the trial itself. I was on one camera and we had two remote-controlled cameras. There was a lot of material. Cutting a trial to make it interesting is hard, because they take a lot of time to unfold. Another thing was representing the grief Lucia and Ron were suffering. I think there’s a fine line between exploiting that and manipulating an audience and at the same time observing it. It was also difficult to represent Jordan without ever having met him. He’s the star of the film, and yet he’s the only one who’s not with us. We had some VHS material and some cell phone clips and family photos, but we didn’t want to use those things in an exploitative way. You get to learn who he is through his friends and girlfriend and parents. You get to know him better through them than through us showing pictures of him.

Ava DuVernay’s Selma, about Martin Luther King Jr.’s organization of three marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 (protests that led to the Voting Rights Act), was produced for about $20 million. The film was privately funded (it was picked up for distribution by Paramount following completion) and that meant DuVernay had artistic autonomy, but it also meant that she didn’t have the dough to buy the rights to King’s famous speeches. For those expecting Selma to be a biopic about a legendary leader (it’s not), this may seem like a critical omission, but the absence of the speeches ends up being one of the film’s biggest boons; this is a story not about a great man’s famous sound bites, but about a flawed man, the burdens of greatness, and the scars they left on his mind, body, and heart.

Selma‘s a focused film that covers a pivotal moment in American history (about 90 days), with no flashbacks to King’s upbringing or the march on Washington. The story’s concern is Selma, and what King did there. The pertinence of the film to the issues of today is undeniable, and is most evident in its most horrific sequence, in which we’re shown the gory results of the March 7, 1965 march. The march ends in a sickening bloodbath as we see white police officers savagely brutalize King’s protesters without mercy. While the imagery is rightly appalling and explicit, it isn’t the most disturbing thing about the film: What’s most disturbing about Selma is how relevant today, in 2015, in light of current events, the image of a white “protector” murdering an unarmed black man is. It’s been 50 years. That’s the most disturbing thing. It’s not the most interesting thing about the film, though.

What’s most interesting is that the film is a human history lesson, not a mythical one. Prolific English actor David Oyelowo takes a more grounded, sensible approach to playing King than anyone could have expected. His King is a man of intense focus and imperfect ego. Jealous. Neglectful. You expect him to channel the commanding presence and oratory prowess of King, and to be sure, on that front he delivers: He makes the speakers rumble when on the podium or pulpit, mobilizing large crowds to take a stand. It’s thrilling to watch, and he sounds just like King, and it’s all very, very impressive. But the real key to Oyelowo’s performance is when his mouth is shut; that’s when you’ll quiver.

The best scene is an uncomfortable domestic impasse. After listening to a surveillance recording that’s supposed evidence of her husband’s infidelity, Coretta King (a strong Carmen Ejogo) launches a low, slow, burning set of yes-or-no questions at King (concerning his mistresses), who looks puny sitting in a chair as she towers over him. Having Coretta impose her will by commanding her husband, one of the greatest speakers in history, to answer yes-or-no questions, is brilliant. He looks weak, and bruised. In a later scene, Coretta visits King while he’s behind bars after being arrested following a public protest. She mentions that she’s met with Malcolm X, who’s willing to give King his support. He’s hurt upon learning his wife met with his rival, and even dares to suggest that she’s infatuated. It’s these moments of sheer vulnerability, off the front lines, that honor King’s life like no history book or documentary ever could. It’s a thoughtful perspective. To truly appreciate his accomplishments, we must remember that King breathed and bled and hurt like all of us, and yet still did all the things he did. He was strong, not invincible.

In the film’s first incarnation, which was written by Paul Webb and was to be directed by Lee Daniels (who eventually passed the project up to do The Butler), the story centered heavily on King’s negotiations with President Lyndon B. Johnson. When DuVernay was brought on to direct in 2013, however, she revised the script (with Webb, who stayed on as penner), shifting its focus significantly, concentrating more on King’s organizing in Selma. LBJ is still in the movie (Tom Wilkinson plays him very well), but his presence is limited and is clearly de-emphasized from the original script. DuVernay makes it crystal clear that the President is no white savior (he’s mostly utilized as a force of opposition), though the film has come under criticism for allegedly misrepresenting LBJ’s level of cooperation with King on the Voting Rights Act.

Also in the film as government officials are Tim Roth, as AL Gov. George Wallace, and Dylan Baker, as J. Edgar Hoover. Their malevolence feels largely overplayed, and though Roth’s turns as weaselly heels are always fun, he and Baker (who’s not nearly as good) feel like they’re in a separate film. Oprah Winfrey, Common, Martin Sheen, and Cuba Gooding Jr. also play supporting roles, with Winfrey making the biggest impression as a Annie Lee Cooper, a woman fighting tooth and nail for her right to vote as an American citizen (she was also a producer on the film).

Selma is a phenomenal movie when it operates as a character study, showing us King having one-on-one conversations with different people around him, revealing layers of his personality in a nuanced, elegant way. When the film zooms out however, as in the big marching scenes or the handful of times King takes the pulpit, the film loosens its grip and becomes a less rich, less grounded affair. Whiffs of “prestige picture” arise now and again (especially near the film’s close), but Oyelowo does all he can to maintain the film’s sense of immediacy. There’s an emphasis on chronicling King’s perceptive maneuverings and strategies when orchestrating the marches, but these sections ultimately feel like detours on the more compelling, emotional journey of getting to know the man behind the scenes.

Like I mentioned earlier, we hear none of the famous speeches. DuVernay wrote new speeches in their stead, and remarkably, they sound 100% in accordance with King’s voice and philosophy. (To be fair, I’m no MLK historian, but for what it’s worth it was totally believable to me that he wrote these things.) Because they’re tailor-made, the new lectures and sermons fit into the film’s larger narrative much better than the original speeches would have, and in fact, had the original speeches made it in, they probably would have pushed the film into the realm of hagiography in earnest.

DuVernay proves that she’s a terrific director, especially when it comes to collaborating with her actors. Oyelowo, a young veteran, has his proudest outing as an actor here, and we miss him every moment he’s not on-screen. Like Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Selma‘s cultural significance is critical and will inevitably permeate all conversations about the film. As a reviewer, I must stress that its cinematic value speaks for itself, even when you swipe away the context of today’s struggles.

Entering this awards season discussion late in the game is David Oyelowo, whose career-defining performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay‘s ’60s-set drama Selma seems to be turning more and more heads each day as we inch closer and closer to the Oscars. Hopefully for the English actor (who in 2014 also made appearances in Interstellar and A Most Violent Year), the film’s rave-train will hit maximum velocity come Oscar night, and he’ll walk away holding a shiny new statue. (DuVernay has arguably better chances, but the efforts of both actor and director are equally worthy.) The film opened in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas, and rolls out wide this Friday. I sincerely recommend you shell out the dough to see what all the excitement is about. You won’t be disappointed.

The film takes place over a 3-month period in Selma, Alabama, and follows Dr. King as he rallies his followers to march through the small town to accelerate the emergence of the Voting Rights Act as well as amend its preliminarily shoddy implementation. What heightens the film is its treatment of King as a character: We see him vulnerable and torn as his home life hangs precariously in the balance in the dangerous climate of his civil rights crusade. Oyelowo’s sensitivity and willingness to act with his mouth shut (this is a quieter Dr. King than we’ve ever seen on screen) is easily some of the strongest work turned in by any actor this past year. The film also stars Carmen Ejogo, Oprah, Tim Roth, and Tom Wilkinson.

I caught up with Oyelowo during his visit to San Francisco the day after a screening of the film at the Castro Theatre with DuVernay and Oprah (who also produced the film). In a roundtable interview, we talked to Oyelowo about not being able to use King’s famous speeches; approaching Dr. King as a man, not an icon; the process of adopting King’s verbal delivery; what he brings to the role as an Englishman; the original Lee Daniels incarnation of the project; the use of silence in his performance; the current shift of Hollywood toward black stories, and more.

Yesterday at the Q&A, you mentioned that it was difficult to get the rights to Martin Luther King’s speeches.
Steven Spielberg has the rights to the speeches. Oprah was beaten to the punch by him. [laughs] Not for lack of trying, by the way; we tried. But I’m hugely relieved that we didn’t, because the last thing I want as an actor playing Dr. King is people comparing and contrasting word-for-word speeches that he had given. At the end of the day, what we felt we had to do was express the spirit of this man and the facts of what went down, but not feel like we had to do an impersonation or beat-by-beat account of those speeches. In all honesty, because the speeches [in the film] were written in the rhythms and in the cadence and in the spirit of Dr. King’s speeches, it meant we were able to tie the speeches to the narrative that we were weaving rather than have things in there that didn’t really chime with the film. It ended up working out great, I think.

You play Dr. King with such vulnerability, which is something we don’t really get to see when he’s depicted in other works. How integral was that?
It was absolutely necessitous, I think. This is a historical figure around whom copious amounts of documentaries and books and specials and TV films…there’s a lot out there. But the one thing, in my research, that they don’t have as much of is who the man was behind the speeches, behind the iconography, behind the holiday that is named after him. In many ways, why make a movie if it’s not going to be revelatory? It’s just going to be stuff that you find in a documentary, so go watch a documentary. I was more interested in–and thankfully, Ava was more interested in–who the guy is at home with his wife, taking out the trash, putting his kids to bed, having doubt, fear, shame, guilt. What was he like as a husband? A friend? A father? These are all things that evoke universal truths so that we as an audience can get into the film.

What was the process of you nailing Dr. King’s voice, his cadence, his accent…It’s done very well.
It was a layered approach. There are a lot of recordings, and part of my job as an actor is to understand the musicality of how we speak. Doing accents is something I love to do; I barely do films in my own accent now! [laughs] I think I’d be thrown if I had to play an Englishman. I also worked with an incredible dialect coach named Elizabeth Himelstien, who works with me on all my films where I have an American accent. I had this incredible journey towards doing this film. In 2007, I felt called by God to do this. I had this visceral reaction when I read this script.

What went on to happen in terms of my career felt like I was taking on this divine journey of a history lesson through movies. I did Lincoln, and you have the Civil War and I’m doing a scene with Daniel Day Lewis as a soldier asking for the vote. I did Red Tails, which is about fighter pilots in the second World War who were marginalized because they were black, had the best bomber support record in the entire war, but came back to segregation in America. I did The Butler, which goes through 82 years of civil rights history, playing an activist. I did The Help, in which I play a preacher in a pulpit in Greenwood, Mississippi. Those films were all in the DNA of what [led] me to do this film. I kind of felt like all those years I was gleaning things along the way.

What do you, as a non-American person, bring to these roles that’s unique from what an American actor could bring?
I know that the director who originally cast me, Lee Daniels, said, of everyone who came in to read this role, you’re the only one who’s come in without any reverence or weight of, “I’m coming in to play Dr. King”. That’s because, even though I’ve admired him in my childhood, I didn’t grow up like a lot of African-Americans did, in their grandmother’s house with a photograph of Jesus, JFK, and Martin Luther King. I haven’t grown up with the deification of him, with “Saint King”, as part of my upbringing. I very much approached him as a man first. I think that’s what I’m able to bring. That’s the thing we wanted this film to have: the man behind all of that. I think being a foreigner helped me get there quicker.

Do you see him as a saint now?
[laughs] I see him as a saintly human being. I think that showing how human he really was in many ways elevates what he did. He did it in spite of being like us, which really makes me examine my own life. I find myself going, “What am I doing?” I’m the exact same age as he was, and I’m not changing the world. It really makes you examine your role in the shifts that are needed for humanity to continue to improve and grow. My admiration for him has now transcended the iconography. He’d been reduced to “I have a dream.” A phrase, really. You can’t really plug into that. I hope the film makes people appreciate who he was and what he did.

You were already cast in the previous version of this film, the Lee Daniels version. Was that version any different from what the film is now?
The project has differed, but it doesn’t necessarily have to do with Lee. The original script, as written by Paul Webb, was more focused on LBJ. King was not the focal point. When Ava came onboard, she felt very strongly that it should be about King and the movement. The man and the movement. In terms of Lee, I think what happened there is that we hadn’t yet had the moment that The Butler and 12 Years a Slave gave us. You have two films with black protagonists as the driving force which did very well at the box office. I truly believe one of the resistances to this film in the time that I had been aware of it was this notion that, “Well, if it’s a black lead, what does that mean for foreign [markets]? If it’s King, who was 36 at the time, it can’t be Denzel, it can’t be Will Smith, so that means it’s going to be some unknown actor. Do people really want to see a King movie?” There were all these questions which kind of seem ridiculous now when you see how immediate and necessitous I think the film is. That’s what we were suffering under the weight of until those [two] undeniable successes came along.

I’m guessing the decision to shift the view from LBJ to MLK was made prior to 12 Years a Slave.
It was, because Ava was already onboard by then. It was a beautiful synergy of circumstances. Those films came out, and we were off to the races. Up until then, it was a struggle. That’s why I asked Oprah to come onboard. Despite Ava’s brilliant work, I could feel we were segueing again into, “Okay, can we make it for this budget? What does that mean for this?” She came on and she was like, “Okay guys, this is what’s happening. Let’s do it!”

You mentioned at the Q&A that you brought on Ava after Lee dropped out. How easy or difficult was it to get that process going?
It wasn’t easy, because the film that we had done before we went on to do Selma was a $200,000 movie. This is a $20 million movie, and almost never do you get that with black directors. You never get that with black female directors. I went in and tub-thumped on her behalf, and thankfully her film Middle of Nowhere is very persuasive in terms of it being a great film, and that’s what broke the deadlock.

You talk about the musicality of King’s voice, but there’s a pivotal scene in the film in which Carmen is giving you yes-or-no questions, and you actually say very little. Talk about the silent moments in your performance.
That’s one of Ava’s gifts, her ability to tell as much story through silences and human behavior as through the spoken word. It’s something I very much gravitate towards as an actor. I think acting is reacting at its richest and most true. Also, I think we’re watching a film about a great orator; how interesting to see how he is when he’s not doing that. When this very strong woman whom he married, who actually introduced him to civil rights, is talking to him…I love that scene. I think it is the ultimate “behind the veil” scene. It is truly revelatory and I love that we go against the thing that King is known for, which is talking, and we see him being.

You’ve been in the industry for a while now. How have you seen the landscape of Hollywood change for people of color?
What’s happening now is that, for people of color in film, we’re making a shift. Selma, 12 Years a Slave, The Butler, Fruitvale Station–these are films whereby a white protagonist isn’t crowbarred into the center of it to tell a black story. I think that that has been a tradition that has long existed in Hollywood at the highest level, and it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Of course those films do well, because the story is interesting, but we’re not following the right people. You set up an obstacle; how does the central character overcome it? What’s often happened is, you set up an obstacle, and suddenly this white person comes along and helps the black person through it. I feel that tolerance for that has dropped, from people like me, actors, producers, directors…and I think financiers now have a comfort level where they will now support people of color being in the driver’s seat of their own stories, because those films [that I mentioned] are doing well. That is something I’ve hoped to see, and I think that literally in the past 12 months we’ve seen a shift.

J.C. Chandor‘s first two films, Margin Call and All Is Lost couldn’t have been more different — the first was a talky, smart depiction of Wall Street’s collapse and the second a quiet, small-scale tale of one man’s survival. For his third film, A Most Violent Year, Chandor is taking a look at the lives of an immigrant family in New York City during the crime-filled winter of 1981.

A Most Violent Year is now set for a December 31, 2014 release in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding in early 2015. The release puts it in prime contention for this year’s wide-open Oscar races — though Chandor’s films have arguably under-performed with the Academy, the film sports a great cast (Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac, David Oyelowo and Albert Brooks) and Chandor will most likely be considered for original screenplay.

The film will be released by A24 Films, which has only existed since 2013 but has quickly become a hotspot for daring indie films. The company is most notable for Spring Breakers, Obvious Child and Under the Skin.

While we wait to hear much more about the film in the coming weeks, check out the first trailer for A Most Violent Year below:

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a chronicling of the civil rights movement through the eyes and ears of a black butler in the White House, based on a real man, Eugene Allen, who served 7 U.S. presidents from 1952 to 1986. Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong (Game Change) take “dramatic liberties” with Allen’s personal life here, but the events that transpire in the White House are apparently true-to-life. The film stars Forest Whitaker as the titular servant.

As a historical drama, the film fumbles; it’s a cameo-parade that reduces some of the most interesting and socially significant people in our nation’s history to diminutive sound bites and fleeting, trivial (and inaccurate) caricatures. It’s a biopic (one of my very least favorite types of films) that looks and feels familiarly “Gump-y”, but without the exhilarating sense of narrative movement or unforgettable riffs on key historical moments (Strong’s riffs are woefully unremarkable). However, if you wipe away all of the spectacle, age make-up, presidential impressions, and on-the-head historical allegories, there’s an eloquent, affecting father-son tale that miraculously breathes life into a narratively encumbered film.

The film opens in the 1920’s Deep South with a jab to the heart; a gruesome image of the very worst consequence of post-slavery mentality that I am choosing not to describe in detail here, even though the image is tasteful and vital to the story. Cecil Gaines (Michael Rainey Jr.) is a young cotton picker who enjoys spending time in the fields with his father, but when his old man gives the plantation owner the tiniest bit of lip, he’s gunned down right in front of Cecil’s eyes. The boy is promoted to house worker by the covertly sympathetic Vanessa Redgrave, and over the next few decades sharpens his skills and works his way up to being one of the most respected and beloved butlers in the White House (he’s now played by Whitaker.) The climb from dank to swank is told through uninspired montage with a few emotional nuggets sprinkled in.

Within the white walls, Cecil serves a slew of presidents that are played by loud, well-known actors that can’t be disguised by any amount of makeup you pile on. Robin Williams (as Eisenhower), Alan Rickman (as Reagan), and John Cusack (Nixon) are so miscast and awkward that they’re guaranteed to jerk you right out of the movie and even make you laugh in bewilderment. Their presence is showy and hokey and not worth your time. On the other side of the coin, there’s Live Schreiber (as Johnson) and James Marsden (as Kennedy) who actually do a great job and disappear into their roles. Still, it feels like these appearances are doubly-distracting double cameos. “And now…John Cusack as Richard Nixon! Applaud! Laugh!” Cringe.

Though Cecil’s career is going swimmingly and he’s able to provide a cushy lifestyle for his wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) and two sons, Charlie (Elijah Kelley) and Louis (David Oyelowo), home life isn’t so peachy. Gloria, a stay-at-home mom, grows weary and neglected as Cecil is constantly caught up with his work at the White House. Louis, however, provides the most disruptive element to the family dynamic, as he becomes actively involved with the Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers, opposing the government his daddy serves, the same government that puts food on the table and gave him the house he grew up in.

This enrages Cecil (remember, he lost his father due to a transgression that’s tiny compared to Louis’.) Louis is fighting for civil rights aggressively, tooth and nail, while Cecil is quietly subverting black stereotypes by being a humble example of a great African-American man in the most influential building on earth (this observation is highlighted ham-fistedly in a scene between Oyelowo and Nelsan Ellis, as Martin Luther King Jr.) Cecil and Louis’ violently clashing views on how to foster change in the nation splits the family in two. Their opposing philosophies finally implode their relationship in wonderfully intense family dinner scene. Watching the father and son’s paths sharply diverge and then eventually meet again on the other side (in the current time of Obama) is the film’s one true joy.

Whitaker is so good here that he’ll often fool you into thinking you’re watching a great film. His range is staggering: he can smile the warmest smile you’ll ever see and make you feel safe, or he can stab you in the chest with a venomous glare. Likewise, all the main players (in contrast to the presidential cast) put forth strong performances, from Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz as Whitaker’s ribbing, chummy fellow butlers, to Winfrey, who handles her morally complex role eftly here, though her character’s arc feels somewhat superfluous.

Like I said, as a historical drama, Lee Daniels’ The Butler falls flat (though the filmmakers’ intentions are pure and good.) However, as a family drama, there’s something to it; the well-acted inter-familial relationships are undeniably effective and the moving father-son storyline unfolds elegantly. It’s a shame that the excellent central storyline gets so obstructed and mucked up by all the noise, spectacle, and pageantry (and that god-awful Cusack performance that I can’t seem to shake off. Yuck.)

Lee Daniels’ The Butler trailer

We are a mere 36 days until the official winners are announced at the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards, so I will offer my predictions of who the winners will be this year. Last year my predictions were pretty solid, with an roughly 70% accuracy I correctly predicted 9 of the 13 unannounced awards. Unlike last year’s juggernaut The Artist, I believe this year there are two films that could both easily win the top awards. Both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook stand good chances of being winners, making the predictions more difficult this year. I predict that Beasts of the Southern Wild will win the top two awards while Silver Linings Playbook cleans up the top acting awards. In addition to picking the winners for each category, I explain the reasoning behind my picks in detail under the categories.

Watch IFC on Saturday, February 23rd to see how my predictions hold up.

2013 Independent Spirit Award Predictions:

(My prediction for the winners are highlighted in bold red font)

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs – Keep The Lights On
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Fill The Void – Rama Burshtein
Gimme The Loot – Adam Leon
Safety Not Guaranteed – Colin Trevorrow
Sound of My Voice – Zal Batmanglij
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chobsky

Jack Black – Bernie
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Thure Lindhart – Keep The Lights On
Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce – Four

Linda Cardellini – Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary E. Winstead – Smashed

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

How To Survive A Plague – David France
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Matthew Akers
The Central Park Five – Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
The Invisible War – Kirby Dick
The Waiting Room – Peter Nicks

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh – Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias – Keep The Lights On

Rama Burshtein – Fill The Void
Derek Connolly – Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford – Robot & Frank
Jonathan Lisecki – Gayby
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack – Celeste and Jesse Forever

Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere was the winner of the Best Director Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and today it received a full-length trailer. The film received two standing ovations at its packed Gala screening at the LA Film Festival. The film stars David Oyelowo (The Help), Omari Hardwick (Kick-Ass) and newcomer Emayatzy Corinealdi.

Synopsis:

Middle of Nowhere follows Ruby, a bright medical student who sets aside her dreams and suspends her career when her husband is incarcerated. As the committed couple stares into the hollow end of an eight-year prison sentence, Ruby must learn to live another life, one marked by shame and separation. But through a chance encounter and a stunning betrayal that shakes her to her core, this steadfast wife is soon propelled in new and often shocking directions of self-discovery – caught between two worlds and two men in the search for herself.

Middle of Nowhere will be released in theaters on October 12th.

Watch the official trailer for Middle of Nowhere:

Yesterday the Sundance Film Festival winner for Best Director, Middle of Nowhere, released a new movie poster. This low budget indie film was directed by Ava DuVernay will hit the theaters in select cities on October 12th this year. Starring in Middle of Nowhere is newcomer Emayatzy Corinealdi in the lead role along with David Oyelowo (Paperboy, The Help) and Omari Hardwick (Kick-Ass, The A-Team).

Official Synopsis:

What happens when love takes you places you never thought you’d go? Winner of the Best Director Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE chronicles a young woman caught between two worlds and two men in the search for herself. Ruby, a bright medical student, sets aside her dreams when her husband is incarcerated. This new life challenges her to the very core, and her turbulent path propels her in new, often frightening directions of self-discovery.

Click to view the full theatrical poster for Middle of Nowhere: