Watching all the movies on the Warner Bros. 50-movie box set that I bought for cheap. This week the random number generator gets serious with The Color Purple.

Here’s what happens: Celie is a young woman growing up in rural Georgia in the early 20th Century. She experiences a lifetime of sexism and racism, but never loses her strength of character.

Why it’s famous: Director Steven Spielberg stepped away from his successful fantasy blockbusters (and from Universal) to instead helm this drama, resulting in star-making turns for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.

Get your film degree: Was Spielberg the right person to direct this? This story is about inhumanity and injustices, yet it’s depicted through Spielberg’s “soft nostalgia” lens. The end result, then, is a world that is beautiful on the outside, but ugly and horrific on the inside.

Movie geekishness: Danny Glover’s character in this movie is pretty much pure evil, and he’s really scary. Then I remembered when he played the villain in Witness, and he was intense and scary in that, too. He’s so good at playing bad guys! I wonder why he didn’t do it more often.

Thoughts upon this viewing: The Color Purple can be a tough watch, but when the moments of triumph or joy do come around, they truly feel earned.

Next week: I smell a rat.

****

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