Cinema Club Presents: Malcolm X

Wallingford Cinema Club screens a great classic movie on the first Tuesday of each month. Following the screening, there’s always a discussion of the movie and its context. Refreshments are served. It’s like a book club, but without the book! There’s no sign-up. Just pop along on the night.

Tuesday February 3rd at the earlier time of 6:00 p.m. Cinema Club presents Malcolm X.
Malcolm X marked the milestone in director Spike Lee’s artistic maturity. It seemed everything Lee had done up to that point was to prepare him for this epic biography of America's fiery civil-rights leader, who is superbly played by Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington, from his early days as a zoot-suited hustler known as "Detroit Red" to his spiritual maturity after his pilgrimage to Mecca, as a Black Muslim by the name of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Lee careens from the hedonistic ebullience of Malcolm's early days to the stark despair of prison, from his life-changing conversion to Islam to his emergence as a dynamic political leader--all with an epic sweep and vitality that illuminates personal details as well as political ideology. Rated PG-13. A few quotes to get you ready for the post-film discussion:

This is an extraordinary life, and Spike Lee has told it in an extraordinary film. Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times

A spiritually enriching testament to the human capacity for change -- and surely Spike Lee's most universally appealing film. Washington Post

The point of Lee's engrossing, scathing epic ... is that as long as racism lives, the spirit of Malcolm will -- must -- live. eFilmCritic.com