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Getty Images Martin Luther King at the Savoy Hotel in 1964.

To help mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we asked NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous to recommend three movies worth viewing that honor the life and legacy of the civil rights giant.

The Martin Luther King holiday stirs the conscience deeply. We are moved by Dr. King’s memory and legend for so many reasons. Some of us marched with him. Many of us remember the pain that...

Rating: 5.5/10

Writer: Jeb Stuart (screenplay), Tim Tyson (novel)

Director: Jeb Stuart

Cast: Rick Schroder, Nate Parker, Michael Rooker

Studio: Paladin

Writer-director Jeb Stuart’s Blood Done Sign My Name is based on the novel of the same name by Tim Tyson, a professor of African-American studies, who lived in the town where the film’s events took place as a child. Tyson and his family are portrayed in the film, but this turns to be a major problem of the film, as their inclusion does not feel necessary– at least with how the film uses them. The Tysons as characters in the film come off as story fat that could of easily been cut off in favor of making a tighter, more properly focused film about the important true story at the center of the film, and the people more directly affected by and involved in the events.

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Fans of Ewan McGregor, Kristen Stewart and James Van Der Beek (!) will be seeing double this spring, as arthouses and multiplexes host an array of indie films ranging from the travails of septuagenarian New Yorkers looking for love ("The Last New Yorker") to 13-year-old assassins on the hunt for their first kill ("Kick-Ass"). If real life is more your speed, there are new documentaries about reviving animation strips (the Disney doc "Waking Sleeping Beauty") and stripping down (the burlesque history "Behind the Burly Q"), while foreign wonders like the French crime epics "A Prophet" and "Mesrine" mix with Korean treasures "Mother" and "The Good, The Bad and The Weird."

But of course, why limit yourself to just what's playing in the first-run theater near you? We've also included a look at the films that will be playing Anywhere But a Movie Theater (online, on demand, and on DVD) in the next few months,...

By Harvey Karten - In 1954 the United States Supreme Court declared racial segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. In 1964, President Johnson, who had more influence with the Congress than the current chief executive, got a major civil rights act passed far reaching and had tremendous long-term impacts on the whole country. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment, invalidating the Jim Crow laws in the southern U.S. It became illegal to compel segregation of the races in schools, housing, or hiring.

Blood Done Sign My Name (Paladin)

Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten

Grade: B+

Directed by: Jeb Stuart

Written By: Jeb Stuart, adapted from Tim Tyson's book

Cast: Michael Rooker, Rick Schroder, Omar Benson Miller, Nick Searcy, Afemo Omilami, Lela Rochon, Darrin Dewitt Henson, Gattlin Griffith

Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 1/25/10

Opens: February 19, 2010

You wouldn't know this by watching Jeb Stuart's riveting film,...

Ricky Schroder and Darrin Henson have been tapped to star in writer-director Jeb Stuart's indie film Blood Done Sign My Name, based on the book by Tim Tyson that follows the true story of the murder and aftermath of a black Vietnam vet in 1970 in Oxford, N.C.

Schroder will play Rev. Vernon Tyson, while Henson will play Eddie McCoy. The film, which is in production in North Carolina, is produced by Stuart through his Real Folk Prods. as well as Mari Stuart and Mel Efros.

Schroder is repped by Innovative and the Hofflund Co.; Henson is with Innovative and Adam Griffin of Kritzer Levine Wilkins.