Sic transit

Fruitvale Station

Crit

In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't wise to go to this while in a sort of a postpartum depression the day after an almost-24-hour train ride from vacation with my family in Illinois. The account of the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, fatally shot by a BART transit cop (who apparently grabbed his revolver thinking it was his taser), is slightly less angrymaking than expected (though still plenty that) but far more sadmaking. It's fair to ask whether the real Grant would have charmed us as much as Friday Night Lights' Michael B. Jordan, and to wonder about the convenience of the timing of Oscar's enforcing his decision to go straight for his family by dumping his marijuana stash into the bay, but enough bystanders captured the shooting itself on their phones that it's clear that what happened to the real guy is exactly what Americans pride ourselves on not ever happening here.

Trailers

• Yi dai zong shi (The grandmaster)--Tony Leung as Yip Man, who trained Bruce Lee.
• Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom--The suddenly ubiquitous Idris Elba plays the young revolutionary.
• Captain Phillips--Question: in depicting 21st-century piracy off the Horn, how do you avoid seeming racist, even if your star is Tom Hanks?
• Inside Llewin Davis--Had not heard anything about this, but recognized within 5 seconds of the start of the trailer: Coens. So: of course.