{"id":8244,"date":"2016-07-15T17:09:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T17:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=8244"},"modified":"2016-07-15T17:09:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T17:09:42","slug":"free-state-of-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/15\/free-state-of-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Free State of Jones\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>South versus South<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7524\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7524\" style=\"width: 169px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7524\" src=\"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/JonKane-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Jonathan Kane is a graduate of the University of Michigan. \" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7524\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jonathan Kane is a graduate of the University of Michigan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cFree State of Jones,\u201d a new Civil War drama, turns out to be a false step in the renaissance of the career of actor Matthew McConaughey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Wildly overambitious and too long, the film never seems to gel and tie plot elements together, enabling it to rise to worthy heights and move an audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The film is directed and written by Gary Ross (\u201cSeabiscuit\u201d) and tells the true story of Newton Knight, a Unionist from Jones County, Miss., who led a rebellion of poor Southerners and ex-slaves against the Confederate Army and took control of five counties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Supposedly, the story was painstakingly researched by Ross and, even though it\u2019s ostensibly true, it was still difficult to understand why the Confederate Army, in the last stages of a losing cause, would care to muster men and energies to stop a ragtag army of 500 insurgents. The movie never explains why satisfactorily.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">It opens with McConaughey as an army medic who deserts after a nephew is killed and it dawns on him that poor Southerners are dying for a cause that rich plantation owners are profiting from but not contributing their lives to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">When he returns home, he finds Confederate troops ransacking the homes of his brethren in an attempt to survive the war. Retreating to a swamp with a band of ex-slaves, Knight builds a movement to fight back against the Confederacy that soon attracts more disenfranchised Mississippians. He also falls in love with a slave, which adds another plot line to the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Ross also complicates things with unnecessary flash forwards to 1949 when Knight\u2019s descendant is on trial for relations with a white woman. As Knight\u2019s great-grandson, the question is revolving on whether or not he is black.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The story finally tackles Reconstruction, with Knight doing battle with the KKK and new laws that enslave blacks. McConaughey gives it his best try, but that\u2019s just not good enough in this lifeless film.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South versus South \u201cFree State of Jones,\u201d a new Civil War drama, turns out to be a false step in the renaissance of the career of actor Matthew McConaughey. Wildly overambitious and too long, the film never seems to gel and tie plot elements together, enabling it to rise to worthy heights and move an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}