Prior to going to the theater, I read a review Alyssa Rosenberg from the Post had written.

She described Selma as a horror movie. She could not have been more accurate.

The beginning of Selma shows the church bombing of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. In the state of Virginia it is a standard of learning to know about that, along with parts of the Civil Rights Movement. In a nutshell, I knew about the bombing– but it was insanely different seeing it depicted the way it was. It was different because the director, Ava DuVernay, totally normalized the four little girls who were killed. They were prancing down the stairs, discussing the texture of Coretta Scott King’s hair, hot combing their hair and how swimming made it all go to waste, and BOOM– they were gone, just like that.

Pretty gruesome, right?

That event would join the list of atrocities that would trigger Dr. Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo), Diane Nash (Tessa Thompson) and Frederick Reese (E. Roger Mitchell) to get in the car and drive further south to Selma, Alabama to begin protesting.

But why Selma?

In the film, Alice Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) goes to the Selma voter’s registration office to, you know, register to vote. Except the office would not allow it, not until she answered some questions that your average government teacher might contemplate for a moment. When Alice couldn’t answer, they kicked her out. Again. This was nothing new for her.

But African Americans were allowed to vote at this point, right? Technically yes. Did it stop southern voting registration offices from adding a poll tax that required they pay the taxes for all the years they weren’t registered or denying them the right all together? No.

The latter of the film could be read about in a history textbook, including the infamous Bloody Sunday in Selma, but let me tell you all why it is certainly worth the nine to 12 dollars at the theater.

The intensity. This film will keep you at the edge of your seat, and at times maybe you’ll even forget for a second all of the events you’re seeing happened. I did, because like I said, I knew about the Civil Rights Movement. Selma just depicted it outside of the monotony of history class and shifted it to high gear. Not to mention the killer cast, which included Cuba Gooding Jr, Niecey Nash, Wendell Pierce, and the rapper Common whose song, Glory, with John Legend played at the ending. Another aspect that is amazing with Selma is that the movie is not solely based around Dr. Martin Luther King, as expected. Instead, viewers see the legend as a normal person with flaws, raw emotion, and a dream of simply peace.

Ava DuVernay created an Academy Award, Golden Globe receiving work of art. 10 out of 10 stars.