LINCOLN

Please don't waste your time reading this article if you want to see anything negative about "Lincoln." It was two and a half hours long and I would have been very happy to double that time.
  If you are not looking to confront harsh realities and deal with  serious questions of morality and justice - avoid this film.
 A major clue about the quality of this production is given when the name Daniel Day-Lewis is listed under the title. 
 Steven Spielberg is asking the  audience to come to the theater wearing their thinking caps - we are not use to  
that and I can only hope that he has not misjudged the intelligence of the the American public - a public he has shown respect for by bringing us this gift.
There are too many excellent performances to list them them all;
still, Gloria Reuben was great in a role where she did not speak more than three sentences -- her eyes and expressions told the story of her growing up a slave and her joy in seeing even the slightest  hope of  freedom for her people in bondage.
There will be people who will find fault with this film, but that fault will be about what they may have wanted to see and did not see;
such as more Black characters in key roles.
 Spike Lee once said to an audience of  top rated high school basketball players gathered on the campus of Princeton University,
for a summer academic and athletic gathering, that he could not make the perfect movie - one that would 
include everything everyone wanted.  He called for more
talented people to come into the industry and raise the level of
quality films being made in America.
I think this film will be attacked by those who did not find what they wanted to find in this production -- I can't support that
type of thinking.  I  am judging what Spielberg put on the screen and that is marvelous.
Again, if you are not prepared to listen carefully and actually think
about what is transpiring, this is not the film for you, but if you pack a lunch and come ready to do the necessary intellectual work,  this
will be the high point of your movie going year.