9 more movies about the Sixties after you finish “Trial of the Chicago 7”
On New Year’s Eve, Dani and I decided to give Trial of the Chicago 7 a go.
We’re both fans of Sorkin’s writing, and we’re all hungry for that new ‘tent after 9 months of COVID. Sufficed to say, we were knocked flat by the wit, tone, and general badassery of this film. After the protests of 2020, this felt like a good time to watch a film about protest.
The selection ended up setting the mood for the whole month, which was drastically intensified by the violence in the Capitol the following week and the intense leadup to Inauguration Day. It felt fitting to harken back to the Sixties, an era of civil unrest in the wake of the War in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement. By the end of our journey, I’d like to think we learned something about the Sixties, ourselves, and Emilio Estevez. Buckle up.
I don’t have anything witty to say. Go watch this movie.
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Trial of the Chicago 7 (Available on Netflix)
Trial of the Chicago 7 is just an exceptional movie in general. We’re hopeful that it’ll receive some critical acclaim in the bizarre 2021 awards season. It’s a Sorkin courtroom drama with a colorful cast of defendants and plenty of star power. The commentary on non-violent versus violent protest felt too pertinent to ignore, and there are some choice reminders that racism and bigotry were endemic in our court system not that long ago and that we would be foolish to believe that has all just gone away. Sacha Baron Cohen brought one of his most restrained performances, despite playing the gregarious social activist Abbie Hoffman.
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Image property of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
Selma (Rented on Amazon Prime)
Selma is another must-see. Directed by Ava DuVernay, it dramatizes the events leading up to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery. David Oyelowo brings a remarkable and nuanced performance of MLK. Like Chicago 7, Selma does an incredible job of putting you in the crowd of protesters, infusing the audience with the tension of standing up for heartfelt beliefs in the face of potential (and probable) violence. It also starts to peel away the seedy underbelly of the political mechanisms at work against the Civil Rights Movement.
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” -Malcolm X
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One Night in Miami (Available on Amazon Prime)
One Night in Miami watches like a single-room stage play. Perhaps it was originally intended to be such, because it rarely leaves the hotel room where the crux of the action unfolds. I have to confess that I didn’t actually know very much about Malcolm X before watching this film. I know more now, and I’m guessing he was kind of a generally difficult guy to hang out with. The term sanctimonious springs to mind. And yet, as the film surely intends, you can’t really disagree with his stance. He seeks to inspire and move others to stand up to their oppressors, and he has no qualms about doing so himself. One Night in Miami is a great watch if you’re interested in the Civil Rights Movement and the black figures that shaped it. But I think I’d still prefer to see it as a stage play.
Why yes, that is America’s other sweetheart Paul Giamatti playing infamous home movie nerd Abraham Zapruder.
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Parkland (Available on Amazon Prime)
While the Civil Rights Movement got us into the Sixties, it wasn’t long before we turned to other traumatic violence of those years. Parkland is a drama about the day JFK was assassinated, told through the perspectives of the doctors trying to save him, the Secret Service, Zapruder, the FBI, Oswald’s brother, and JFK’s security team. If you’re one of the people (as we are) that has a morbid fascination with the JFK assassination, this may be an interesting ride. The Zapruder arc alone is a curiosity, and America’s sweetheart Zac Efron plays a studly doctor with the worst shift in the world.
Look, Ashton Kutcher. Oh, you’ve seen enough? Where are you going?
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Bobby (Available on Amazon Prime)
First off, don’t watch this movie. Unless you love bad movies. Emilio Estevez (the Mighty Ducks guy) wrote and directed what we can only describe as a love letter to Bobby Kennedy in the form of a bizarre Love Actually-style film set in the hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot. Like Parkland, Bobby takes place the day it goes down. Unlike Parkland, Bobby is about an entirely fictional cast giving what seems to be an endless series of monologues about their stereotypical circumstances and the plight of the disenfranchised, taking a genuinely fascinating and horrific event and watering it down to banal exposition. What’s even more shocking is the veritable Who’s Who of celebrities that somehow signed up for this. Martin Sheen shouldn’t surprise me (Emilio’s pops), but I was a bit mortified by the parade of Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Christian Slater, Ashton Kutcher, Laurence Fishburne, Nick Cannon, Shia LeBeouf, William H. Macy, Lindsay Lohan, and Elijah Wood. The list goes on. You’d think with all of this star power, there’d be something great in here. That’s what we thought, anyway. There is not. The film features the importance of baseball in bridging racial divides, strong feelings about alcoholic and distant mothers/wives, and a stoner comedy romp. Interwoven at several moments is actual footage of Bobby Kennedy being charming and saying some very honest and moving things, peculiarly juxtaposed to some of the most painfully written dialogue. Why? Just, why?
This pretty much sums it up, down to the portrait of presidential dickwad Andrew Jackson
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All the Way (Available on HBO Max)
Once we killed off the Kennedys, it felt appropriate to go All the Way with LBJ, featuring Bryan Cranston as the Johnson himself. History seems to agree that LBJ was a plain-spoken Texan who needed extra space for his junk in his suits (corroborated by both LBJ films we watched). I think it’s safe to assume, these days, that if Cranston is playing a character, that character is probably a bit of a bastard. That’s not a judgment on Cranston, he’s just that good at playing antiheroic personalities. All the Way focuses on LBJ’s post-JFK activities, up through winning sort-of-reelection. Anthony Mackie pops in as an underutilized MLK, and Bradley Whitford plays a delightfully whipped Hubert Humphrey. And Stephen Root is Hoover! Just a party of casting choices. All the Way is fine, but it dances around the Civil Rights Movement, which feels underwhelming after watching a film like Selma. It does, however, feature glimpses of the FBI’s crusade against MLK, which is worthwhile.
Finally the wistful LBJ that we all wanted.
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LBJ (Available on Amazon Prime)
LBJ is practically the same as All the Way, but this time Woody Harrelson plays the eponymous dudebro. It also kicks off pre-assassination, giving you a glimpse of LBJ’s awkward existence in the shadow of the Kennedys. Woody kills it, but overall the movie has little to say that isn’t already said by All the Way. It’s a closely overlapping Venn diagram. It’s one of those times in film history when the exact same movie comes out twice, and we all scratch our heads and wonder if somebody’s riding someone else’s coattails. Of the two, I’d say I preferred Woody’s performance but All the Way’s script. In the end, we learned that you really only ever need to watch one movie about LBJ.
This is why I don’t sit on park benches. I don’t want to get roped into a 152-minute saga.
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Forrest Gump (Rented on Amazon Prime)
Okay, so this might be cheating. Dani and I decided to watch both Forrest Gump and The Butler, which span decades in their plotlines. However, it felt like a fun summation of our journey. We also delved into Nixon/Watergate films, so Gump was fun for that as well. If you haven’t seen Forrest Gump, it’s an endearing era-spanning story that pokes fun at historical events. Gump intersects with our theme when he stumbles through the Civil Rights Movement, slogs through Vietnam, speaks at the March on the Pentagon (oh hai Abbie Hoffman), and meets both JFK and LBJ. This dude covers a lot of ground. Gump is a clever engagement with history; it lets the audience remember what these eras were like while poking fun at the views of the time. Gump’s endless optimism in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is generally uplifting, even if he doesn’t really get the girl and we’re all a little unsure whether it’s acceptable for Tom Hanks to play a differently abled badass. Just be glad they didn’t cast John Travolta, Bill Murray or Chevy Chase as Gump, because apparently that was on the table.
Oh yeah, Cuba Gooding Jr. is in this too.
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Lee Daniels’ The Butler (Available on Netflix)
The Butler was our second saga, and it felt like the perfect counterpoint to Gump. It spans 1926 to 2009, taking us through the Civil Rights Movement and the evolving relationship between race and the White House. I can’t say I’m fond of some of the odd casting choices for presidents (Robin Williams as Eisenhower, John Cusack as Nixon), but the touch points with school desegregation, freedom riders, the Black Panthers, apartheid, and Obama’s election are moving. It contextualizes the immense uphill battle for racial justice that has spanned the past 100 years (and still so far to go). While Gump gave us the broader historical picture with a measure of levity, The Butler focused in on the fight for Civil Rights, which is really what brought us to the Sixties in the first place.
Shut up and take my money!
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Bad Times at the El Royale (Rented on Amazon Prime)
Bad Times at the El Royale is also sort of a historical epic. It embodies traits of the Sixties and early Seventies, culminating in a fascinating and twisty plot. Elements of wiretapping, hippie cultists, Vietnam, and racial injustice encapsulate all the themes that we had tagged leading up to this film. It also executes its objective artfully with an all-star cast. Bad Times is a film I regret not seeing sooner. It’s the dream you have after ingesting a month’s worth of films about the Sixties, and it has a gorgeous design aesthetic that makes me want to tour old Sixties motels. Some day soon, they’ll open a pop-up designed like this motel, and we’ll go to it. It’ll be awesome.
There you go, 9 more movies to give you the Sixties Feels. Well, 8 if you skip over Bobby (and you should). The Sixties were a fascinating and eventual decade, and it does feel like the beginning of something crazy in U.S. History. 3 assassinations, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, government spying… it’s little wonder that the Seventies got as absurd as they did. If you don’t have the time to watch 9 movies, then do yourself a favor and at least watch Trial of the Chicago 7, Selma, and Bad Times at the El Royale. All of these movies are incredible, and you’ll regret missing them.
See you in the 80s. Or the 50s? Depends on if we watch Back to the Future.