Selma is a place I hear about in stories about my grandfather’s childhood or the place where my cousins go shopping to support the mom-and-pop businesses that have been there for decades. It’s also the place I read about in my history textbooks. While the town of Selma has always existed somewhere west of Montgomery, the movie brought this small Alabama town into focus, serving as a reminder that the Selma to Montgomery march was monumental then and remains relevant today.

The second scene of Selma begins with a group of girls in their Sunday dresses walking down to a church basement while chatting about hairstyles. That basement, of the 16th Street Baptist Church, is just a 15-minute drive from my house. The audience knows it is coming, but the loud explosion followed by silence and slow motion shots of splinters, dust, white garments, and feet is shocking. Without being overly graphic, this scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie: It is violent, it is provocative, and it is personal. Selma demands your full attention.

Framed by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in September of 1963 and King’s speech in Montgomery in late March, 1965, Selma does not attempt to tell the entire story of the Civil Rights movement. Rather, director Ava DuVernay delves into the web of politics and personal narratives surrounding one important piece of the larger movement.

Selma is not a biopic on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., yet actor David Oyelowo convincingly shows both King’s personal and public sides. DuVernay depicts a more intimate side of King and Coretta Scott King. In the opening scene Coretta, played by Carmen Ejogo, helps him tie an ascot before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. The two are flirtatious, yet their unfinished work in the movement, the violence to come, and their own domestic uncertainty loom over them. Later the tension peaks when Coretta confronts her husband on his infidelity in a scene that exposes more of King’s character and private life.

Oyelowo portrays King’s more familiar public persona both through compelling speeches and powerful silence. He captures King’s characteristic oratory style so convincingly that it is almost difficult not to clap when he preaches to his congregation. In the protestors’ second attempt at crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, King sinks to his knees in silence, a familiar action throughout the movie. The silence lasts until King stands up, turns around, and parts the crowd behind him as he silently walks back into town through the rising murmur of confusion. Once again, though the history is familiar, the movie is surprising.

Beyond the larger narrative of the Civil Rights movement, Selma engages with the individual stories of the movement’s organizers. Some members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee perceive King and fellow members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as intrusive old-timers and attempt to hold on to leadership in Selma, but King’s leadership is magnetic. Selma attempts to portray the many sides of the movement with the common goals of equality and voting rights; there is even a brief scene in which Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch) travels to Selma and expresses his somewhat unusual support of King’s movement in a private conversation with Coretta.

Although Selma has received criticism for its negative portrayal of Lyndon B. Johnson, played by Tom Wilkinson, King’s tense confrontations with the former president illustrate the complicated politics behind the movement. King argues for immediate results in the form of legislation, but Johnson, portrayed as a hesitant, perhaps even unwilling ally to the movement, counters King by claiming that his first priority is the alleviation of poverty. To King, Johnson’s answer is unacceptable; the March will go on. As a result, Johnson instructs FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, played by Dylan Baker, to monitor King with the implication that he is to harass him and his family. The FBI’s surveillance information of King and his supporters mark each transition between scenes, heightening suspense along with King’s complicated relationship with the President.

The politics become more complicated as Johnson negotiates with former Alabama governor George Wallace, played by Tim Roth, over the state’s reaction to the march. Charismatic, yet disturbingly sly and manipulative, Wallace claims to have no authority over the actions of Dallas County’s Sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston), and he says with a smug grin that he must uphold the constitution of Alabama. Johnson grows frustrated, as does the audience.

Selma shows the story behind a movement. It is not an explicit call to action, yet it could not be timelier— and not just because this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march. In John Legend’s song “Glory” during the end credits to the movie, rapper Common, who portrays the SCLC leader James Bevel in the film, connects the events portrayed in the movie to more recent events in Missouri: “That’s why Rosa sat on the bus/ That’s why we walk through Ferguson with our hands up.” The movie ends with King’s speech on the steps of the Montgomery capitol, but it is clear that there is still more work to be done. Although it is most likely unintentional on the screenwriters’ part, Wallace’s argument of upholding the constitution is the same argument that current lawmakers in Alabama are using against freedom to marry. More than a history lesson, in Common’s words, “Selma is now.”

With a Little Help from my Fwends is a fitting name for the Flaming Lips’ track-by-track cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Featuring “fwends” of the Lips including Miley Cyrus, My Morning Jacket, Phantogram, Tegan and Sara, Grace Potter, Moby, Fever the Ghost, Ben Goldwasser of MGMT, and several more, the album embraces the preexisting weirdness of Sgt. Pepper and, in typical Lips fashion, makes it even weirder.

Layers of synth, warped vocals, and fuzzy, distorted guitar make some tracks off of Fwends sound like drug-induced nightmare versions of the Beatles originals. “When I’m Sixty-Four” featuring Def Rain and Pitchwafuzz sounds hauntingly melancholy in comparison to the lilting clarinet of the original Beatles version. In “Fixing a Hole,” the distant, echoing vocals sound like Wayne Coyne’s mind has wandered a little too far as he croons, “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering.”

If Sgt. Pepper is the giant candy room from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Fwends is the wild, creepy boat ride down the chocolate river into the depths of the factory: it’s a twisted sonic journey that you need to take in all at one time. Aside from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” featuring vocals by none other than Miley Cyrus, few of the tracks seem strong enough to hold up on their own.

While both Beatles and Lips fans would enjoy Fwends, the album is not worth listening to over and over. But despite the almost uncomfortable strangeness, the album supports a good cause: part of the proceeds from Fwends will benefit the Bella Foundation, which supports low-income pet owners of Oklahoma City.

Hollywood isn’t the only industry obsessed with the past. Like middle-aged men cling to the glory days of high school football, many rock legends try to preserve their images, even when they’re old enough to be grandparents.

Take, for example, the past decade’s trend of reunion tours. The Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Van Halen, and The Who: all of them filled concert halls and arenas once again for an encore of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. In the past two years alone, we saw the reissue of records by Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Oasis, Miles Davis, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, R.E.M., Fleetwood Mac, and The Smashing Pumpkins. But some legends have escaped the whirlpool of halftime shows and halfhearted attempts to make new albums with the same old sounds.

Robert Plant, now 66, is one of the icons who broke free. Plant could have easily coasted on the monumental success of Led Zeppelin’s golden age, but instead he chose the arguably more difficult road: he has continued to develop as an artist. He isn’t doing it for the money, because he could make a killing on a reunion tour. Instead, as cheesy as it sounds, Plant has left the past behind in search of new sounds and new experiences.