Lee Daniels' The Butler (Take I)

Today, walked around downtown and then checked out Lee Daniels' The Butler / The Butler / Le Majordome (2013). I thought it was important to see this as part of an audience, and am glad I did, not only for the more immersive big screen experience but also because as the credits rolled, enthusiastic applause broke out. That was cool. The Butler is an ambitious film, covering (episodically) a period of eighty years, though mainly focusing on the period from about 1957 to the early 1970s, hot times for the civil rights movement in the USA (with a reprise in the 1980s dealing mostly with personal responses to US policy toward South African apartheid, and the 2008 election). 

The Butler hits several key historical touchstones and showcases a heady ensemble cast (see French poster above for a roster of actors). It's sort of like a compressed movie equivalent of Mad Men, toggling between work and home lives and including cultural changes, but foregrounding civil rights themes, dynamics and events that are more in the background during the AMC series. 

Today's Rune: Defense.